The Author's POV

[Inferno, Duergar council.]

Sitting in his seat, Orion, one of the duergar elders, looked around him and asked the rest of the elders present, "How is Karl doing?"

"He is currently working on disabling the third beacon."

Durara answered from her seat. She sounded very pleased with Karl's work.

"Do you have any idea when he will get it done? If we get one or two more beacons disabled, we should be able to completely destroy the barrier of the city."

"That…I'm not too sure myself. He's just got done with the second beacon, so I reckon it would be done within the week."

Durara replied with a tight frown on her face.

Because Karl requested for him to not be monitored or bothered while he was working, no one actually knew how far he was in the project.

Since he had proven himself by deactivating the first and second beacons, the elders had no qualms with the fact that they couldn't monitor him.

Furthermore, Karl's request wasn't strange. Many of the duergars present were engineers, and they all knew just how important keeping their blueprints and projects a secret was.

It was their life's work. No one would like it for their work to be seen by others.

All that mattered to them was that he deactivated the beacons. 

Having already inspected his strength, they weren't worried about Karl running away as they had set up multiple guards way above his rank to monitor him.

"From what I heard, Karl said that the process of deactivation differs per beacon. That is why it is taking time for him to fully extract the memories from Jomnuk and process them in time."

"I see…looks like that bastard was a thorough one."

With both hands on the table, Orion mumbled to himself. 

"…If he manages to get it done by the end of the week, we should start getting ready."

Turning to face one of the duergars standing on the other side of the hall, Orion decided to give out orders.

"Send a message to all members."

Orion stood up and clenched both of his fists.

"Within a week, when the barrier is finally breached, I want them to be ready to assault Henolur from the inside."

A colorless hue mixed with black threads of energy expanded from his body as his cold voice rang throughout the room.

"…It's time we finally got rid of those bastards."

Bang—

But just as his words faded, with a loud bang, a duergar rushed into the room.

Before the elders could say anything about the rude intrusion, the duergar shouted in wild panic.

"We've got an urgent report! The artifact testing facilities have been breached!"

"The artifact testing facilities?"

Orion's brow raised in surprise. He seemed relaxed despite hearing of an intruder in the artifact testing area.

"Who's the idiot trying to breach the artifact testing facilities?"

That place was like a prison. The moment it was breached, although no one could go in, no one could also go out. 

To Orion, whoever was trying to breach the place seemed to be an idiot. Thus, he was completely relaxed.

It was also because of this that he started to glare at the duergar that had so rudely barged into the room. 

"Why have you barged into this place to report such a small matter?"

His cold voice entered the ears of the duergar. The latter froze on the spot. 

His pupils instantly dilated and a sense of death washed over his body as he fumbled on his words, struggling to form a sentence.

"B-but…b-but, K-Karl is there, s-sir."

"…"

Eventually, with shaking legs, using all of his willpower, the duergar managed to complete his sentence.

However, as soon as his words faded, a palpitating, almost terrifying chill spread throughout the whole room as the countenances of all the elders present changed horribly.

"What did you just say?"

The first one to recover was Durara, who immediately stood up with an alarmed look.

"Did you just say that Karl was inside of the artifact testing facility?! Speak!"

"Y…yea."

Subjected to Durara's terrifying glare, the duergar could only helplessly nod his head.

"Oh no…"

Getting confirmation from the duergar, Durara turned her head and looked at the other elders present in the room.

Bang—

Without needing to be told what to do, one of the elders disappeared from the hall.

A loud banging noise resounded as the door of the hall smacked against the side of the walls.

Once the elder left, a grave and solemn atmosphere permeated the room.

"Shit, how did those bastards manage to get to them?"

Smacking his fist against the table, Orion raised his voice.

"Didn't we increase the security around Karl? How in the world could this have happened?"

Given how important of a figure Karl was, there was no way they would just let him go as he pleased without a bodyguard.

Furthermore, everyone in the artifact testing facility should've been filled with loyal duergars. Given how important artifacts were, the elders weren't just going to let anyone test them.

They were duergars that had been selected after a tough screening. For an incident to have happened there out of all places was odd.

'Did one of us betray us?'

It was the first thought that Orion had as he scanned the room. It was the most plausible outcome.

"You all—huh?!"

But just as he was about to voice out his concerns, out of nowhere, the base's defensive system activated.

Di! Ding—

"What's going on?"

"What is happening?!"

The moment the defensive system activated, everyone grew even more alarmed.

Tapping onto the table in front of him, one of the duergars swiped his hand and a large holographic image of the outside of the facility appeared before everyone.

"How could this be? We're under attack!"

It was then that everyone instantly understood what was going on. They stood up in unison and stared at the powerful energy blast that was headed towards the direction of the facility.

"Everyone, get ready! Sound the defensive system and warn everyone to be ready to fight."

The duergars in the room weren't leaders for nothing. Upon realizing just what kind of situation they were in, instead of panicking, they all calmly gave out orders and rushed out of the hall.

The only one who remained in the hall was Orion, whose eyes remained glued on the energy blast headed for the base.

Before long, the energy blast connected with the cannon blasts.

BOOOOM—

A thunderous explosion sounded and the whole place shook.

With his feet steady on the ground, Orion's face sank as he darkly muttered.

"…How dare you."

***

WHIIII— WHIIII—

What followed after the explosion was the sound of alarms ringing.

Still channeling my mana at the sensor of the room, I glanced in Angelica's direction.

Indifferently walking in my direction, Angelica's footsteps halted right as she was a few meters away from me. 

"What should we do now?"

"We wait."

I softly replied. 

In response, Angelica cocked her head to the side. Confused by my answer. 

"Wait?"

"Yeah, we wait for Waylan to come to pick us up."

Pausing there, my brows suddenly knit in thought as I muttered to myself.

"Talking about Waylan, I hope he got my message."

When setting the portal in the other room, I made sure to leave behind a note on the desk.

On it were a couple of instructions that Waylan had to follow. Alongside it was the location of the artifact testing facility that I was currently in. 

Aside from that, there was also a small map marked with a few important places like the surveillance room, where the dampening system was, and finally, the location of where the security system was. 

Our priority was to have all three of those facilities destroyed. Once those three systems were down, it would essentially be equal to crippling Inferno and thus helping us ensure victory.

"…Once Waylan comes to pick us up, the real struggle starts. So, try your best to recover as much as possible. Although you can probably fight against <S> ranked duergars with your bloodline suppression, it's best if you're careful."

"Mhm."

Faintly nodding her head, without saying too much, Angelica sat on the ground and started to process the effects of the devil fruit she had just ingested.

Slowly, a small black layer formed around her body, enveloping her whole.

While Angelica was recovering her demonic energy, with my hand still on the sensor, I tried to move my right arm.

"Khh… Still nothing."

Unfortunately, the moment I tried to move my arm, I felt an electric current run through my body, momentarily paralyzing my movements.

It immediately became clear to me that my arm still needed time to recover.

The only issue was that I had no time. 

To make matters worse, since I had to keep injecting mana into the sensor, I couldn't use my other arm to take out any potions. This meant that I was rapidly losing mana.

'Damn it.'

Things were not looking good for me at the moment.

***

Standing right by the door that led to the inside of Inferno, Gernis turned towards Waylan and asked, "What should we do now?"

"We're going to split up in two groups."

Waylan promptly replied to Gernis's question. 

As he spoke, the sound of sirens rang in the background, drowning his voice a bit.

"Split up?"

Fortunately, everyone in the room was an elite. With their enhanced senses, it wasn't hard for them to make out what exactly Waylan was saying. 

"How should we split up and why do we need to split up?" Gernis asked. 

In response, Waylan gave a brief reply.

"We're going to split up in two groups. One group of two and one groups of three."

Turning his head toward Ultruk, the orc leader, Waylan continued to give out instructions.

"Regarding the first group, it will consist of Ultruk and me."

"Me?"

Ultruk questioned from the side. Nodding his head slightly, Waylan explained.

"Yes, I need Ultruk for this part of the plan."

He was planning on going to rescue Ren. Since there was a high chance that an elder would show up at the place, in order to increase his chances of survival, Waylan decided to have Ultruk join him to fend off the enemies.

"While Ultruk and I are busy on our mission, the three of you will go to deactivate the surveillance system. Since most of the attention is away from us, do it in the fastest way possible. Our goal is to have the surveillance system destroyed before they notice anything."

By destroying the surveillance system, they were essentially buying themselves an advantage. It would basically make the next two operations much easier for them as the duergars wouldn't be able to coordinate with each other well.

"I understand the plan somewhat."

Listening to Waylan's plans, everyone in the room understood what he was trying to do. Hence, none of them voiced any complaints.

"Take this."

Taking something from his dimensional space, Waylan handed it to Gernis.

"What is it?" Gernis questioned as he stared at Waylan's hands, where a small cubic object rested.

Upon taking a closer look, Gernis was able to instantly tell what the device was.

"Oh? Is this a holographic map?"

"Yes. In there, is the location of the surveillance system. Although it is not very detailed, you should be able to make due with that."

Thanks to the information that he had gotten from Ren, he was able to pinpoint the exact location of where the important rooms were, and thus marked it on the rough map of Inferno that the everyone here used. 

"Yes, this is enough."

Putting the device away, a solemn atmosphere prevailed over the room. 

Having finished what he wanted to say, Waylan checked his watch.

"Are you guys ready?" He asked while moving towards the door of the room.

"Yes."

Taking out their weapons and artifacts, everyone put a small badge by the side of their chest.

The moment the artifact touched their chest, the light in the room reflected away from their body and their figures disappeared.

"Let's go."

Putting his hand on the side of the door, a small glow enveloped Waylan's hand as it opened shortly after.

Henolur's strongest warriors were going to make a move.

Clank—

The door closed, and the countdown to the war began.