Chapter 3: The Star in the Depths
Draven stood before the reinforced steel door. He peered through the narrow viewing slit. The circular room beyond was hazy, which was filled with a shimmering violet dust. In the center, there was a girl, suspended in the air by four heavy obsidian chains.
She was the tragedy of the original novel. She was a sad character. In the original plot, she was left to rot in this basement until her mind was shattered. She was turned into a weapon of Mass Destruction.
'If I leave her here, she will become the monster that will rake this world across the coals,' Draven thought. 'But more importantly, a Commander does not leave an innocent to be butchered when they are on his watch. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. She is a high-value asset, and she is a victim. That is enough reason to move.'
He opened the heavy steel door. The hinges screamed as the sound of the metal scraped against the stone.
Draven stepped inside. He walked slowly towards the girl. She did not look up at first. Her white hair was matted with grime, and her skin was so pale it was almost translucent.
"I am getting you out of here," Draven said. "Stay Calm. Do not panic."
'It was always a mystery for the readers. The Writer never really focused on the backstories of the Villains. They felt like people without Souls.' He sighed thinking of the Novel.
"Let's focus on this first."
Estella's head lifted slowly. Her eyes were wide, swirling nebulae of violet and black. She looked at his blood-stained rags, then at the rusted scalpel in his hand. She flinched, pulling weakly at her chains.
"Are you... here to finish it?" she rasped. Her voice sounded like dry leaves skittering across pavement. "The Priest... he said the sacrifice was today."
"The Priest is dead," Draven replied. He reached out, his hand hovering near the obsidian chain on her right wrist. "And I am not here to sacrifice anyone. Stay still. This might be loud."
Estella stared at him, her breathing shallow and ragged.
'Who is he?' she wondered. 'He looks like a common orphan, but his eyes are cold and sharp. He does not look at me with pity or lust. He looks at me like I am a person. Why is he risking his life for someone like me?'
Draven focused. He could feel the terrifying weakness of his current muscles. He felt lightheaded, his heart hammering against his ribs from the mere exertion of walking. He could not break these chains with raw force.
He placed his hand on the cold, dark stone of the chain.
'Everything has a frequency,' Draven thought. He focused his mind on the new power he wielded. 'Magical obsidian is dense, but it is brittle. I just need to find the resonance point where the internal tension of the mana meets the physical stress of the stone. I should put strain on the molecular structure of these chains and break them.'
CRACK.
The chain disintegrated into a fine sand that showered the floor. Estella let out a muffled cry as her right arm fell. One by one, Draven freed her left and right legs. He repeated the process with the practiced Efficiency.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
As the final chain vanished, Estella collapsed forward. Draven caught her as his thin arms buckled under the weight. Even though she was skeletal, his body was in such poor condition that the impact nearly sent him to his knees.
He managed to steady himself, hoisting her up into his arms. She was freezing.
'I need to lighten the load or we will not make it past the stairs,' he thought.
He focused his mind and started to actively fighting the gravity acting on Estella's body. He used his Telekinetic powers to create a lifting pressure, which will counteract against her weight. Instantly, she felt manageable in his arms. Though the mental strain of maintaining that kinetic lift was quite significant. It made a cold sweat break out on his forehead.
"Hold onto my neck," Draven ordered softly.
Estella weakly wrapped her arms around him. For the first time in months, she felt the warmth of another human being. She could hear his heart. A steady, rhythmic drum that did not falter even as heavy footsteps began to thunder from the floor above.
"They found the Priest!" a voice roared from the hallway. "Lock down the lower levels! Kill anyone who moves!"
Draven's mind shifted into tactical gear. He knew the main exit was up the stairs, which was now a death trap. He needed a different route. He dug into the memories of the novel he had read.
'The Hero raided this place in the future and failed miserably,' Draven recalled. 'He charged through the front door like an idiot. He won the fight, but he lost his entire party because the cult had rigged the foundations with unstable mana bombs. He never expected them to blow up their own base just to take him out.'
A cold, evil smile touched Draven's lips.
'The Hero's failure is my escape route,' he thought. 'I will use the very trap that killed his team to facilitate my exit. Sometimes, it just feels like a headache to even think about that idiot.'
"We are going down," Draven said to Estella.
"Down?" she whispered, her voice trembling. "There is nothing useful there though. There is no way out."
"Trust me," Draven said.
He turned away from the main stairs and headed toward a narrow, rusted iron spiral staircase at the back of the room.
He moved quickly, despite the burning ache in his legs. Every step felt like he was walking through mud, but he pushed through the exhaustion.
'Just a bit more. This would be useful. If this base is destroyed when it is in the preliminary phases of it's operations, then it would one less nuisance to deal with.'
They descended into the pitch-black basement levels. The air here was thick with the smell of raw, unrefined mana.
'Ugh! These people can't even clean this place!'
This was the foundation of the Church. Massive stone pillars supported the weight of the building above, and at the base of each pillar were clusters of glowing, crimson crystals.
These were the mana bombs.
Draven carried Estella toward a heavy iron drainage grate at the far end of the foundation. He could hear the armored guards hitting the bottom of the spiral stairs behind them. Torches flickered in the dark as the cultists fanned out, their shadows dancing against the stone walls.
"There they are!" a guard screamed, pointing a spear at them. "Kill the boy! Secure the prisoner!"
Draven reached the drainage grate. He set Estella down for a brief second, his fingers finding the heavy iron lock. He did not have a key, so he simply applied a sharp burst of kinetic pressure to the internal pins of the mechanism.
CLICK.
The lock snapped open. He hauled the heavy grate up, revealing a dark, sloping tunnel.
"Hold your breath," Draven said, picking Estella up again.
He looked back at the guards. They were less than twenty yards away, charging with their weapons raised.
'Time for a distraction,' Draven thought.
He raised his right hand, pointing his finger at the stone ceiling directly above the largest cluster of crimson crystals. He did not target the crystals themselves; he targeted a massive, loose stone block in the ceiling's support structure.
He slammed a crushing kinetic force into the block, accelerating it far beyond the speed of a natural fall.
The stone block ripped free from the ceiling and smashed into the mana bombs with the force of a falling meteor.
BOOOOOOOOOM!!
Draven did not stay to watch the result. He jumped into the dark drainage tunnel and pulled the grate shut above them. He used his power to lock it from the inside just as the basement erupted into a blinding, crimson inferno.
'This will work as a distraction for now.'