Several hours later, they were still within that vast chamber, stretching deep into the earth. A multitude of dark corridors, carved straight into the stone—like an underground network of veins leading to other parts of this grim complex—encircled the room. Charred rock absorbed the lingering ether, slowly dispersing it.
Siren remained seated in the same place, making no unnecessary movements. His gaze was fixed on the motionless Mearin. The old man still showed no signs of life, but the ether around him had grown more stable. That restless, chaotic current which had been tearing him apart from within just hours ago now flowed more evenly, as if it had found a shape.
A complex spiral-bound formula was forming—built layer by layer from the tiniest ether particles.
To Siren's surprise, no one else noticed. Lance sat with Evalin's body clutched to him—her face blank, eyes lifeless. He played absentmindedly with a strand of her hair, wrapping it around a claw. Rude was dozing, stretched out against the wall. Even Tas, eyes closed in meditation, seemed unaware of the unsettling shift.
Finally, Siren saw the formula complete, recognizing its familiar contours. He had just enough time to squint and lower his gaze—then his eyelids flared white, as if pierced by a shaft of sunlight. Blinding radiance sliced through the hall. Lance cried out, ducking behind the girl's body, and Rude jolted upright. But as Siren had expected, nothing happened. The dazzling light was a diversion—a decoy to buy Mearin a few precious seconds.
By the time the others came to, the old man had vanished from where he had just lain, leaving no trace. He had used teleportation without hesitation, disappearing right in front of them all.
Siren clenched his teeth.
"Damn old bastard..." he muttered to himself. "Had the guts to leave me behind!"
Tas's eyes flew open. For a moment he didn't understand what had happened, then it hit him—the senior mage had escaped.
Rude stood up, stretching with a crack of his joints. He slowly approached the center, not in a hurry, though his eyes narrowed and the beastlike aura around him hardened.
"He's gone," he growled to no one in particular. "Now what?"
Lance smirked. He leaned back, letting Evalin's limp body slip into his lap. She didn't resist—she might as well have not existed.
"Lovely trick," he said lazily, toying with her fingers like a child with a doll. "And here I thought you'd planned everything out. No—wait—let me guess. You decided to spare your dear friend, didn't you? Investigator Tas?"
Tas didn't answer right away. He looked at the spot where Mearin had just been and pressed his palm to the cold stone. The ether still pulsed faintly in the air—like ripples in water after a stone is thrown.
"We won't be able to open the gate without him," he whispered. "He was necessary to me—hell, to all of us!"
"You're wrong," Lance said, standing and shedding the last remnants of mockery. His voice had turned sharp, almost metallic. "He was necessary to you. You built your plans around him—treated him like your foundation. And now he's just… gone. What a shame. Looks like you've got nothing to pay us with anymore?"
His lips twisted into a bitter grin, like a hyena's.
Tas fell silent, as though struggling for words. In the heavy stillness, a dull metallic sound rang out—Rude drew his blade without ceremony, the polished edge catching a dim flicker of lantern light. Almost at the same time, Lance lifted his hand, lazily pointing his wand toward the priest. A wave of pressure rolled through the room—the very air thickening, wrapping around them all.
Tas realized he stood at the center of a ring, surrounded by gazes cold and sharp as steel.
"Idiots!" he snapped, rage breaking through. "There's no time to lose! We can still track him!"
"No longer," came a quiet voice from the shadows.
Ayra stepped out from the gloom, her movements silent as a predator's. She looked at Tas with cold, exhausted disgust.
"There are too many tunnels," she continued. "And someone like him can jump farther than you can imagine. If we split up, we risk falling into the anthill's traps. We won't catch him."
She stepped closer, never breaking eye contact, and slowly unsheathed a thin blade—almost elegant, but perfectly straight and deathly in its intent.
"You promised you'd help us open the gate," Ayra said flatly, as if passing judgment. "Now your plan has failed—because of your arrogance."
She stepped forward again.
"Tell me, then—how did he escape, if you claimed his channels were blocked? That was your mistake. So how do you plan to fix it?"
Sweat prickled across the priest's brow. His thoughts scattered like trapped insects. He felt Ayra's gaze drilling into him, and Rude's watchful eyes tracking his every move. In a moment of desperation, Tas glanced to the side—and his eyes found Siren, still sitting in silence.
"Don't jump to conclusions," he rasped, seizing the moment. "To open the gate, we need someone who can use the key."
Ayra and Lance exchanged glances, a flicker of doubt passing between them—though neither spoke it aloud. Rude stood motionless, but the tension across his frame deepened.
"And what are you suggesting?" Ayra asked coldly. "You think you can withstand the key's backlash? Or you hoping one of us will take the risk instead?"
Tas said nothing. He knew his own bond with the ether, for all its strength, made him almost useless for this. Too high a synchronization was a double-edged blade. The line between control and destruction was razor-thin, making priests the most vulnerable to arcane formulas. One wrong impulse—and he would shatter like an overloaded vessel.
Ayra and Rude were fighters. Their bodies could take the hit—but to them, ether was a weapon, not a language. Their brute force might literally break the key. As for Lance... he was a mage, but his grasp of ether was twisted, almost painful. He shaped ether the way a lunatic sees faces in the cracks of a wall.
"Don't forget," Tas whispered, "we have one more person with high ether synchronization."
He nodded at Siren.
Silence fell.
"That plague-ridden reject?" Rude scowled, as if personally offended. He might be blunt, but he wasn't stupid—he knew someone infected with ether-plague was hardly an ideal candidate.
"Don't jump to conclusions," Tas repeated, this time with steel in his voice. "Yes, he's infected. Yes, he doesn't understand the formula. But I'll wager my life he's got the highest sync rate of any of us here."
The three Terrians exchanged a long look.
They had witnessed it themselves—the miracle the infected had shown. Siren moved through the underground labyrinth as if he already knew where the traps lay. Ether rifts, unstable zones—he avoided them with uncanny precision, never once caught. It didn't look like intuition—it felt like the ether was whispering the path to him.
Maybe it really was a gift—manifested by an extraordinary ether synchronization level. And still, no one could say for sure whether the key's backlash would tear him apart.
And Tas's plan? At its core—it was just to throw Siren forward like bait, to test whether he could withstand the pressure. And if he couldn't—Tas would step in himself.
"So what?" Lance's voice rang out, amused. "I like your style."
He grinned, watching Tas like he was looking into a mirror of his own cruelty.
"You're going to send him in to disarm the bomb for you?"
"If he can't do it—I'll do it myself," the priest answered coldly.
He sounded certain.
But inside, it was different. He knew exactly how dangerous this was. Knew that if Siren failed—his chances of surviving were nearly zero. And even if everything went according to plan, the most Tas could hope for was to buy himself a few seconds. Just a few.