Chapter 1324: The Heart

In the meantime, Fiona remained inside the Mist Shelter, but her attention was completely focused on what was happening inside the First Citadel.

“Just get them busy, Sir Asad…”

Through the network connecting her to the rats, she could see everything.

Every movement of the Sentinels, every explosion, and every attack from Asad’s undead army was being relayed back to her through the rats hiding throughout the facility.

One of the rats was perched inside a small maintenance passage, carefully watching the battle through a narrow opening in the wall.

Fiona could see the Bone Dragon tearing through the Sentinels, the Lich bombarding them with dark magic, and Asad moving through the battlefield at incredible speed after activating one of Shane’s skill-infused tokens.

She couldn’t help but smile.

“Perfect.”

The battle was exactly what she had wanted.

When Fiona had contacted Asad earlier, she had never intended for him to simply clear out the maintenance chamber.

She needed him to create chaos.

The deeper parts of the facility were far too dangerous for her rats to explore while the Sentinels were actively patrolling the area. Even with hundreds of rats moving through the facility, there were limits to what they could accomplish when the security systems were still functioning.

But now, everything had changed.

Asad and his undead army had attracted the attention of nearly every Sentinel or whatever robots there were in the surrounding area.

More importantly, the machines were being forced to deploy stronger units.

That meant the deeper areas of the facility were becoming less protected.

Fiona immediately gave a command through the rat network.

Several rats began moving.

They avoided the main corridors and instead slipped through cracks, ventilation passages, and damaged sections of the ancient structure.

Some of the passages were so narrow that only the smallest rats could squeeze through them.

Fiona had already explored most of the accessible areas of the First Citadel, but there were still countless sections that remained inaccessible.

Now, she had a reason to search them again.

“Go deeper.”

The rats obeyed.

One group moved toward the direction where Fiona had previously sensed a strange energy signature.

Another group searched around the walls surrounding the maintenance chamber.

A third group followed the faint traces of energy that had been leaking through the floor.

Fiona had noticed something earlier.

The First Citadel wasn’t simply powered by the energy systems she had encountered so far.

There was something deeper.

Something much more powerful.

She had sensed it several times while exploring the facility, but the signal had always been extremely faint.

It was almost as if the facility itself was hiding it.

“Where are you hiding it?”

Fiona muttered.

She closed her eyes for a moment and focused on the rats.

Through them, she could feel the subtle fluctuations in the environment.

The rats couldn’t understand what they were sensing, but Fiona could.

There was energy flowing through the walls, and it wasn’t random.

It was moving through the facility in a specific direction.

Fiona immediately understood.

“The power source…”

She quickly directed several rats toward the strongest trace.

They moved through another corridor before reaching a collapsed section.

A large portion of the wall had fallen inward, blocking the passage.

Normally, that would have been the end of the search.

However, the rats didn’t need an open corridor.

One of the smaller rats squeezed through a crack between two pieces of damaged metal.

Then another followed.

Fiona’s vision suddenly changed.

The rat emerged into a completely different section of the facility.

Her eyes widened.

“What?”

The chamber was enormous.

Unlike the maintenance areas, there were no Sentinels here.

There were no damaged machines or storage containers either.

Instead, the entire chamber was filled with ancient machinery.

Massive pipelines ran along the walls and disappeared into the floor. Strange mechanical structures surrounded a large circular platform in the center of the chamber.

And beneath that platform…

Fiona could feel an enormous amount of energy.

“That’s it.”

She didn’t need Cloud to analyze it.

She could feel it through the rat!

The energy was far too concentrated to be an ordinary power source.

The rats cautiously moved closer, and as they approached the central platform, several small lights began flickering along the walls.

The ancient machines were still functioning, so she immediately understood what she was looking at.

“This isn’t just a power core… It’s controlling something.”

The rats spread out around the chamber.

They discovered more energy lines connected to the central structure.

Some traveled upward while others disappeared into the walls.

Indeed, there were several enormous cables extended toward the ceiling before vanishing into the upper levels of the First Citadel.

Fiona suddenly remembered what Cloud had said about the Floating Island.

The island wasn’t simply floating because of some natural phenomenon.

The entire structure was being maintained by ancient technology.

“This is the core…”

She finally found it.

The main control system of the Floating Island had been hidden deep beneath the First Citadel.

And it was far more heavily concealed than she had expected.

If not for the age of the facility, Fiona’s rats would probably never have found this place.

The walls were ancient and damaged, and some sections had collapsed completely, while others had developed cracks large enough for rats to pass through.

That damage had created paths that didn’t exist when the facility was first constructed.

Fiona couldn’t help but laugh softly.

“Alright… I can’t damage this place… We have to control this place.”

Just like that, the rats continued carefully exploring the place…

Then one of them moved toward the center of the chamber.

A small mechanical panel suddenly appeared.

The moment the rat passed beneath it, several symbols appeared across its surface.

Fiona immediately ordered the rat to stop.

“Don’t touch anything.”

The rat froze.

Fiona stared at the ancient system.

There was something else here. Something she hadn’t noticed before.

The energy wasn’t simply flowing outward from the core.

It was also flowing toward another location.

Fiona followed the direction of the energy through the rat network.

“Wait…”

The energy traveled through a massive cable before splitting into several smaller channels.

Fiona immediately sent more rats into the surrounding cracks.

They crawled through another damaged section and entered a second chamber. Then a third…

Each one revealed more of the ancient system…

She also found a very concealed cube in the last chamber…

“As expected…”

This wasn’t merely the power core.

It was the place where the artificial intelligence responsible for managing the Floating Island was operating.

She had finally found the heart of the First Citadel.