171 (III) Follow current novels on 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵·𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖·𝙣𝙚𝙩 Five let out a wince. "Well, that will be difficult. There are a great many armories in this prison. Any number of guard cubes could have taken your equipment into their storage before transferring it to a specialized vault. I wouldn't be surprised if your equipment is already long gone." That filled Shiv with a flare of brief anger. It wasn't that everything he had was irreplaceable, but good armor was hard to come by, but leaving here without his cape… That was going to be an arduous process. Shiv might need to do some mourning— The insides of their Guard Cube flared red. A wailing alarm sounded as a voice droned through the room. "Unauthorized teleportation detected. Teleportation anchor compromised. Alerting nearby cubes." A string of mana circulated out from their current Guard Cube, and a few dozen others past the Zenith and Zeroth Cubes came alight as well. Shiv grimaced. "What the hells just happened?" But Five wasn't looking at him anymore. Instead, he was staring down the hall where the teleportation anchor was. Dimensionality mana was spilling through the open door. Shiv’s insides tightened. “Rebis, wait—” Rebis vanished from sight. Shiv halted time. The amalgam went still right at the doorway of the teleportation anchor. A dense dome of Chronomancy ballooned out from around him. Shiv was beside him a second later, and a whistling breath escaped the Deathless as he found his instincts rewarded. There, standing within the teleportation anchor and looking like a lump of beaten meat, was Bonk. With Rebis just a meter away, Shiv wasn't sure how small a fraction of a second the orc had been away from death. His intervention had been nothing but timely. The orc, meanwhile, had seen better days with how swollen his face was. More importantly, he was missing one of his legs, and his club had been replaced by someone's war axe instead. But Shiv found a smile spreading across his face as he realized Bonk was wearing his cape, and if Bonk had his cape, he probably had his other stuff too, maybe even including his armor. Shiv shot the Chronomantically sealed Rebis a brief glance as he considered what to do. If he resumed time, he had little doubt that Bonk would be torn apart, and though the orcs cared little about dying, Shiv owed Bonk quite a few debts by this point. He knew what the orc was and how he behaved, but still, Bonk had freed Shiv by causing a massive prison break. Without him doing that, Shiv might still be in an Orichalcum cell, facing down an Ascendant. What's more, Bonk brought the cape back. The cape. And it was with greedy delight that Shiv took the cape off the orc, and then promptly placed the orc in said cape. But before he did, he swept his Aegis of Assimilation through Bonk and consumed the orc's injuries. But upon doing so, he realized there was a problem. The orc had multiple cancers building inside of him, likely from having consumed too many regeneration potions recently. That's not good, Shiv thought to himself. Not good at all. I can't fix those. He needs a proper Biomancer, or I need some more time figuring out how cancers work. At least I have my book back. Been a while since I had a one-sided chat with Ekkihurst… With the orc stuffed inside his cape. Shiv felt his temporal shell crack apart as he quickly jumped to the left side of Rebis. A cleaving wing tore through the space where Bonk had been, and a long gash spread across the walls. Shiv winced as the Orichalcum screamed. It wasn't enough to split it clean through, but there was a deep scratch, and more than that, there was a lingering glow of bright-white mana that made Shiv wary of the Pathbearer's powers. "Where?" Rebis cried out. "I felt them I heard them where are they! Where are they?" "Right, Rebis." Shiv held out a hand. He spoke with authority but calmness in his voice as the tormented Pathbearer twitched. He looked at Shiv with an expectant expression, and the Deathless continued. "That was the person I was going to try and look for. He's the one that set you free! His name is Bonk. He's an orc. And you are not to talk with him." And for the first time, as Rebis continued twitching, a glint of confusion showed in his human eye. "But why? Why can't I speak to him? Why can't I cut him down? Orc! Orc!” "Exactly because he's an orc," Shiv said. "What's this about an orc?" Five scrambled down the hall, looking at Shiv and Rebis. "Ah, Insul," a loud voice sounded from the insides of Shiv's cape. “You found me, or more like I got lucky and found you. I'm surprised that you haven't left already. Could it be that you stayed here trying to find me first? You really didn't have to…" Shiv didn't bother replying to the orc. "Alright, everyone, meet Bonk. Bonk, there are two other people out here. They’re helping us get out.” "Making friends so quickly, I see," Bonk commented. He chuckled at the end, but Five now looked at Shiv with a wary expression. You could be reading stolen content. Head to NovelHub for the genuine story. "You said your friend is an orc?" The wolf-man let out a noise of discomfort. "You do know what orcs are like, right?" "Yeah, I do," Shiv said. "Frankly, I'm probably more versed in their nature than you are. I'm, uh…" Shiv paused as he considered how much he wanted to tell. He decided he wanted to lay it all out in the open just to make things plain. "I am a Vaketh-Insul. I don't know if there's another one on Integrated Earth at the moment, but I know I am in charge of a good number of orcs. No, I don't intend to let him kill you. No, you probably shouldn't interact with him; otherwise, he might end up killing you anyway. No, Rebis, if you see the orc, you're probably going to kill him, because he's definitely going to stare at you." "I will not," Bonk said, sounding like a petulant child. "I will not stare pointlessly unless there's a reason to stare." "Oh, there's a reason for you not to stare," Shiv said. "Now, why did you have to put it that way?" Bonk complained, sounding frustrated. "Now I really do want to stare." "And that's why you're staying inside the cape for now." "I break you out of prison, and this is the thanks I get?" Bonk spat. "Yeah, it is the thanks you get," Shiv declared. "Because if I didn't give you this thanks, you'd be on the ground in several pieces right now. A Legendary Pathbearer nearly tore you in half." "You would have fixed me, or I would have died, and then I would have gained a new nemesis." "Bonk," Shiv hissed, clenching his fist in annoyance. "We don't have time for that right now. We need to break out." He turned back to Five. "Okay, I got my cape back and…" He paused. "Bonk, is my armor in there with you somewhere?" "I tossed it in while I was escaping," Bonk called. "They didn't do a very good job confirming if I was alive or dead. That being said, I do have quite a good Play Dead Skill." The orc let out a sigh. "They didn't stop them from using my corpse as practice for their training, though. The guards here are extremely bored. I don’t blame them. So I gave them something to do!” "Explains your injuries," Shiv said. "Where did your tumors come from?" "Ah, yes. I managed to get here by torturing a Pathbearer into teleporting to a nearby cube. It was a strange thing to torture someone for, but I was desperate, because beyond the cell I was using as a point of last stand were a dozen wardens that," Bonk coughed, "might have been a bit too much beyond my capability to contend with alone." "Yeah, that's about as messy as I thought it would be," Shiv said. "Alright, well, at least you're still alive. And we're getting out of here. Rebis! Five! I got my stuff now, and I think I have a way to escape the time loop as well." "Truly?" Five asked with incredulity. "Is that related to how you managed to slip out of my cell the first time? How I briefly forgot about your existence?" Shiv's mouth fell open, but he didn't say anything. The wolf was strangely astute, and there was something about him that Shiv still couldn't place his finger on. "Something like that," Shiv said finally. "But anyway, I think we got our solution. We're right on the edge of the whole prison. I rip open the Orichalcum wall, and we go outside." Shiv was interrupted by Bonk. "You do what?" "I'll rip open the Orichalcum wall," Shiv said. "You can do that now?" Bonk asked. "How?" Shiv quirked an eyebrow. "With my Legendary-Tier skill, of course." "You're a Legend now!" Bonk cried with a disbelieving laugh. "You're ridiculous, Insul! I lose track of you for a second, and now you're a proper monster." "Yeah, I’ll catch you up once we get out. So, the plan. I’m going to make for the loop and pass through it. It should work. After that, I'll either keep going up, or I'll just find a way to figure out where we are once we're outside of this cube." Shiv let out a breath. It seemed like a good plan to him. It saved him the trouble of trying to break out level after level or fight to the central mana core and disable it, as Five had suggested earlier. "That sounds acceptable as a strategy," Five ventured, though he still seemed a little suspicious. "You are sure that you can avoid the Chronomancy? And we are to share a space with the orc?" "Yeah," Shiv said. "Probably. Don't worry, Bonk will be uh…I can't say he'll behave, but he'll do what I tell him to—because he'll be rewarded after!" Shiv declared loudly. "Oh, how wonderful!" Bonk said from within the cape. "What kind of reward?" Shiv clicked his tongue. "I'll figure it out later. Five, I need you to keep Rebis's focus on you. Make sure he doesn't see the orc and try to avoid talking to him. I'll try to make the process quick once we get through the loo—” A loud klaxon blared, and a psionic weight crashed against all of them. Rebis clutched his head and crashed down to his knees. He screamed in absolute agony, and Five flinched as if someone had struck him over the head with a hammer. Shiv held the waves of Psychomancy back, but even then, he gritted his teeth. This was a substantial amount of power. More importantly, it was infused with faint motes of incandescence. This was divinely charged, and before he could do anything, a message was conveyed. "Tanner Lowe of Blackedge." Havel Van Stormhalt's voice ground against Shiv's mind like gravel. "I understand that Cripple's words have gone unheeded, and that you've taken advantage of its kindness to escape. This is unwise, for we have returned. You are staying here in this prison. I see that you are on the verge of departing, judging from the cube that just had an uncontrolled Dimensional entry. You are staying here because Adam Arrow will be staying here, and if you leave, then you leave your comrade behind. It is a simple choice, a direct choice. I ask that you return to your cell and allow us to resume our interrogation. It will be…" The City Lord let out a grunt of disgust. "...conducted ‘properly and ethically’, this time. You have my word as well as the security offered by Cripple, if you so trust it over me. But should you try to run, and should you even manage to flee, then you will never see your companion again. Is this understood? I will not wait long for your reply. The Ascendants and the Auroral Council look forward to making your proper acquaintance, Deathless creature of Udraal’s making.” And with that, the broadcast came to an end. By that point, Shiv had cracked a tooth by clenching his jaw so hard that his bones groaned, and the faintest traces of red were beginning to creep in from the corner of his vision. His heart pounded inside his skull, and the ripples of force continued to build around him over and over. Shiv breathed in. Shiv breathed out. Shiv used his anger on Psycho-Cartography as he considered what to do next. He was briefly startled by the noise of something impacting the wall, and as he turned, he found his partially regenerated Voidmantid armor crashing onto the ground. "Well, looks like we're not leaving so soon, are we, Insul?" Bonk asked with a hint of mirth in his voice. "I think you're gonna need that for what's coming next."