BSI Chapter 271: UNDERGROUND
Chapter 271: UNDERGROUND
The cramped room was choked with the heavy stench of damp earth, stale sweat, and biting iron rust.
Thud! Eva was shoved violently from behind, stumbling inside. The chair she was strapped to sat in the very corner—an old wooden thing with termite-eaten legs. Her hands were pulled behind her back, locked in a dead knot by coarse hemp rope. There were no windows or vents in the stifling room. The only source of light was a dull oil lantern on the table, its flame dancing nervously whenever a cold draft blew in from nowhere.
Kiyora stood tall before Eva. Beneath the dim lantern light, the parallel slash scars on her left cheek looked even deeper and more horrifying. The woman carried no weapons. She didn’t need to.
"Why did you recklessly help him, Eva?"
Kiyora’s voice flowed softly. Yet, every word that left her mouth landed heavy, as if dropping a boulder down to the bottom of a dead well.
Eva didn’t reply immediately. She stared back at Kiyora—not with flashes of terror, but with a gaze far more complex. There were remnants of respect there, mingling with forcefully suppressed guilt.
"He’s not a bloodhound for the Church, Kiyora."
"That is not the answer I am looking for."
"I observed him directly," Eva straightened her back as much as the ropes allowed. "Right from the moment he started mapping our symbols. He never reported to the guard posts. He didn’t bring a squad of Inquisitors trailing behind him. He... that man is purely driven by curiosity."
"In this city, uncontrolled curiosity can slaughter us all to the last soul."
"Or perhaps... his curiosity is the way out we’ve been searching for," Eva leaned forward. "You saw the device on his right hand last night, didn’t you? That wasn’t mana energy. You said so yourself. He comes from a part of the world we don’t know. A place that might... possess the instruments to help us break free from the shrine’s grasp."
"Or a foreign faction that could grind us into ash. Again."
Eva fell silent, unable to argue against that past trauma. Kiyora walked slowly toward the wooden table, her rough fingers grazing the cold surface of Rianor’s Mana Glove. The metal gauntlet still emitted a dim blue circuit glow that couldn’t be hidden, even in a room this dark.
"This instrument..." Kiyora murmured, speaking more to herself. "I have never sensed a structure this complex in my life. It is not magic, nor is it an ordinary forged weapon. It is far too precise to be designed merely as a hand guard."
Kiyora turned slowly, her ice-cold eyes locking onto Eva. "You... are truly placing your trust in a foreign man whose origins you don’t even know?"
"I don’t trust him in the slightest, Kiyora," Eva met the gaze without flinching. "But I distrust the Church’s rotten dogma infinitely more. And look at what those robed bastards have done to our lives now."
Kiyora was silent for a long time. Finally, she let out a short, incredibly heavy exhale. "You place your hope in strangers far too easily, Eva. And that will be your fatal weakness." Kiyora turned toward the wooden door. "Let us hear what kind of honesty your new friend will spew."
Rianor’s consciousness was still half-choked when two burly men dragged his body and slammed him into a similar wooden chair.
The blood trailing from the tear at the corner of his mouth had dried into a black crust, though new tears seemed destined to follow soon. Both his wrists were bound tightly to the back of the chair. His Mana Glove had been confiscated—he could see the device resting passively on the wooden table beneath the dim lantern, still pulsing with the faint blue glow of residual energy.
Kiyora stepped inside. Alone this time. She firmly pulled the heavy wooden door shut behind her.
"I will begin this interrogation with one very fundamental question," Kiyora pulled up a chair, sitting directly in front of Rianor, whose head was still slumped. "Who are you, exactly?"
"Just... a lost foreigner," Rianor answered faintly.
Thwack!
A raw punch flew squarely from the calloused fist of the burly man beside him, slamming into Rianor’s solar plexus. Rianor coughed violently, his chest suddenly emptied of oxygen. His body curled inward, fighting the burning sting in his stomach.
"That is not a satisfactory answer," Kiyora stated, her voice remaining as flat as still water.
Rianor slowly lifted his head, adjusting his crooked spectacles using his bound shoulder. "I am... indeed a foreigner. That is the most logical variable answer."
Thwack!
The second punch landed brutally on his right cheekbone. Rianor’s head was whipped to the side. The crust of blood on his lip broke open, letting fresh blood trickle down his chin and drip onto the dry dirt floor.
"You mapped our symbol system. You tracked our coordinate routes. You even uncovered our hidden district," Kiyora leaned in, closing the distance until her cold breath brushed Rianor’s face. "For what agenda did you do all of that?"
"I was... collecting data patterns."
"Data patterns for which faction’s interest?"
"Purely... for my own personal analysis."
Kiyora stared straight into Rianor’s eyes. Her cold grey eyes tried to sniff out any micro-expressions of fear or deceit from the scientist. Yet, she failed. Rianor stared right back with a gaze as icy and calculative as ever—as if he were not the one being tortured, but rather the one observing Kiyora.
"You are clearly not one of the Church’s hounds," Kiyora finally concluded, leaning her back against her chair. "Those foolish Inquisitors always rely on mana energy to fight—they don’t use glowing metal gloves devoid of mana." She glanced at the Mana Glove on the table. "This device of yours... I have never seen anything of its kind. What faction do you hail from?"
"From a place... very far away."
"I can order my men to flay your skin deeper so you speak the truth."
"By all means, proceed," Rianor stared at Kiyora, his flat eyes not blinking once. "But mathematically speaking, physical pain will never alter the calculation of my answers."
Kiyora’s lips curled up slightly. Almost forming a cold smirk. "Fascinating. Usually, people in your broken position would already be weeping blood and begging for mercy."
"Unfortunately, I do not fall into the majority statistic."
"Indeed," Kiyora stood up, straightening her clothes. "I am beginning to realize the anomaly within you."
Creeak... squeak...
Dom found the hidden wooden door concealed behind a pile of rotting pine planks.
An abandoned warehouse at the western edge of Sanctum. A dead zone that, according to civilian maps, hadn’t pulsed with life for years. Naya stood tightly at Dom’s side, her finger pointing to the loose soil in front of the door. There were faint drag marks. Three parallel trails that were still very fresh in the dirt.
"They dragged them underground," Naya whispered coldly.
Dom gave a curt nod. He pushed the wooden door—its hinges moved incredibly smoothly, without emitting a single squeak. Someone had been regularly oiling these hinges. Behind it, a steep flight of stone stairs descended into pitch darkness.
"I’ll take point. Watch my back," Dom instructed heavily.
"Understood."
They descended soundlessly. The scent of damp earth and iron rust grew thicker the deeper their footsteps penetrated the undercroft. Faintly, Dom’s sharp ears caught the sound of blunt impacts and Kiyora’s chilling baritone voice. Dom’s pace didn’t quicken. As a professional killing machine, panic was a forbidden variable.
At the bottom of the stairs, they arrived at a narrow corridor. Three guards stood on high alert—two watching the left flank, and one standing directly in front of the iron door to the interrogation room. Dom didn’t waste time issuing a diplomatic warning.
Swoosh!
Dom surged forward like a phantom of the night. The first guard crumpled before he could even utter a sound—Dom’s palm strike landed squarely on his carotid artery, severing the blood flow to his brain in an instant. The second guard, realizing the enemy’s presence, spun around reflexively, his hand panicking to draw the weapon at his waist—but he was one second too late. Dom was already in his blind spot.
Crack!
A swift jerk from Dom’s muscular arm snapped the man’s neck instantly.
The third guard standing by the door immediately opened his mouth wide, preparing to shout the alarm. But before the air could leave his throat, Naya’s shadow swept in from the flank.
Shing!
The blade of her dagger slid with deadly precision through the man’s windpipe. The shout died before it was ever born. The three guards collapsed stiffly onto the dirt floor. Dom immediately kicked the iron door in front of him wide open.
CLANG!
The heavy iron door slammed hard against the wall.
The room was much larger than anticipated. Oil lanterns hung in several corners, casting an eerie, dim glow. Rianor sat rigidly tied to a wooden chair—his face battered and decorated with purplish bruises, yet the eyes behind his crooked glasses remained wide open. On the table, his Mana Glove pulsed blue. Kiyora stood tall beside the table, accompanied by two burly thugs in the corner of the room.
Eva, tied to the chair opposite, looked shocked, though she remained physically intact without any signs of torture.
Kiyora spun around, her eyes sharpening like daggers, locking gazes with Dom.
"WHO—"
Dom didn’t answer with words. He charged forward in a single heartbeat. Kiyora’s first thug tried to step in and block him—but a single punch from Dom, coated in pure Aura, slammed squarely into his chest. Crack! The sickening sound of severely shattered ribs echoed, and the burly man was launched backward, crashing hard against the stone wall before slumping unconscious.
The second thug blindly swung a thick iron pipe toward Dom’s head.
Clang!
Dom caught the iron pipe directly with his bare palm. With a single yank, he stripped the weapon away, spun it, and smashed the end of the iron pipe straight into its owner’s temple. The man dropped motionless.
Two lives neutralized in a matter of precise seconds.
Naya immediately darted forward to lock down Kiyora.
Kiyora didn’t choose to retreat in fear. She dropped into a low stance with open palms—she might not have been an elite military fighter, but her experience surviving the harsh streets of Sanctum had blessed her with wildly sharp reflex instincts. "Who... who are you people?!"
Naya remained mute. She launched a sweeping low kick. Kiyora reflexively blocked it with her coarse sleeve, then countered with a straight punch to Naya’s face. Naya tilted her head a fraction, evading the strike. A close-quarters melee exploded in the confined space. Naya moved with tactical precision, while Kiyora relied on raw, feral physical strength.
Thud! Kiyora’s punch missed, striking the stone wall behind Naya hard enough to bloody her knuckles. Naya didn’t waste the momentum; she grabbed Kiyora’s injured wrist, twisted it violently behind her back, and pressed a critical nerve cluster on her shoulder.
"You lose," Naya whispered coldly into Kiyora’s ear.
Kiyora struggled with all her might, but her entire right arm instantly went numb and was locked tight.
Rianor’s bindings were cut by Dom.
The scientist stood up slowly—his body swaying slightly as he fought the pain in his solar plexus, but he forced his legs to stand firm. His eyes immediately sought the Mana Glove on the table. He grabbed it, slipping it back onto his right hand. The electric blue circuits instantly flared back to life between his knuckles.
Eva was also freed from her bonds. She rubbed her wrists, which were red from the hemp rope. Her eyes stared coldly at the bodies of Kiyora’s thugs scattered across the dirt floor. No words of regret fell from her lips.
Kiyora was forced to her knees beneath the pressure of Naya’s arm-lock. Her ice-cold eyes stared straight up at the towering Dom. "Who... who are you monsters?"
"Irrelevant to your survival," Dom answered coldly.
Rianor stepped closer, standing directly in front of the kneeling Kiyora. Fresh blood still occasionally seeped from his lip, yet his tone remained as flat as ever. "I told you repeatedly that I am not a threat to your faction. But you chose to ignore that logical data."
Kiyora growled in pain as Naya tightened her grip. "You slaughtered my men..."
"They kidnapped me and resorted to physical violence first. This rescue operation is merely the cause-and-effect consequence of your own foolish choices," Rianor replied flatly.
Kiyora fell silent, then shifted her gaze to Eva with a look of profound disappointment. "You... you truly allied yourself with these foreign monsters, Eva?"
Eva shook her head slowly. "I didn’t ally with them, Kiyora. But at the very least, I know for a fact that they aren’t our true enemies."
"You misjudged them!"
"You’re the one who shut your eyes to the truth right in front of you from the start."
Kiyora locked her mouth tight. Rianor turned his back, heading for the exit stairs. "Let’s go. We have no more time to waste here."
Outside the underground hovel, the night breeze felt incredibly clean sweeping across their faces. Even in this slum district flanked by rotting warehouses, the canopy of stars in the Sanctum sky still glowed beautifully. Perhaps, this city ruled by temple dogma was not entirely locked in darkness.
Eva walked closely on Rianor’s right side. Dom and Naya led the route ahead of them.
"You are not obligated to tail us anymore, Eva," Rianor said without taking his eyes off the road ahead.
"I know."
They walked another ten meters, but Eva’s footsteps faithfully matched the rhythm of Rianor’s stride.
Rianor stopped abruptly, then turned to stare intently at Eva through his spectacles. "What exactly do you want?"
Eva stared deeply at the blue circuits of the Mana Glove on Rianor’s right hand, then her gaze shifted to the broad silhouettes of Dom and Naya ahead of them. Finally, she looked up at the increasingly dark Sanctum sky.
"Your glove... the terrifyingly lethal combat style of your companions..." Eva lowered her voice, hugging herself against the cold. "I know exactly what the holy decrees say when the pastors read them at the altars every Sunday. They label the things you bring as ’Demonic Knowledge from the North’ that must be burned to ash."
Rianor remained silent, neither confirming nor denying.
"But I don’t give a damn about the Church’s bullshit dogma," Eva whispered, her brown eyes now radiating a glimmer of hope that had long been extinguished beneath her despair. "I am sick to my stomach of watching what the Church does to our people in these slums. Children starving to death, and those who are forced into silence purely out of fear." She looked straight into Rianor’s eyes. "You... you are the way out I’ve been waiting for."
"You don’t even know who we truly are, Eva. That is a reckless decision."
"I know you aren’t the enemy trying to slaughter us. To me, that is more than enough."
Rianor stared at the girl for a few seconds with his cold calculation. "You will only be a burden to our caravan."
"Heh, I just saved your life in that alley this afternoon, Mr. Genius."
"That was..."
"If you dare say ’that was just an insignificant coincidence’, I swear I will punch that swollen cheek of yours right now."
Hearing the threat, the corner of Rianor’s mouth suddenly twitched upward. Almost forming a warm smile. "Very well."
"Eh? Very well what?"
"You are permitted to join us. But on one condition: never obstruct my route of movement."
Eva nodded her head firmly. There was no sweet smile on her lips, nor any cliché words of gratitude. But deep within her brown eyes, there was a spark of conviction that had just been reignited from its ashes.
They resumed their trek through the dense Sanctum night. Eva stayed close to Rianor’s side, beneath the silent guard of Dom and Naya leading the way.