The heavy steel vault door crumpled inward like a crushed soda can. The deafening sound of tearing tal echoed through the narrow underground hallway. Kanos lowered his hand slowly. His dark violet Null Hound had just headbutted the reinforced door with enough kinetic force to derail a train. The thick steel hinges snapped completely off the wall, sending the massive door crashing onto the tiled floor inside the room.
Dust and plaster rained down from the ceiling. Kanos stepped right over the ruined door, completely ignoring the blaring red warning lights flashing on the walls.
"Clear the room," Kanos ordered quietly.
His three Null Hounds bolted forward simultaneously. They moved like streaks of bruised violet lightning. The room inside was a secret Sensor Bureau data hub hidden right beneath an abandoned slaughterhouse in the lower district. There were about ten local guards inside wearing standard issue silver armor. They did not even get the chance to draw their weapons or cast a single spell.
The hounds tore through their ranks with terrifying efficiency. The anti magic aura radiating from the beasts instantly neutralized the defensive runes on the guards’ armor. One guard tried to shoot a fireball from his gauntlet, but the nearest hound literally swallowed the fla mid air before snapping the man’s wrist in half. The entire skirmish ended in a chaotic chorus of snapping bones and terrified screams. Twelve seconds later, absolute silence returned to the room.
Kanos walked in casually. The soles of his boots crunched against the broken glass of shattered monitor screens. He rubbed his temples hard. His head throbbed violently, feeling like soone was constantly hamring a nail right between his eyes. Maintaining three Null Hounds at the sa ti drained his ntal capacity at an insane rate. He could feel his own brain slowly frying inside his skull, but he needed these beasts active for intimidation.
Belida walked in right behind Kanos. The giant knight dragged his black greatsword across the floor, making a harsh scraping sound. He looked around the ruined room filled with groaning, half conscious guards. Belida did not need to swing his sword once. Kanos’s hounds had completely neutralized every single threat.
"Secure the periter, Belida," Kanos said, pointing toward the only other hallway leading deeper into the facility. "Kill anyone who tries to call for backup."
Belida nodded silently and walked toward the dark hallway. His massive body easily blocked the entire passage.
Papuyu dropped down from the ventilation shaft near the ceiling. The female hitman landed gracefully without making a single sound. She imdiately walked over to the main terminal desk in the center of the room. Sili scrambled in right after her, clutching his heavy leather bag tight against his chest. The skinny broker was panting heavily, clearly absolutely terrified of the three violet hounds standing guard around the room.
"Get to work, Sili," Kanos leaned against the edge of the main terminal desk. He wiped a small trickle of fresh blood from his nose. "I want to know exactly what the Bureau knows about our location. Download everything from their local network."
Sili did not waste a second. He threw his bag onto the floor and pulled out a strange looking crystal drive. He jamd the crystal into the main slot of the glowing blue terminal. His fingers danced incredibly fast across the floating holographic keyboard. Sili was a master at navigating the Yomalvara underground network, and he knew exactly how to bypass local Bureau firewalls.
"This is crazy, boss," Sili muttered while his eyes darted back and forth reading the rapidly scrolling text on the screen. "They are completely freaking out up there. The central command in the upper city just issued a Code Black for the entire lower district. They registered the destruction of the patrol squad we ambushed earlier."
Kanos stared at the blue screen. "Do they know we are moving to the Dead Zone?"
"No," Sili shook his head quickly. He pushed his cracked glasses up his nose. "Their tracking algorithms are completely ssed up. Your Null Hounds are leaving absolutely zero mana traces. The system literally thinks a localized black hole just spontaneously spawned and swallowed their executioners. But they know the anomaly is still sowhere in Sector Four."
Papuyu stood next to Sili, her dead eyes scanning the terminal screen. "They will not just send regular executioners anymore. A Code Black ans they are authorizing the deploynt of the Grand Inquisitors. We need to leave this place right now."
Kanos folded his arms across his chest. The pain in his head was getting worse. His vision blurred slightly at the edges. He needed to disperse the hounds soon before he completely passed out from ntal exhaustion. But they needed this intel. He could not fight blindly against the upper echelons of the Bureau.
"What is a Grand Inquisitor?" Kanos asked softly.
Sili’s hands stopped typing for a split second. The broker swallowed hard, clearly terrified just hearing the title. "They are the absolute apex dogs of the system, boss. Regular executioners rely on magic and standard issue gear. Inquisitors do not. They are deeply integrated into the Yomalvara core code. They can literally rewrite the physical laws of a localized area. They bend gravity. They manipulate kinetic force. Magic absorption will not work perfectly against them because they do not use raw mana to attack."
Kanos frowned. That was a serious problem. His Null Hounds were specifically designed to eat magical energy and crush fragile mages. If the enemy used pure physical or kinetic manipulation, the hounds would just be regular heavy smoke constructs taking blunt force trauma.
"Did you get the patrol routes?" Kanos asked, ignoring the rising panic in Sili’s voice.
"Downloading the last encrypted batch right now," Sili replied frantically. He tapped a few more keys. "Done. I got their entire lower district deploynt map for the next forty eight hours. We have a clear route back to the Dead Zone if we leave through the eastern toxic pipelines."
"Good," Kanos pushed himself off the desk. He snapped his fingers.
The three terrifying dark violet hounds instantly dissolved into thin smoke. The heavy, suffocating pressure in the room vanished imdiately. Kanos took a massive, deep breath, feeling his brain rapidly cooling down. He almost stumbled backward, but Papuyu quickly grabbed his arm to keep him steady.
"You are pushing your limits again," Papuyu stated flatly. She let go of his arm the mont Kanos regained his balance.
"I am fine," Kanos muttered. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. He looked at Sili who had just yanked the crystal drive out of the terminal. "Pack it up. We are heading back to the workshop. I need to redesign my ink mixture if we are going to fight an Inquisitor."
Suddenly, the entire underground facility violently shook. The concrete floor vibrated so hard Sili lost his footing and fell onto his knees. A deafening, booming sound echoed from the surface above them, exactly like a teor had just crashed directly onto the roof of the abandoned slaughterhouse.
Belida rushed back into the room from the hallway. The giant knight gripped his greatsword tightly, his eyes wide with high alert.
"Sothing heavy just landed right on top of us," Belida warned. Dust poured heavily from the cracking ceiling. "And it is not a normal monster."
Kanos stared at the ceiling. The concrete above them began to groan and buckle under an imnse, unnatural weight. Sili was right. The Bureau was not playing around anymore. The apex dog had arrived.
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