Chapter 154: Untouched

Chapter 154: Untouched "Lira is going to go ahead to scout while we trail slowly behind. Watch your steps."

Orion’s voice was steady as he briefed his teammates on the details of the mission.

"It’s just a scouting mission. We go into one of the abandoned outpost that have been discovered lately and we report back the findings to the camp."

"We aren’t expected to engage in combat as no life forces have been detected prior, but stay on guard for unexpected situations. There might be some set traps at the outpost or we might even be ambushed."

"Stay on your toes and try to keep up. Got that?"

"Yes, boss!"

Orion said to his three teammates as they were about to step into the region where the outpost was located.

The area ahead was filled with lush trees and rocky cliffs painting a unique and extreme picture across their minds.

"We need to finish before the mid day fog."

"I can already see it’s shadow rolling in!"

Lira’s voice came rolling in from ahead as she spotted the fog which always encased the whole region from noon, making it more dangerous than it already was.

It never truly vanished, it only retreated, crawling back slowly, taking over the entire region by noon

It was quite far from their destination and they had more than enough time to play with. As long as they didn’t do anything stupid.

"Let’s go then."

Orion said, leading the remaining two as they dived into the region while taking cautious steps as they followed the path relayed to them by their scout Lira.

CRUNCH!

TAP!

TAP!

The sounds of sticks breaking beneath their rapid steps broke through the serenity of the area as they approached the location of the outpost.

"Hold!"

Orion raised his fist and the two behind him paused their steps, looking around cautiously while waiting for the next order from their boss.

Their bodies were tense, with hands already on their weapons, ready to draw them and activate their ability at the slightest sign of danger.

Orion himself was a powerhouse amongst the recruits, and it was clear that his subordinates weren’t lacking either.

"It’s clear!"

He said to them, looking back.

He had gotten the go ahead from Lira. There were no traps in this region making it safe for them to move across.

"Hold!"

Orions voice came again shortly after.

About ten minutes passed in silence as they remained in the same position, waiting for the call of Orion.

The man in charge was already with a small frown on his face.

Lira was a level 7 scout. She was no noob to the job. If she hadn’t given a report in the last ten minutes then she must have encountered something beyond her.

He was starting to consider going forward to find out what happened, when Lira showed up in front of him.

"Calm down, you hot blooded fools!"

She screamed silently at the two behind Orion.

Their weapons were on the ready and aimed at her, literally micro seconds away from attacking her. They all withdrew at the sight of the familiar face and let out small sighs of relief.

"What took you so long?"

Orion questioned for the reason behind the delay. She hadn’t even responded to the calls.

"There’s something wrong."

"What is it?"

Orion asked, he could see the deep frown on her face. It seemed really serious.

"Just ahead is a whole defence field filled with active traps."

"That shouldn’t be a problem though. We can just carve a—"

"Completely filled!"

Her sharp voice cut into his words, completely silencing him.

"That shouldn’t be possible though!"

The other recruit spoke up and things became to feel eerie.

The camp had lost contact with this monitoring outpost, which suggested that something must have happened to them.

All the previous levels of defense seemed to have been breached. They had seen several triggered explosives and signs of battle, but hearing that the final and most sophisticated line of defense remained untouched was beyond suspicious.

"You saying they were defeated outside the outpost? That doesn’t make any sense at all."

The first recuit said, expressing their thoughts.

"Could the camp’s information be wrong?"

Lira turned to Orion, the person who took up the mission personally.

"I don’t think so."

He responded after a while.

"They didn’t get close enough to conduct a detailed check. That’s why we are here. All they did was a long distance life force detection and confirmed that there were no soldiers left in the camp. At least no one left alive."

He recapped the details of the mission.

"That’s not the issue now. Whatever it is, we would have to get into the outpost first to find out!"

One of the two male recuits said.

"There is one way though"

"The front?"

"Yeah, it’s the only way we can go in without making any of the traps go off"

The two discussed lightly amongst themselves.

"Did you check, Lira?"

Orion came in after listening for a while.

"Yeah, I did. I don’t like to agree, but it’s the safest and most reasonable option."

"Hmm. We’ll take the front then, but forget what the mission said previously. Assume there are enemies inside and they’ve somehow managed to take over."

"That means we’re most likely going to lose our stealth factor the moment we use the front!"

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

"Clear!"

The three voices spoke in uniform without waiting for Orion to ask. They were clear on what to do.

If there were indeed monsters in the outpost, then they couldn’t move so subtly again.

The mission would automatically change to a strike and clear mission. Making it an all out battle.

Yet none of them cowered at the though of having facing what was possibly a group of monsters that had taken out a full outpost filled with full trained soldiers with just their few numbers.

They didn’t doubt their ability to escape if things fell through and went south.

"Let’s go then!"

"Alright, I’ll lead the way."

Lira said taking her role as the scout.

...

"How far are they?"

"I don’t know, not too far I guess!"

"You guess? You know the last time I tried following a team, I almost ended up dead. My whole team did!"

"Oh, something like that happened? I had no idea! How did you escape though?"

"If it was that bad."

"Well, you never asked. And I awakened then. Don’t ask cause I don’t know how either, but when I woke up, I was in the infirmary and the monster was dead, I guess"

Kieran gave a vague summary of the mission during which he had awakened his ability.

"Must have seen a trigger!"

Jake said lightly, slashing through the branches with his sword.

"Trigger?"

Kieran was slightly confused. This was another term he had never heard before.

"Well, I said before that people have different ways of awakening. Some awakenings were triggered by some kind of trauma or a significant event. From what you said, you might have encountered a trigger."

"Maybe the shock from the monster you faced. That’s the most common case in situations like that!"

Jake explained to him.

"Yeah...!"

Kieran muttered absent mindedly, clear memories of Derrick’s lifeless body hitting the ground flashing in his mind.

That was the last thing he remembered from that night before his vision was filled with nothing but red and black streaks and he passed out.

Oh! He couldn’t forget that voice he had heard too. He couldn’t remember the words, but he knew that it was definitely talking to him.

Ever since he had confirmed his awakening in the lab, he had barely encountered Derrick or Richard and neither of them seemed to want to talk about what happened that night. Each party was avoiding it for whatever reason, but they would have to talk about it sooner or later.

"How far out are we? We might get caught by the fog if we get lost!"

Kieran asked Jake again. He was the one with the map. After the events that happened when he last tracked, he wasn’t that enthusiastic to hold one.

"Well, I can definitely say that we’re close to the outpost. We’ll be reaching the first sets of traps soon. I can’t say anything about Orion though. I can’t even sense them at all!"

"Sigh, let’s move."

Kieran said, walking ahead.

Orion seemed to have many enemies, and had taken caution as a second nature.

Kieran did some digging of his own and he was suprised to see that the recruits had taken up several missions under the identity of several recruits, just to throw people off.

If not for Jake’s information, they would have ended up on a void chase.

"Wait!"

Jake’s voice came to his ears and he looked back to the wild giant.

"Somethings wrong. We’ve passed the first two levels."

Jake said, staring deeply at the holographic map projecting from his watch.

"Two levels?"

Kieran could feel something odd looming over them.

They had just passed two levels of traps without triggering anything.

Even if the outpost had been taken down, there would still be some active traps.

It was like they had been....

"Deactivated."

Jake completed his thoughts, his eyes flashing with caution.

"That’s not all. Look ahead. I can smell it, you should be able to see it!"

Jake said lightly.

"What exactly is going on?"

Kieran muttered as his eyes revealed the energy flow of the area just a few steps in front of him.

The entire place was riddled with with traps.

Every. Single. Step.

More strangely, he could see some weird silhouettes he had never seen before.

Their ambush mission had just gotten interesting.