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After having established a perimeter around the area Gideon ordered his squad to prepare for a descent into the black hole that had been left by the Forsaken beast. The Demon soldiers attended to the injured and continue to assist in the evacuation efforts for the time being. Gideon and his squad had been given the necessary rappelling equipment in order to reach their target once they were set Gideon along with Carlisle and the girl with cardinal red hair descended into the hole first whilst the others waited for orders.

Varen and Mana wanted to tag along with them, but Gideon refused their suggestion. Not knowing what was down here or if there was even an end to the drop he couldn’t risk their lives on chance. And considering the fact that the squad were only able to acquire three sets of rappel kits along with both their injuries cemented his decision.

Tapping upon the earpiece Gideon spoke, “We’re descending at a steady pace we’ll keep you posted on the situation.” The girl with cardinal red hair had an angle head flashlight in her hand ready in case they needed it.

“Understood we’ve got things up here under control so don’t worry about anything happening here” a male voice responded through Gideon’s earpiece.

As the trio continued downward into the hole they found it incredibly hard to make out anything with hindsight, the only thing that they could sense was the texture of the rock as they pressed their feet against it pushing themselves off gently as they continued rappelling downward.

“I don’t know why you’re so pissed with me, to be honest” Carlisle muttered over the earpiece.

“Does Gideon really need to spell it out for you?” the cardinal redhead girl responded.

“Well, I did what I thought was right…” Carlisle showed no cause for concern over his actions “…I stopped the damn beast from swallowing that girl I feel like that’s a win”

The girl irritated with Carlisle’s attitude was about to give him an earful before Gideon interjected. “Drop it, Leyla it’s not worth arguing over at the moment”

“But Gideon…” Leyla said back, however, she was once again cut short by Gideon.

“Don’t get me wrong, Leyla, once this mission is over I’ll be having a chat with Carlisle…” Gideon paused for a moment as he thought for a moment on what he was going to say to Carlisle once this was all over “…but for the time being let’s find that girl and hope that Carlisle didn’t kill with his recklessness”. Upon hearing Gideon’s statement the former could hear Carlisle exasperate into his earpiece normally Gideon would give him crap for doing such a thing, but this time he simply didn’t have the energy to do so.

Leyla decided to turn on her angle head flashlight as it started to become difficult to see anything in the darkness that surrounded her, Gideon and Carlisle. She slowly traced the beam of light coming from her flashlight below them, after a few moments, she started to make out what looked to be underground rail tracks, and nearby seemed to be a huge mound of rubble.

“Gideon, I think we’re almost there!” she called out to her squad Captain.

“Okay, be ready for anything!” Gideon responded as he and his two squadmates hastened themselves to reach the ground below them. It didn’t take long for them to make contact with the gravelled ground beneath their feet. They trio disconnected their harnesses from the ropes.

Although there were lights dotted every few metres across the stone walls it wasn’t enough to properly light up the surrounding area. Gideon turned to Carlisle, “Fire a flare”.

Carlisle nodded he reached into his arrow pouch pulling one out with another set of engravings albeit different to the one he used on the Forsaken beast earlier. On the tip of the arrow, it looked to of had a see-through sharpened tip that looked more fragile from the typical steel-tipped arrows he used.

Aiming with the bow and arrow Carlisle used his mana to power-up the engravings upon the arrow, a few seconds later, the shiny tip of the arrow started to emit an intensely bright light. Before it got to full power he fired it into the distance of what they presumed was an underground tunnel.

As the arrow sailed through the air both Gideon and Leyla paid attention to their surroundings. As Leyla expected from before this area seemed to be an underground tunnel with rail tracks as she and Gideon continued to scan the tunnel ahead of them she spotted a body not too far ahead of them.

“Gideon, over there!” Leyla pointed to an area on the rail tracks ahead of them where she could see the body of someone or something.

“Okay let’s go!” Gideon responded the trio headed towards the area that Leyla pointed to. Luckily for them, the light from the flare arrow was still shining brightly in the distance making it easier for them to find their way amongst the rubble. Upon arriving at the area Gideon noticed that the girl lying on the floor unconscious still had the purplish-black spike impaled in her thigh. What was unusual though was the fact that the bleeding had stopped somehow which shouldn’t have been the case without first-aid treatment.

“Carlisle, watch our backs…” Carlisle did as he was told firing another flare arrow in the other direction, Gideon then looked to Leyla “…you think it’s okay to move her?”

“Don’t tell me that none of this is making you question what’s going on?” Leyla bluntly replied, her tail swaying behind her clearly indicating that she was troubled.

“What do you mean?” Gideon tried to play it cool as if nothing was out of the ordinary at all.

Leyla was clearly not buying his response, “You know what I mean, the underground rail tunnel, the sudden appearance of a Forsaken beast in the capital to be honest none of this seems like a misfortunate occurrence”

Gideon sighed, “I feel the same way, but what are you suggesting that we do we’re all members of Baron families we have the lowest authority of all the Demon nobility, I can’t exactly question a member of the Prince of Hell without good cause”

“She does have a point though…” Carlisle seemed to be more serious this time around “…all of this seems rather weird, we should definitely report this to Lord Belial once we wrap everything up here”

Upon hearing Carlisle’s words Leyla couldn’t help but smile sweetly making the former blush with embarrassment, “A-Anyway, the decision is still up to you Gideon seeing that you’re our squad Captain”

“Okay, I’ll talk with Lord Belial once we finish this mission, first let’s get this girl out of here and then find that Forsaken beast before it hurts anyone else” Gideon ordered. Leyla checked Nariko’s body for any other injuries she was satisfied that the latter was visibly okay besides from the spike that was still impaled in her thigh.

“We’ll have to get her above ground to a healer,” Leyla told Gideon, the latter nodded. Leyla ended preparing the harness and rope to carry Nariko back up to the surface, Gideon prepared the extra harness and put it on over Nariko’s clothes the latter still unconscious. As Gideon was fitting the harness over her he couldn’t help, but notice that the girl’s clothes seemed to be that of royalty similar to the other girl’s attire on the surface that was with Varen. It made him wonder why such girls would be in a place like this he pushed the thought to one side of his mind putting his focus back on the mission.

It wasn’t long before both Leyla and Nariko were secure onto the rope, the former used a mechanism fixed onto the rope that controlled the ascent and descent of users along the length of the rope, it too seemed to be powered by mana as a glyph engraving shone faintly as Leyla poured her mana consumption into it.

Gideon stood there watching both Leyla and Nariko ascending the rope for a few moments before he walked over towards Carlisle. Earlier Gideon had sent him to search for any clues on the whereabouts of the Forsaken beast.

“Found anything that we can use?” Gideon asked.

Carlisle was standing near the huge mound of rubble that was situated just under the hole that the Forsaken beast had created from before, he seemed to be fixated on one particular area. His arms were crossed his arrow pouch hung on the right side of his waist, and his bow was hanging diagonally across his chest.

“Yeah, I sure as hell did” Carlisle bluntly responded. Gideon had just reached his side looked at his squadmate for a moment before following the direction of the latter’s gaze. There under the mound of rubble was the lifeless corpse of the Forsaken beast that they were tasked with eliminating.

“Well, that’s a bummer I was hoping to try out some new arrows that the workshop gave us before heading out” Carlisle chuckled as he rubbed the back of his head awkwardly with a free hand.

“Something isn’t right here” Gideon muttered aloud.

Carlisle looked at him for a moment, “What do you mean, the thing was crushed under the very rubble it weakened, pretty simple if you ask me”

Gideon turned around looking at Carlisle his expression serious he was pointing to an area of the Forsaken beast’s body, “It wasn’t crushed something pierced its body”

Carlisle looked quite irritated, “Well I did fire an arrow at its face if you remember, you gave me a bullocking for it” he shook his head for a moment.

“I’m talking about that, here look” Gideon looked towards the corpse once again pointing at a particular area, Carlisle grunted as he lazily waltzes over to see what the former was talking about upon closer inspection he too noticed the puncture wound.

Quite surprised Carlisle spoke out, “Y-You’re right there is another wound on the beast”

Gideon continued to examine the unusual wound that was on the Forsaken beast’s body it was something that he had never seen before, it looked as if something extremely hot burned through the beast’s skin almost as if it had been struck by a ray of light. I’ve never seen anything like this before I have no idea what this could be, Gideon thought to himself.

Suddenly a voice came through on his earpiece, “Gideon, Lord Belial is here, he wishes to speak with you”

“Well, speak of the devil” Carlisle mockingly responds. Gideon gives him a foul look Carlisle nervously laughs it off as he sighs dejectedly.

“Okay, we’ll be up there soon…” Gideon turns to Carlisle “…we’ll report this finding to Lord Belial as well”

Carlisle nods, “Sure thing, boss”

Both Gideon and Carlisle fastened themselves to their rappelling ropes once secured the two of them used the mechanisms fixated upon the ropes themselves to help them ascend the length of the rope back to the surface.

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