Damon woke up minutes later with his lungs on fire, and Iris, who had just healed him, was on her knees in front of him.
"You could've killed him!" the captain snapped at the demon girl.
"Didn't think he was that weak," Aiwass said, scratching her ear, "also, it wasn't a big deal."
"I definitely have to report this as soon as we get back—"
"No."
Damon stopped the captain. Inside him, the terror was total: if they figured out Aiwass was a demon, they'd accuse him of conspiring against the organization.
"But Zero, she..."
"It wasn't necessary. Everyone's fine, right?"
The recruits were still hurting, obviously!
But nobody wanted to argue with the ultimate hero.
"Yes, sir, we're fine," one of the younger ones said.
Iris, resigned, didn't have a choice but to give the order to keep going. The mission was still on!
***
The group moves forward, splashing through the murky water, but the stink of rot and stale damp starts to change.
Great, from literal crap to cancer chemicals. What an upgrade.
Damon adjusts his gas mask with a trembling hand he keeps hidden under his cloak, while his [Legislator's Eye] starts throwing blinking alerts in the corner of his vision.
[ENVIRONMENT ALERT]
[Artificial Mana concentration detected]
[Threat Level: Unknown]
"The architecture is changing." Iris lifts a gloved hand, stopping the formation. "This isn't on the city plans for District Q. The walls... they're reinforced alloy."
In front of them, the Victorian brick tunnel has been eaten up by some intrusive metal structure, like a tech parasite embedded into the rock.
Thick cables, like pythons, hang from the ceiling, dripping a blue, sticky fluid.
"How boring." Aiwass kicks a rat that runs past, sending it flying into a pipe with a wet SPLAT. "Can we break something already? I'm falling asleep standing up."
Damon ignores his "girlfriend" and steps closer to what looks like a massive security airlock, warped from the inside out, like something crazy strong tried to escape fast.
The metal is torn like paper.
"Don't touch anything," Damon orders, his voice slightly warped by the acoustics. He steps up and runs his fingers along the jagged edge of the broken metal.
[OBJECT: TYPE-IV CONTEXT DOOR]
[STATUS: CRITICAL BREACH]
[ORIGIN: VALEN BIOTECH LABS (UNREGISTERED DIVISION)]
Damon's heart skips.
Valen? Iris's last name?
He side-eyes the captain, but she looks genuinely confused, shining her flashlight into the gap.
"Sir Zero..." one of the recruits whispers, voice shaking. "That looks like a lab."
Through the uneven hole in the metal, you can see a sterile room, full of shattered glass pods, flipped autopsy tables, and screens blinking with static.
Iris frowns, her official loyalty smashing into what she's looking at. "We move carefully. Diamond formation. Zero, Aiwass, you're front."
"What a pain." Aiwass steps through the torn metal first, ignoring the danger, while Damon follows, praying to any god that's listening that there's nothing alive in there.
The air was so loaded with chemical fumes their eyes stung.
There were tanks with "Highly Flammable" symbols leaking everywhere.
"Tch," Aiwass clicked her tongue, staring at a fuel puddle at her feet. "Great! If I spark anything here, we blow up the whole block, so I'm nerfed, 'boyfriend'."
Iris nods, tense, not dropping her guard.
"Nobody use wide-range or explosive magic. Close combat only, one mistake and we all get burned."
Damon swallowed.
"Stay sharp," Iris orders, drawing her rapier in one smooth motion.
CRASH!
One of the intact containment pods at the back of the room exploded from the inside, throwing slimy liquid everywhere. A blurry shadow shot out like a bullet, bouncing off the walls.
[ENEMY DETECTED: FAILED CHIMERA (SPEED PROTOTYPE)]
[STATUS: HUNGRY / UNSTABLE]
[PASSIVE SKILL: MANA NULLIFICATION SKIN]
"Careful!"
The thing landed right in front of them. It was an abomination: a pale, stringy humanoid torso, fused in a gross way with inverted hind legs and claws dripping acid.
It had no eyes, just a mouth full of needles.
Iris reacted with perfect military discipline.
"Light Thrust!" Iris roared, and her rapier, like a lethal extension of her will, wrapped in a white aura so bright it burned your eyes.
With the surgical accuracy of an S-Rank, the captain aimed for the heart, the weakest point of the aberration.
This was supposed to be the finisher.
CLANG!
But instead of the clean sound of flesh getting pierced, there was a dry slam, an impact that buzzed through the air, then silence.
The attack bounced off like a rubber ball hitting a steel wall.
The tip of the rapier, that should've torn reality itself, didn't even scratch the Chimera's rough gray skin.
The white mana aura vanished instantly, like water thrown onto boiling oil, no trace, not even a single effect.
Like Iris's power got swallowed by a black hole.
"Immune to magic?" Iris, the always-unshakable captain, stared in disbelief, muscles tight.
"Die, ugly bug!" Aiwass raised a hand, red mana gathering in her palm on pure predator instinct.
But she froze mid-motion.
Her eyes flicked to the gas tanks.
'Shit! If I fire, we all blow up!'
That tiny second of doubt was her doom.
She tried to switch into a physical block, but her human body was too slow.
The Chimera was a visual glitch.
ZAS!
A gray blur shot past her, dodging the frozen "Elementalist" and slamming into Iris's chest.
CRUNCH!
The metal dented under her back and the captain coughed blood, dropping her sword.
The Chimera didn't give her a second.
With a high screech that drilled into their ears, it jumped on top of her, pinning her arms.
Iris struggled, her eyes full of real panic, watching those saw-toothed jaws open, corrosive drool dripping inches from her face.
"IRIS!"