The entrance that led into this damn place was massive, comparable to a hanger bay. Massive stone statues were hanging from the walls. These statues were of humanoids, deformed humanoids to be exact. Most had horns and were clad in spiky armor and spiky helmets. Faces were ridiculous, most of them looked like hybrids made from combining the genes of a butt-faced human and a fat hippo.
Most atrocious of these statues were those of the women. They were wearing no proper armor at all! Some only wore a bra that was also spiky and looked heavy. I could just imagine how uncomfortable and hard that would be to wear. In contrast to their male counterparts, the women were at least human-looking. They at least looked like humans and their faces complimented their bodies very well.
But still, the way they were dressed was atrocious. Not because I disliked the look in general, it was just that it was ineffective for combat. This complex was not any normal underground complex, it was situated under a mountain for a reason. It was a fortress, a well-supplied fortress equipped with weapons and defenses although archaic, were effective against the same level of technology. The statues most likely represented the former leaders. The armor of the men was at least realistic, the women? Not so much, making them ineffective for combat. I hated ineffective designs to the point that I would punish anyone who did such a thing intentionally. I wouldn’t kill, just punish, painfully.
Unfortunately, there was one last hurdle I needed to overcome. The entrance had this ten feet wall separating the interior and the exterior. From what I could see, there was a blizzard going on outside and the temperature inside was reaching negative ten degrees. I looked at the little girl all snuggled up in my arms and placed around her a barrier to regulate her body temperature and prevent her from freezing. She was asleep, sound asleep. She was not waking up anytime soon as long as I kept her ears and eyes shut.
Using my enhanced psychic sense, I decided to check the complex and the wall a bit more before leaving. There was no gate so to speak, no way for me to simply walk out from. If I did not detect a secret passage or lever that opened said secret passage whatnot, I would simply punch a hole through.
The wall was ten feet thick and was made of refined stone with steel foundations making it quite sturdy. The complex was at least 200 meters deep and 100 meters wide but had just enough space for a couple hundred. The design was archaic, everything was archaic and there was no exception. However, as I peered through what appeared to be a library of sorts, there were many books as expected but what interested me were the books themselves. Not because they were books, but because they were unique in the sense that they were unfamiliar in how they were designed.
The books, for all intents and purposes, were divided into three colors. Red, blue and yellow, the three primary colors. The red-colored books all had the same symbol printed on the front and back, an eagle that was bathing in a sea of fire. The blue colored books had the symbol of two snakes choking each other as seen in a vertical position. The yellow-colored books simply hand a handprint from front to back but the thumb was cut off for some reason.
“Ingk..” The little girl suddenly made a sound and shivered. I took away all my attention from the complex and focused it all on our surroundings. Something was definitely up. My psychic sense detected something, an energy signature from a living being. It was too strong to be merely a wild animal. It was that of a human or something similar to it.
The little girl shivered as the danger approached. Her body temperature was normal, my psychic barrier was doing its job but she was still shivering. This was an anomaly and anomalous occurrences were always a problem.
The signature was just beyond the wall. I then used my enhanced senses to see through it. But I saw nothing, just two feet of snow and a swirling blizzard.
The sneaky bastard was invisible. I peered closer into the core of the energy signature and there I saw the slight distortion of light being reflected. Whoever it was, he or she did not want to be seen. I guessed that it was probably leaning against the wall, listing, or anticipating my moves.
Invisibility was among the hardest of abilities a psychic could do and I was the only known psychic to do so. However, this being was invisible and there wasn’t a single trace of psychic heat.
That meant that there was some other way to turn invisible.
The girl shivered once more. The signature suddenly jumped and was now over the wall. It then jumped from the wall and was on a direct collision course with us. It was fast but I was faster.
In a second, I created a barrier to block any form of matter aside from light from entering within its bounds. I then heard a loud thud and the invisibility of the owner of the energy signature slowly faded. Her red and puffed cheeks and open hands slowly slid down the outer layer, her eyes fixated on me but I could see she was already out cold. The collision with this almost impenetrable barrier knocked her out. She fell onto the ground with her eyes shut.
She was defeated because she was careless. Well, good for me I guess. I did not want to accidentally kill her.
With the threat defeated, I lifted our protection from the ground and made it fade. The little girl was no longer shivering. I was certain there was some sort of connection between the little girl and this clumsy woman. I took a closer look at her. She was wearing a white hood over her white dress made from cotton. She had a small backpack on her back and she wore leather boots. Wrapped around her right hand was a short, glowing knife. I looked into it and found no poison or bioluminescent microorganisms of any kind but it glowed. It was glowing blue.
I then took a look at her face. She had fair skin, a perfect naturally pointed nose, and thick eyebrows that complimented her long eyelashes well. She was, to put it bluntly, a beauty. She had a shapely body and was fit for stealth and assassination. I could tell she was a nimble assassin but for some reason, she decided to pounce on me. She did have the ability to go invisible to which I applauded her.
I sighed.
I could just invade her mind and be on my way but doing so would kill her. If these two really had a connection then that presented a risk, if I kill the woman, would the little girl die as well? If that was the case then I would have ended up wasting my time saving her and carrying her through the mess I created. Also, it would hinder my chances in this world, I needed guides and I didn’t wanna look suspicious to the locals. Attracting too much attention early on would be problematic. At least I killed everyone in the complex so nobody would run out screaming bloody murder.
I then laid the little girl beside the woman and sat down adjacent to them.
It never really came to me that these two were similar. Until I saw the color of their hair, they were both white as snow. I gently swipe my fingers down the little girl’s short hair, it was smooth and refined, probably the best hair I had ever felt. Despite the obvious struggle she endured, filled with bruises and all, her hair was still intact as if it never was tugged or dirtied. The woman’s hair was also the same, if this hair meant that they were connected, then how?
“Ugh,” I rubbed my forehead and stared at the wall. The swirling blizzard raged on behind it but not a single drop of snow passed through.
This world was strange. But I was stuck in it now.
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