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nMinutes before the hotel began rumbling, a short, round man in an expensive grey and black suit stood atop the building, on the highest floor’s balcony, looking out over the expanse of darkness to the west. This man was Haylon Nightingale, the master of the underground organization known as Haylon’s Shadow.

nIn the room behind him, dozens of young, lifeless corpses were scattered about as if they were articles of trash. If one were to examine the bodies further, they would see that each one of them had a fist-sized hole in their chests, just beside where a human heart would rest. These remains were all severely dehydrated, almost to the point of mummification, and had an expression of terror and pain etched forever in their childish faces.

nUpon sensing the death of all his slaves, including the strongest, Myer Avio, Haylon had expedited his extraction process without caring one bit about the suffering of the children. To him, these human children were nothing more than research subjects that would further enhance his own power and knowledge. As such, even with the corpses strewn across the room, he was entirely unaffected.

nLooking into the distance, Haylon’s eyebrow furrowed, and his eyelids narrowed as he sensed the incoming fleet of ships. “Tsk, It seems as though one of the little rats has alerted their family.” His eerie voice seemed to drip out of his throat, with a strange accent that made it evident that the common language wasn’t his natural tongue.

n“Nine years and seven months of research have been destroyed due to the incompetence of these filthy human slaves. I knew I should have fully blooded them.” A strange pale yellow light flickered in his eyes as he shifted his vision, from the vessels flying towards his location to a monitor hanging in the living room. On it, he saw two young children covered in blood, wearing shredded clothing on the screen. The two boys were collapsed in the rubble of their own creation and panting heavily.

n“There is something strange about these two. To jump Tiers and fight on even footing with someone many times their age and strength….” His voice trailed off while remembering the scenes of the two boys erupting in colorful Mana particles and slaughtering their way through the lobby before eliminating his strongest subordinate.

nShaking his head in disappointment, Haylon looked away and stepped to the edge of the balcony before casually hopping up onto the railing.

n“It’s a shame they’ve crippled their Codexes and Circuits; Tier-0 is the extent they will grow. They would have made brilliant research subjects otherwise.” Then, waving his hand lazily and assembling a mass of sickly Grey Mana particles around himself, Haylon stepped off the balcony’s railing and into the air before calmly walking several feet into the air above the hotel.

n“This base has been compromised; neither the Naturalist nor Purist factions will allow its existence. Unfortunately, those hardheaded, idiotic fools have been joining together to hunt me as of late. Unfortunately, it seems the enemy of their enemy is barely enough to stop their incessant infighting long enough to work together. Hmm, I suppose I am to blame; after all, I have taken the youth of both factions.” His pale yellow eyes scanned the surrounding buildings before taking note of a swarm of heat signatures on the first floor of an abandoned office building.

nThis sight caused Haylon to grunt in dissatisfaction. Although he could quickly go and recapture these escaped children, time wasn’t on his side. He could feel a powerful presence rivaling his own on the lead ship not far away. Cutting his losses and vacating the premises as quickly as possible and not being forced into a pissing match with this other being was the more logical path.

nA fight between two beings of the 5th Tier would draw unnecessary attention and last for a significant amount of time. Furthermore, it wasn’t easy to kill someone of their Tier and as such, going into combat was not the right choice.

nNo longer thinking about his present situation, Haylon waved his hand lazily, and a hazy Grey fog congregated around the entirety of the hotel like a giant serpent and began constricting the building. It would swiftly start decaying wherever the fog touched, causing the metallic material to rust and creak loudly.

nNodding his head in satisfaction, Haylon turned his back as the building began crumbling behind him and slashed out his right arm. The action caused the space in front of him to shatter, revealing an endless expanse of starlight and violent storms of Mana particles.

nClosing his eyes and paying no attention to the destruction behind him, Haylon stepped into the spatial crack and disappeared. A second later, the tear in space sealed itself as if it never existed.

nBack in the collapsing hotel’s lobby, Cynrik and Brance were running around like chickens without their heads and trying to extract as many of the Mana Codexes from the corpses scattered about from their earlier battle.

nFuck, FUCK, THIS PLACE IS COMING DOWN, BRANCE HURRY UP! OUR PRIZES WE HAVE TO GET OUR PRIZES!!! Jumping to the side and narrowly avoiding a large chunk of concrete the size of his body, Cynrik screamed into the mind link.

nCYN, THERE’S NO TIME FOR THAT SHIT; WE’VE GOTTA GO! Brance felt helpless as he ran around while clutching his ribs in pain. Unlike Cynrik, who seemed to be capable of ignoring the pain coursing through his body from numerous bone fractures and muscle tissue damage, Brance was barely keeping it together.

nONLY ONE MORE LEFT! TOBS, PLAY THE INDIANA JONES THEME SONG!

n-…sigh…-

n-Now playing “The Raiders March” by John Williams.-

nAs the trumpets started playing the familiar tune in his head, Cynrik raced up the Grand Staircase and jumped forward, sliding on his knees right next to the final corpse and jammed his hand into the chest of the headless corpse, manually extracting the small gem-like Tier-1 Codex from it, and jumping back to his feet.

nHis head darted around in every direction, watching the building decay and collapse around him, as he tossed the last Codex into his inventory alongside the corpse’s spatial item. Got it, let’s GTFO! Stepping forward, Cynrik hopped onto the three-foot wall looking out over the lobby on the second floor and quickly dove off, just before a chunk of the building twice his size slammed into the spot his feet just left.

nCynrik dramatically landed beside his brother and somersaulted before jumping back to his feet, and they both took off in the front door direction. Unfortunately for Brance, Cynrik was in a world of his own, humming along with the vibrant music Tobs was playing. So while Brance ran straight for the door, Cynrik was making sport of barely dodging through the rubble with his left hand placed on his head, acting as if he was trying to keep hold of an imaginary hat.

nEven with the entire hotel falling around them, Cynrik was still being Cynrik leaving Brance beside himself as he quickly made his way out of the hotel and turned around only to witness his older brother jumping around like a cat with a big **-eating grin on his face. He watched with a stony expression as Cynrik barely dodged a colossal piece of rusting metal that crashed down inches from him.

nPumping his arms back and forth, Cyrnik shot a quick glance to the area above the door and somehow smiled so wide it reached his eyes. With his Mana Sight, he could see the whole wall above the door crumbling and falling. Within seconds it would close the passage leading outside the hotel. Thinking it couldn’t be a more opportunistic moment, Cynrik crouched low to the ground and sprinted forward. His eyes flicked from the wall to the door, and just before making it, Cynrik threw his body to the ground, landing on his knees, and executed a power slide while leaning so far back that his head almost skidded on the floor.

nSliding through the doorless passageway, his eyes widened as he felt the top of his head, noticing his imaginary hat had fallen off in the process. With a panicked expression, Cynrik whipped his upper body around and extended his arm out while making a grabbing motion before pulling it back quickly just as the sizeable fragmented wall slammed into the ground creating a blast of debris and dust.

nWhew, I almost lost my hat! He slapped the imaginary hat on his leg a few times as if to knock off the dirt and dust before positioning it back on his head casually.

nTurning around with a big grin on his face, Cynrik froze; he was greeted by the sight of Brance, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and an angry look on his face. But unlike what he had expected, Brance wasn’t the only person standing like this.

n“He…hehe, hi…Mom.” Using a fearful and panicked tone, Cynrik nearly stuttered the sentence.

n“HI, MOM! HIII MOMM!, THAT’S ALL YOU’VE GOT TO SAY FOR YOURSELF, CYNRIK-AYKE-JETLENSR!” Cinyah’s booming voice was so loud Cynrik believed his ears were bleeding.

nOh, **, Mom used your full name… you’re **ed. Brance snickered at his older brother’s expense.

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