Dreadwolf, Lord of Runes

Kane and Luna looked out over the fallen bandits and entrance hall with thoughtful and somewhat wry expressions.

"Now what?" Luna asked with pursed lips.

Kane frowned as he scratched the stubble on his chin, deep in thought. Luna asked a good question. They'd been planning to cut off any escape by making sure this door would stay locked, but now they couldn't even close it, let alone keep it that way.

Kane looked around the hall, searching for any way to block this entrance off, but found nothing. He'd already given a futile attempt at moving the busted door with pure muscles, but it didn't even budge.

While Kane thought, Luna stood patiently next to him. The catling was far from dumb, but she didn't have the same strategic mind that Kane had, so she simply trusted him to come up with next steps.

Finally, Kane sighed, "Well, first things first." Then, he addressed Ella in his head, "Ella? Did you notice any evidence of a secret tunnel leading from the other half of the bunker to this entrance?"

Ella was silent, but he knew she was thinking or spitting through the data she'd found on the mainframe, so he gave her some time.

After a minutes or so, she spoke up, "There is some evidence of another way out from the command wing, which I believe is that other half of the base, but I don't think it's a secret tunnel to the entrance… In fact, I'm not sure what it's supposed to be, the record and logs are very vague."

Kane smirked and rolled his eyes, "Yeah, that's not a big surprise, I guess. Regardless, if there's no way for them to get to this entrance quickly, then maybe this isn't so bad. Do you think they'll be able to use this second exit?"

Ella shook her head, "Unlikely. I'm pretty sure whatever it is would require power. And even if it didn't, half the systems in this place weren't responding to the mainframe anymore, and there's a good chance this method of escape was one of them."

Kane nodded along with her, and then stayed silent for another moment, before finally shrugging, "Well, there's still more unknowns and uncertainties than I'd like, but I think our best bet is to simply head back and continue taking out the bandits."

Luna nodded along. Kane had been sharing his conversation with Ella through their telepathic link, so the catling was caught up on everything.

A small fifteen minutes after entering, they stood outside the entrance hall again. They firmly closed the door leading there by hand, and then demolished the manual controls, aiming to provide at least some obstacle to any potential bandits seeking an escape route.

"Let's start moving from room to room now," Kane told Luna, his sword casually resting on his shoulder. "We'll take down any stragglers before we move on to the other area. Hopefully it will still take a while before they manage to manually open all the blast doors between us and them."

Luna nodded in agreement, her eyes twinkling. It wasn't because she loved killing, but she did enjoy fighting, general excitement, and doing anything together with Kane.

Thus, they started raging through the remaining rooms, guided by Ella.

Some doors had already been opened by their previous inhabitants and were now wandering the corridors, surprised and terrified by the many bodies on the floor.

Others were still locked, with the inhabitants just trying to wait out whatever was happening and hoping they would make it out in one piece.

Very few were even starting to succumb to anarchy and infighting already. Naturally, Kane and Luna put an end to that just as quickly as it began.

No mater what, though, Kane and Luna left no one standing. Men died, and women were knocked unconscious. After the guards taking care of the gate had been taken out, it was clear there was no one else left with the power to stop them.

Not on this side of the facility, anyway.

Finally, another half an hour later, they'd taken out all the stragglers on this side of the base, and they were once again standing inside the small piece of corridor they had previously locked themselves inside off.

Kane cocked one eyebrow, a little curiously, "Ella? Exactly how many blast doors are between this place and the other side of the base? How come they still aren't here? Assuming they're even trying to get here."

Ella responded thoughtfully, "About ten of them were closed before the power shut off. I don't actually know how hard it would be for anyone to open one of those doors manually, but I'm starting to get the idea this place wasn't designed for Core Awakening Mystics."

Since Ella had opened every blast door on their current side just before the power shut off, they didn't actually know how hard it was to manually open one of these blast doors. They only knew that the regular doors were easy enough.

Thus, it was time to find out.

Ella quickly pointed him towards the manual release mechanism, located behind a wall panel. After finding it, he released the door's locking mechanism, something that was obviously only possible because the power was off, and turned back to the door.

At the same time as Kane pulled the mechanism, two grooves opened up on the lower end of the door. They were clearly designed for someone to grab on to in order to manually open this thing.

Thus, Kane frowned seriously, bent down, and grabbed both handles before attempting to pull the door open. But surprisingly, the door didn't budge, and Kane's frown deepened.

To the side, Luna also looked concerned.

For a few moments, Kane kept ramping up his output, until finally the door began to tremble a little. But at this point, he was already putting in his maximum effort, so he growled and turned into beast form. Roaring louder, he pulled on the handles with all the might his beast form could bring to bear.

This time, the door finally inched slightly off the floor. A soft creaking reverberated around them, but Kane's body immediately started trembling. Within moments, he had to release the door again as he stumbled backwards, and turned back to human form.

"Fuck me!" he cursed loudly, and looked at the door with resentment. "That thing is 'not' made for low level Mystics!"

His strength in beast form was nearing the Core Formation stage, but he doubted even one of them could open this door easily, even at the latter blood core stages.

"Are you alright, Master?" Luna asked, with furrowed brows. "Is it really that heavy?"

Kane nodded with a frown of his own, "I am, and it is. It is no wonder those people are taking their time, it probably takes them at least ten minutes a door. It's been about an hour since the power shut off, so with ten doors, at ten minutes a piece… we should still have half an hour before they get here, give or take."

Luna blinked in surprise, "Do you think they can open those doors when you can't?"

Kane ran a hand through his hair and shrugged. "Well, I doubt they have anyone stronger than me, but those handles look big enough for two hands. If they have one fifth-rank blood core on each side, they could open the door an inch, wedge something under it to keep it from closing, and then repeat the process until there's enough room to fit underneath."

Luna looked enlightened, "I see… Alright, so should I start searching for things we can stack underneath?"

But Kane shook his head and smiled deviously. "No, I just wanted to test it out. I needed to make sure there was a plausible reason for their delay. Since there is, we can assume they're heading this way, which is exactly what I want. Instead of meeting them halfway, we'll use this time to prepare..."