Albur looked around in confusion, totally not aware of what happened.
"Are you guys arguing?"
"N-no...we're not."
"We're debating."
"Debating what?"
"What M-"
Mysty grasped onto Havoc's flash drive body. His words became muffled. Albur rose his right arm to scratch his head, but soon remembered he don't have one, so he use the left one instead.
After a while, the virus liquid pouring down from B3 came to a stop. They flowed slowly from a waterfall to thin streams, then became dripping, then finally came to a stop.
Albur and Mysty noticed it, the water level of the virus liquid even begun to slowly lower. Albur stared at the floor, he slowly chuckled.
"We survived! We survived the flood!"
Mysty looked at the holes on the ceiling. Thinking that is this really the time to be happy?
But then, as Albur stopped laughing, he realized something. He begun looking around, at stare at the surface of the virus liquid.
"What's wrong? Kid?"
"We have to find where the water flows! If the water level is lowering then there is a hole! We're finding that and get to B5!"
Havoc immediately understood what Albur meant. Mysty sat up straight, and slowly observed the flowing of the virus liquid. But the liquid is still, its hard to tell where the liquid flows.
Albur had his eyes peeled and stared at the liquid level, trying to see where it flows. Havoc is just disturbed to see drowned virus lifeforms. Mysty stared cautiously at the walls, ensuring they don't suddenly collapse. If they do, she would notice it.
The liquid level kept lowering and lowering, Albur still couldn't find where the hole is. Mysty tried to find anything they could use to move the boat forward and find the crack, though Havoc remained still and did nothing helpful.
Mysty tried using her adventure hiking stick's grapple hook mode, she launched the hook claw onto a wall, which fortunately did not crack. She pulled the rope with all her strength, making the boat go forwards. Albur want to help, but Mysty signaled him to focus on looking for the current.
He gently nodded, then moved his vision onto the virus liquid. Nothing.
Mysty fired the grapple hook at another direction and pulled the boat forward to it, then again, and again and again.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing.
.....nothing.
"Fine, Albur, let's just wait until the water is fully cleare, then we find the way down." Havoc said as he look at Albur opened his eyes so wide they are gonna pop out of his eye sockets.
Albur sighed, and retracted his head back into the hemisphere boat. Mysty panted in exhaustion as she put down her hiking stick.
"You're very strong as well huh, Robin. You should participate in tug of war."
Mysty blinked, she looked at her hands, then scoffed.
"Not as strong as my teeth. I once bit on a pipe and destroyed countless glitch machines."
Havoc laughed silently, with Albur staring at the lowering virus liquid.
They patiently waited, seconds and minutes passed by, the ceiling stopped dripping virus liquid. The liquid level at last reached to the point it barely wet the shoes. Most of the virus liquid were drained to B5, the hemisphere boat hit the floor.
The two climbed out of the hemisphere boat, Havoc seperated the hexagon shards before dispersing them into virus particles and recalled them.
They shone their flashlight around, this floor is way more ruined due to the collapsing just now. Their flash light begun to flicker due to the dense virus particles in the atmosphere interrupting the flash lights from working properly.
They scouted around the area, there's nothing really special in particular. They soon reached a part of B4 where the ground has very large amount of cracks. The two both agreed that this place is not safe to investigate.
But as they turned around and were about to leave, one step of Albur's suddenly spread the crack of the ground behind him. It was loud, crunchy, and echoes in the empty carpark.
Albur froze, he stiffly turned around and looked at the cracks behind him. Mysty had her eyes wide open, she slowly raised her hand.
"Hold still Albur....."
"I am....."
He slowly lifted his foot and stepped forward, the crack spreaded again..
"Slowly...don't rush it..."
"Wait, can't we get to B5 through this hole?"
"God knows what's down there, plus, the virus liquid should flood the entire B5 already."
"Oh yeah."
Albur slowly lifted his other foot up, but still, the crack isn't because of Albur stepped on it too hard, it's because the floor itself is already extremely fragile.
Albur took slow and careful steps forward, despite the floor cracked more, it is still far away from collapsing.
Everything could have gone smoothly, but it didn't. Not far from the two, 2 virus lifeforms walked next to each other. They both are from a pack that was previously attacked by glitched ones, they managed to escape and come out alive thanks to the flood. One of them noticed Albur and Mysty. Its anger of starvation drove it to attack the two of them. It screeched at Mysty.
Mysty turned around sharply, Albur rose his head and looked at the virus lifeform. That virus lifeform roared louder and begun approaching her. Its buddy placed its claw on its back, and gently hissed, seemingly telling it not to attack. But it just shook off its buddy's claw and screeched at it. It turned to Mysty again.
Mysty took out her twin pistols and fired at it. The hungry virus lifeform hopped around to dodge the bullets. It then lowered its body and pounced towards Mysty.
"Albur! Look out!"
Mysty ducked, Albur managed to dodge sideways. The virus lifeform landed on the cracked ground. Its hard landing further damaged the fragile ground. As expected, the floor collapsed, the floor began to break and fall into B5. The virus lifeform tried to escape, but it is too late. It fell into B5.
Albur quickly pushed his leg hard on the ground that is fallimg apart to give him enough force to leap forwards. With Mysty pulling him as well, he managed to escape the collapsing ground. The collapse spreaded, the hard pounce also made some of the walls to fall down and ceiling to break apart. Albir and Mysty stayed at the edge of the hole while looking back down.
At B5, however, for some reasons, the floor isn't flooded at all, not even a puddle of virus liquid is seen. The virus lifeform that fell in previously landed head first on the ground, badly injured. Its hard landing on the ground shook the structure. The ceiling above it begun to crack and fall apart. Debris of the ceiling all all over its body.
After a while, the ashes cleared and the trembling stopped. Albur and Mysty panted as they look down at the pile of rocks and boulders in the hole leading to B5 after they backed away a little from the hole.
But just as they look at B5, the other virus lifeform ran towards them. But instead of attacking them, it stayed next to them, looking at the pile of rocks and boulders. It looked around anxiously, soon it noticed purple liquid leaking out from beneath a giant boulder. It shrieked, it slowly lowered its head into the hole and sniffed that liquid, it was its buddy's blood. It froze, with its body trembling, it slowly retracted its head.
It then rose its head into the air and let out an ear-piercing, sorrowful screech. Albur cautiously took out his rifle and aimed at that virus lifeform. But it does not have the will to fight, it simply made silent growling sounds, then turned around and left the area.
Albur looked towards the sorrowful creature with his rifle pointed at it, then back at B5, he slowly lowered his rifle. Mysty stared at it for longer until its silhouette vanishes into the dark.
"That's actually kinda sad."
"They are just innocent people, mutated by Cluster.....that jackass."
"They are just....surviving..."
Albur sighed, then moved his focus back on B5.
"Guess we are going down."
Mysty sighed, she moved her head from left to right. She backed away a little, then leaped down into B5, landing on the pile of rocks. Albur followed up, but when he landed he could not maintain his balance. When he was about to fall backwards, Mysty shot her hand at him and grabbed his shirt, preventing him from falling backwards.
Albur slowly breathed, worried for a second he would have a serious injury. He slowly leaned forwards and steadied his stance, pressing his feet down hard.
"Careful."
Albur chuckled, but Mysty kept grasping onto his shirt. He silently stared at her for a while, Mysty raised an eyebrow and looked at him.
"Uh...miss? You may...let go."
Mysty realized it, she quickly let go of Albur, with her face blushing bright red. Albur adjusted his clothes and made a cold chuckle. The two of them slid down from the pile of rocks, and took a glance at their surroundings.
B5 is relatively cleaner compared to other floors. Albur noticed there are a lot of drains here, which explains why the virus liquid did not flood this level. He remembered Rhea mentioning this place is the location of one of the cores of the tumor. He put his hand on his hip, his right side of the hip feels extremely empty though.
"So now what?"
Mysty tapped her foot on the floor multiple times out of irritation. She looked at the telescopic bag on her back. Then suddenly, she had an idea.
She took off the bag and begun searching in it, Albur gazed at her.
"What are you doing?"
"Where is it? Where is it? Uh.....aha!"
Mysty stood up after she took out a device from the bag. Albur took a closer look, and realized it's the energy detector.
"Wait, yeah! I nearly forgot about it!"
Mysty examined the energy detector, she looked at the buttons, then pressed one of them. The device began vibrating, then, its screen enlarged and turned into a hologram, which showed the high energy source locations.
Mysty pointed it around the car park, then spotted it somewhere far away from them. It is located 3 kilometers away from them.
"Ooh....this is far...." said Albur.
Mysty thought for a second, then handed the device to Albur.
"I think letting you lead is better."
Albur blinked,
"Why?"
"I mean you are the one that led us after Johnson was gone during the last infection. I...trust your leadership more than mine."
"Eh? But..."
Mysty still pressed the energy detector into Albur's hands. He personally thinks Mysty leads better, it turns out she thinks the opposite. Not sure why Mysty thinks so, but he still took the energy detector.