Masteria Online: Shattering the Dark God's Grand Scheme-Chapter 99 - Sphere
They moved quickly, beginning to move through the administrative offices. As they moved, they rounded everyone up, to perform on the spot verification.
"Sorry, sorry!" Dahni apologized profusely to each one. "Security sweep! The Aria Knights are here, we’re checking everyone!"
With a glance at Jin, the man would grimace, stating that "Feeling the lightning out isn’t so simple," yet he would still do his job and verify everyone.
Their identifications were also checked, now that they had Dahni with them who could verify identifications. More importantly, they had him cross-reference against his own personnel records.
Word spread quickly. By the time they reached the third office, workers were already gathered in the hallways, nervously discussing what little they knew."
In the main conference room, they found a dozen staff members huddled together. They too were tested, both from Jin and Dahni.
They found a seal that moved strangely stiff and robotic. He was like a statue as he presented his papers. Lumi glanced at Jin, but he gave a shrug. "Feels fine."
"Hey," Lumi turned to the seal. "Why are you moving like that?"
"A-ah? Like that?" The seal blinked, confused. "Y-you, like, no, I promise I’m a seal! I’m just nervous, sorry."
Lumi gently put his hand on the seal. "Don’t worry, friend." He gripped the skin just a bit tighter. It felt soft like skin. Or perhaps... synthetic skin. "I would like to apologize in advance, the final test will hurt a bit."
"Wha-" The seal’s question was cut off as a staff was suddenly thrust in his body. "Ah!" The seal fell and cowered, "Please no, no!"
"..." Lumi, Susie, and the Knights looked at each other for a bit.
Lumi didn’t let the incident linger. "As I said, my apologies. You have proved your innocence. That was all."
The seal stopped wailing, and blinked. "S-sorry."
They moved on to checking the others. After several minutes, Lumi announced. "You’re all clear." Everyone let a sigh of relief out.
"Have you checked the others?" asked a seal supervisor. "My team in maintenance, are they safe?"
"We’re heading there next." Lumi assured her. "Lock this door after we leave. Don’t open it for anyone unless there’s an emergency."
They continued through the upper levels of the building. Most workers were legitimate, frightened but real. Nearing a storage closet near the emergency stairs, Zara suddenly stopped.
"Wait." she said softly, holding up a hand as they approached. "Something’s wrong. That door, it’s been forced recently. The lock’s damaged from the inside."
Lumi nodded, motioning for combat positions. "Dahni, stay back. Everyone else, ready." Lumi gestured for Valeria to go in.
Valeria yanked the door open, and two figures lunged out, a seal and a penguin moving in perfect synchronization as their weapons honed in on Valeria.
[Infiltrator Penguin Bot - Level 34] [Infiltrator Seal Bot - Level 35]
"Take them!" Valeria shouted, meeting the infiltrator’s charge with her blade. She sliced through them cleanly, and just afterwards, attacks from Lumi, Zara, Jin, and Susie landed on them, immediately destroying them.
[EXP +89]
[EXP +91]
Valeria forced her way further inside. From every shadow and corner, a blade or projectile was extended towards her vitals, threatening to take her out. She stood her ground, gripping her blade behind her with two hands.
A vision of the moon itself appeared above her head, and she declared loudly as she channeled. "Visions of Celestia Flicker!"
She dashed forward in an instant, leaving behind the illusion of a moon being sliced in half. Then, the area she had just slashed through detonated with countless cuts, severely harming or outright disabling many infiltrators.
The rest of the Knights poured in. With swift gestures, Lumi and Jin went left, with Zara and Susie going right. Waving his wand, Lumi began filling the area with piercing light, forcing the enemy to tank the hits. Jin took the opportunity to slam forward. "Thunder Crash!" He generated a wave of seawater, flooding it with lightning as he slammed into an injured bot, directly destroying it.
[EXP +91]
One of the bots, nearly destroyed from Valeria’s attack, struggled to get up. The infiltrator produced concealed blades from its flippers, spinning like a top as it tried to carve through their formation.
Lumi’s Light Shower punched holes through its torso, but it kept coming. He quickly teleported away. "Finish that one!"
"Noted!" Jin replied, crashing down hard on the enemy. The wave pushed the enemy away, leaving Jin unharmed by the blade while the bot was reduced to a malfunctioning mess.
"Light Shower." With one last spell, the Infiltrator was rendered useless.
To the right, Zara’s shadows grabbed an infiltrator, piercing through its chest. Since he had the time, "Light Shower!" Lumi very quickly sent a spell over to do a bit of damage before Susie finished it. The bot spasmed, internal circuits frying, before Zara sliced once more, severing something vital.
[EXP +89]
The hardest infiltrators for Lumi to tag were the ones Valeria would confront. Very often it was a matter of a single skill to defeat them, so Lumi had to pay attention to what Valeria was going after next to quickly land a spell before Valeria’s blade destroyed it.
[EXP +91]
With the destruction of that bot, all five infiltrators were destroyed, leaving the group to examine the closet. "Unmarked boxes..." Zara observed, examining what they’d been hiding among. "Cleaning supplies... and these." She held up several small devices. "Explosives."
"By the depths," Dahni gasped. "They could have killed everyone up here!"
"But they didn’t." Lumi said grimly. "Either they didn’t get to, or they had a different objective in mind."
"Let me," Susie reached a hand over, "I can disarm them."
"No need," Zara waved her concern away, "I already did it. Special skill."
"Ah."
Lumi looked over, "If they are disarmed, let me have them."
"Hm?" Zara was visibly confused, but passed them. "What are you-"
[Type-114b Explosive Sphere]
Lumi directly stored all thirteen of them in his inventory.
"We move on."
