Every step brought them deeper into the guts of the facility. It was a giant labyrinth under the surface, but at least the parts they were in now were filled with light. ‘Honestly, I preferred the darkness,’ John thought, as the artificial white of the lamps in the endless corridors burned themselves into his retinas.

It was only thanks to Gnome that they had any idea where they were in the first place, with the stone elemental scanning out the cavities. She had detected several rooms, and they had to search through every single one of those. It was already 9 PM; John checked his phone to see how things were going above ground.

At least on a macro scale, they were still doing good. He had no info on how the fight for Warsaw itself was going; nobody bothered to keep that updated. Probably because they were all preoccupied. Alternatively, they were dead; he had been down here for half an hour already. He pushed that possibility off as being failure by default.

Somewhere down here Rave was searching as well. He hadn’t seen her since they disembarked the giant. It was just him and his familiars, making their way down this seemingly empty facility. Where was everyone? Had they left, and if yes, where?

He went through the rooms that occasionally appeared or he found. He found old food, not mouldy yet but dried out and cold, at least several days old. Was this where the elite units had been hanging out before…

“We have to get out of here!” John finally heard a voice. Well, not he himself, but Sylph, who had flown down another corridor, just as Salamander and Jack had, to widen the scope of their search. John immediately started to move into her direction.

“We don’t,” that voice John recognized, it was the supreme fateweaver himself. That didn’t make sense, Magoi said there was no other fateweaver present, otherwise they would have had a way harder time breaking in. “We are in place.”

“You don’t get it! The city is under attack, my daughter is not safe here!” Now that confirmed who John was listening to here. Lydia’s father sounded genuinely worried. How did Lydia’s anger towards him, him siding with the communists and the Blood having access to Prussian artefacts all fit together?

He could come up with numerous theories, but until he got the missing information, the reason why Lydia lied about his death, he had nothing but a pretty good idea. He would learn soon enough anyway. It would take about 5 more minutes; the two of them didn’t seem to have noticed him yet.

‘How awfully convenient,’ John thought; how unimportant to the Blood’s plan must Lydia have been if they were willing to postpone even informing her father about their course of action for this long. ‘But still, why is he here? Why did he let us get in?’

The realization hit John like a wave of cold water crashing over him, and he sped up as he ran around the corner Sylph had taken. It was pretty obvious that Lydia’s father had been involved in the acquirement in the Teutonic crosses; his condition in return would have been to save his daughter. The Blood agreed because they thought they’d succeed in taking out Romulus and then the rest of Europe. What was the saving of one monarch compared to taking out the greatest obstacle in the world?

Now that that had failed, however, Lydia and their promise to her father were without merit to them. What was the logical conclusion? They would use her as bait. Romulus had announced on live television and for the whole world to hear that he would get Lydia back in the name of his old friend. When the emperor of the strongest guild on the planet announced something, one better take it serious.

That meant, logically, that Romulus would send in a group of special forces once he would know where the princess’ location was. By making that location a place that the Blood didn’t really care about, they could turn it into a giant trap.

In other words, Gehnigm had let them in on purpose so he could use the city barrier as his cage. Then John and everyone else that was inside the city would be completely surrounded, and Gehnigm could transport soldiers inside as he pleased, being much more capable than Magoi, according to the High Fateweaver himself, and just tire them out.

If that happened, getting Lydia out of her imprisonment just moved her cell from a room to city in size. It was better but not by much. He had to take down the Supreme Fateweaver before that happened. He was almost there now, Lydia’s father formulating a heartfelt plea against the scarcely speaking Gehnigm. “Please, my daughter can be of great use to the revolution; I know her heart is in the right place,” he urged.

“She has internalized the monarchy. The proletariat was fine with trying to bring her on the right path in peace. She is lost in war,” Gehnigm held his opinion. “This is an order. We are to use her. Will you choose her or will you choose the true path?”

“…I obey the dictate of the party,” the man gave in, and at that moment John could only share Lydia’s anger towards the spineless coward. He would protect his daughter only if it was easy? What the hell was that?

John put his phone away moments before he stormed around the corner. “The Gamer?!” “Already?” the two men reacted with a satisfying amount of surprise. Good to see that their plan may have been good but their information network was severely lacking.

Gehnigm was wearing his usual mask, blue, gold and black metal forged into thick strands and interwoven into a head covering artwork that ended in four horn-like protrusions. He had changed his highly decorated suit for the same boring uniform that every other one of the Blood’s higher ups were wearing.

John, repressing some boasting or other flashy entrances in order to not waste time, brought down his right hand. Holding a green whip made from interwoven vines and a grip made from fresh and still alive wood, it extended and wrapped around the Fateweaver’s body. The moment it connected with Gehnigm, roots started growing out of it, wrapping him up in a network of tightening plant-life.

This whip was the item-form of the combination between Gnome and Undine, a girl called Nadine. John pulled the whip tight and immediately followed the surprise attack up, now close enough, by pointing his left hand at his target and unleashing the stored Mana Blade.

The shadow-infused spell cut forward, and then the physical world distorted around Gehnigm, causing him to simply step out of the bindings and leaving the tip of John’s attack curved around him. ‘FUCK,’ John cursed himself and immediately went on the offensive again.

However, he was immediately stopped by the man he had regarded as second-rate. With incredible speed, Lydia’s father got in between John and the Supreme Fateweaver. ‘Time to finally learn the guys name.’

‘Yes, I am very much aware, but I don’t feel remotely connected to this man,’ John thought and looked at the man. His face was covered in unhealthy looking patches of darker skin, eyes sunken and empty. He only had a remainder of brown hair he seemed to desperately cling to by giving it the only care his whole body experienced.

The man shouldn’t have been a threat, his stats were abysmal. He wasn’t strong, he wasn’t quick, he wasn’t smart, he was a nothing. However, the armour he wore made him a genuine threat.

What a waste of a charged item. The polished armour with the bad paint job looked like it should have been on a knight, not a traitorous son-in-law with visible drug caused illnesses.

John took two steps backwards, and Aclysia immediately took to the space between them. “You will stay away from my girl!” the man shouted.

“She wants you dead, what makes you think she is your girl?!” John screamed back but ignored him in an attempt to grapple Gehnigm again. The Fateweaver had raised his arm in an attempt to escape.

“Magoi,” he said in an annoyed voice when it didn’t work. He probably could have broken through anyway if it wasn’t for John interrupting him again. The world distorted, the room, little more than a broader corridor, winded like a corkscrew, the floor spiralled.

John hadn’t just engaged the Supreme Fateweaver, FORMER Supreme Fateweaver, without a plan or precautions. Knowing of the chances of facing him here, he had informed himself about the man in advance. The reason why Gehnigm was so much stronger than his peers was fairly simple: he had an Innate Ability that allowed him to manipulate dimensions.

Natural Fateweavers were rare in the first place, but having a natural gift for something related to that line of work as well? Not to mention one on that power level? Gehnigm was a monster amongst Fateweavers.

But a monster amongst non-fighters wasn’t a monster to John. He threw out a unified Shardbound that flew straight at Gehnigm only to have its linearity curved under dimensional restructuring.

The second, and much more recent, part of John’s preparation had been to tell Magoi to brace for the Supreme Fateweaver to try an escape. As long as he was halfway occupied, Gehnigm shouldn’t have been able to muster the necessary power to break through. Which meant that it was John’s highest goal to keep doing that.

Not quite as easy when you were being attacked by a heavily buffed fanatic who hated and wanted to spill your guts on the basis of being told so. Lydia’s father was unimportant to John’s goals, he was just there, he was just a man. Nothing, that was what he was, a nothing carried by his armour. Literally, as the attributes had told John, the armour was telling Ivan’s body what to do.

John had the elementals keep distracting the man, but he was actually holding his ground. With elegant movements, he reflected blows with his shadow-born shield while carrying his light sword with unrelenting precision. The movements were mechanical but effective, and if John had pulled anyone off the man, he could easily see himself getting stabbed in the back a moment later. This was despite Gnome and Undine joining the fight after Nadine’s 5 minutes ran out.

Of course, this was in large part thanks to Gehnigm. The fateweaver reordered the room however it was most advantageous form him and his ally. It stretched, waved and winded like a snake made from rubber. John tried to catch the masked man and get him involved in a melee. With Purgatory fully stacked, that much should have been easily possible.

But it wasn’t; he ran and he ran, but the ground underneath his feet just moved like a treadmill. What could he do? Would Sylph be able to fly towards him? No, he already had shown the ability to manipulate air just as well. ‘Sylph’s head would sooner explode in confusion than she would catch the guy, and Salamander won’t be fast enough. I need Nia, or someone with abilities just like that guy,’ John thought.

In the perceived distance, it looked like it was over a hundred metres, but John had no idea of knowing for sure, Gehnigm raised his hand. John was getting desperate. If they got nailed here, that was it. Encircled this deep into enemy territory, it wouldn’t matter how good they were, they would die from the constant assaults.

‘I need someone to counter this power!’ he screamed in his mind. ‘Something, anything! I need to save Lydia, and I need to have our route out secured.’

Now that was an effect he couldn’t use at all in the current situation. Something connected to his mind as he was asking himself where that came from. It felt much like his connection to Momo or Aclysia, but less elaborate and efficient. Their connection felt like a well-maintained highway, this new one like a three-day route through a desert without any oasis in sight.

The voice that connected to him went through two different languages he didn’t understand before a woman with a mild middle-eastern accent finally asked him in a mildly aggressive and cheeky tone.