Supreme Magus novel Chapter 690

The lobby in front of the elevator was a rectangular room, 2.4 meters (7.9 feet) high and 7 meters (23 feet) wide. It reminded Lith of the company he had worked for in the Q\u0026A department. _{ƒreewebηoveℓ.com}

There was no furniture, only tags and signs to navigate the facility. The walls had been painted of a pale green while the metal grate that covered the stone ceiling was white.

The magic cameras had been hidden between the grate and the stone, making them almost invisible to the naked eye. After a thorough scan of the room was completed, Phloria said:

"First the gas and now another ambush. If this is the response of an automated defense, then it’s like to be a sentient cursed object. We’re too much at disadvantage here to safely continue the mission.

"Does anyone have an idea if it’s safe to go back upstairs and leave Kulah? I’ll take full responsibility for the decision."

The Professors pondered for a while before replying.

"I’ve seen that gas before." Yondra said. "It’s a neurotoxin laced with magic crystals’ powder so that it can carry and amplify darkness magic pulses without being destroyed by them. Its half-life is about three days, so we’d have to wait at least a week before leaving this place.

"Otherwise even if somehow we carry with us enough fresh air to survive, another black pulse would travel through the toxin so fast that we would die before having enough time to open a Warp Steps."

"We’ll be all dead before a week." Morok said. His words caused more nods than glares this time, making Phloria realize that her real first issue was morale. Gaakhu was a symptom, not the illness, just like Morok had simply stated what everyone was thinking.

"What about the signs? Is there any indication of an emergency exit?" She prayed to the gods for good news.

"They only say: ’Main Lobby’..." Gaakhu pointed at the tag in front of the elevator.

"...’Living Quarters’ and ’Research Area’." Those were the signs respectively pointing left and right.

"Good." Phloria nodded while everyone looked at her as if she had gone insane.

"The Living Quarters are bound to be a safe spot. The Odi would never place a meat factory near their lodgings. Let’s move." Phloria was way less confident than she appeared.

Yet she had to find a place where to leave the Assistants before exploring the rest of the compound. Such a large group would be too difficult for her to manage. Along the way, they kept finding working cameras that were regularly disposed of, leaving the enemy blind.

The corridor was quite long and full of surprises. First, they found leaflets of bright colors hanging on the walls. According to Ellkas, they were just propaganda inciting the scientists to fight for the Odi cause and not lose hope.

Then, there were traces of ripped leaflets, replaced by what looked like a kid’s drawing of the outside world that covered most of the walls, until it turned into a wall text of gibberish repeated over and over.

"It says ’doom’." Ellkas said, noticing that it wasn’t the work of a single person. The word was the same but the handwriting was different. The nail marks and the almost faded bloodstains on the walls told them a creepy story.

No one would ever let such an unsettling message, let alone the blood if the phenomenon hadn’t become so widespread that the authorities had given up on removing the madmen’s message and leave one of their own.

A message of violence.

Luckily, the double metal door at the end of the corridor was pristine, lifting their spirit. The Odi hadn’t let the insanity spread too far, so the humans could still hope to find a haven rather than an asylum.