"What the hell...?
Does he have eyes on his back?"
Mara suddenly comnted, looking at Lucian in disbelief.
She wasn’t watching him for as long as Tomas was, but the more Lucian moved, the more of the battlefield he covered, the more her attention fell on him and she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
It wasn’t just her, Ilyra and even Darius noticed it.
"Are we sure he has only been with us for a month...?"
Ilyra couldn’t help but ask.
According to his file, Lucian was a normal human student a month ago, let alone having any battle experience, he hadn’t even held a gun or any other weapon before this.
Then how...
How was he moving like that...?
"Just what did Lady Vivienne do to him in a month...?"
Even Darius was having a hard ti believing what he was seeing and Lucian—
"Alright people, I know I am a topic of discussion, but can we please keep fighting?"
He requested as he felt another guard moving towards him, he grabbed a dead guard’s body and used it as cover.
BANG BANG
The two bullets that ca to him hit the guard’s dead body, Lucian threw the body away and hid behind another cover.
"Fall back! Secure the Starling profile!"
A guard shouted, the remaining guards and staff mbers moved. Lucian’s head turned.
Starling.
He didn’t miss that na.
He didn’t know what it ant, he did however, notice how the guards had started shifting towards the woman on the stretcher.
And it wasn’t just him, Darius noticed it as well.
"Tomas, move to the left! Ilyra, take care of the victims! Mara, hold the shield!"
Then, after a fraction of a second, he added,
"Cross, take the right side!"
Lucian grinned at those words.
He was finally being considered part of the team.
Not that it mattered, part of the team or not, he was already moving.
The guard on the right had taken cover behind a half-open door and was aiming at Mara’s exposed side.
Lucian couldn’t shoot him from where he was.
So he did not.
He crossed behind a machine, rolled over a fallen chair, and entered the room beside the guard. The guard turned when he heard movent.
But—
Compared to Lucian, the guard was simply too slow.
BANG
Shots were fired, Lucian ca out of the room as the guard’s body fell.
It ended before the guard could even reach the trigger.
Darius and other mbers of the team moved as well, with their coordination, the normal guards couldn’t possibly hold a candle against them.
In about 10 more minutes, the entire corridor was cleared.
About thirty guards died, so were knocked unconscious while a few ran away, deeper into the corridor, a few staff mbers threw up their hands and scread that they were only workers.
"Anyone still ard dies."
Darius warned with a strict look on his face, the remaining fight ended, everyone conscious dropped their weapons.
It was over.
Ilyra threw a few charms to capture everyone.
Mara lowered her shield, breathing hard.
Lucian stood near the right wall with another gun in hand, his breathing was completely stable, as if the battle before wasn’t even enough to break a sweat.
His face didn’t show any particular expression, his clothes were covered in blood, not his, it belonged to those guards he used as cover.
The rest of the mbers looked at him, then at the bodies on the floor around him, then back at him.
Lucian noticed their gaze and—
"Co on~
Don’t look at like that, I am quite shy, you know?"
He chuckled softly.
Then, he looked specifically at Ilyra and—
"Though I am free this Monday for a coffee."
Ilyra rolled her eyes, but those words made her smile.
"L-Look at this..."
That was when Mara spoke up.
The rest of the group looked. After the gunfight, the corridor was a ss, there were broken lights everywhere, smoke ca out of a few places, but since the fighting was over and they could finally look—
The true horror settled in.
Unlike the lavish upper floors, this floor was... a nightmare.
People were strapped to soft chairs in rooms on both sides, so had glowing threads running from their chests, wrists, throats, or temples into glass containers, so containers were filled with red light, so with gold, so with gray, so with a soft pink.
A man begged to be reconnected, not even caring about the gunfight that had just taken place here. The sa was true for many other victims.
A woman stared at nothing, smiling with tears drying on her cheeks. A young girl whispered, ’I’ll be good,’ again and again.
A man in one of the rooms, who seed like he was disconnected from the machine, had gone still.
Ilyra rushed to him, checked his throat, then...
"Dead."
She spoke in a solemn tone.
Lucian looked at the staff mber who was near him, the man looked away. Darius grabbed him by the collar and—
"What is this place?"
He asked.
The man shook his head.
"I do not know. I only—"
Darius pressed the glowing baton against his chest.
"AAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!"
The man scread.
"What is this place?"
He repeated the question without a single change in his expression. Lucian raised his eyebrow at that.
So even he’s capable of this huh...
He wondered inwardly.
Is this how different he becos once he has the cause to act?
"AAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!"
Darius jolted the man’s entire body before he could even answer.
Then—
"Please! Please don’t hurt !"
He begged.
"Oh? Quite brave to request that while working in a place like this?"
Lucian looked at him with a smile that did not seem like a smile, not one bit. That only made the man more terrified.
"I-I did not know what this place was at first! I swear! I was only a client, my sister died and I couldn’t sleep! I ca here because soone told they could help!"
Those words made Lucian narrow his eyes.
The man continued—
"And they did help! At first, I slept, I stopped shaking, stopped dreaming about her. I thought they saved but then..."
He looked down and—
"I couldn’t sleep without them."
"Conditioning."
Mara narrowed her eyes.
The man nodded.
"Yes, upstairs is conditioning, that is how they make people co back to them."
"And this place?"
Lucian asked what was more important.
He hesitated for a mont, until Darius moved his baton towards him and the answer ca instantly.
"If the clients start breaking, they co down."
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