Two weeks have passed since Al Maghrib started its campaign over Rundara in their attempt to take control of the castle, everyone in the world were totally terrified by the show of their deployed power in the desert.

Andros and his ministers were pleased, the Smiling Man, the firs APB in leading an army showed an exceptional sense of strategy, and managed to push Dullahan and his army out of the castle.

The invaders were finally walking down the halls and hallways of Rundara, of the ruins remaining, since it was almost reduced to ashes during the battle and all the continuous raids.

The Smiling Man was sitting at the top of one of the still-remaining towers, looking at the devastated landscape all around the desert, and, in the distance he could see the remains of Esmalfanian army led by their king, that were retreating back to their homeland.

-This lasted too long, but it is now time to enter the underground maze and take it once and for all…

Within these two weeks, another three armies reached Rundara and rebuilt its defense systems completely and re-enhanced them with their technology, as they were warding the entrance to the underground mazes.

The armies were looking all around the castle until they finally found the entrance, which still even was unknown for the Esmalfanians, who didn’t know such place was hidden beneath their feet.

The world was terrified, for after these two weeks, more than 300 thousand people died in Rundara’s battle, Esmalfanian armies got consumed in this battle, and soon after, Dullahan rearmed his forces to march again, or at least try to mobilize his forces.

Madanbelle army was preparing as well, despite their small army, their defenses were quite superior to the ones seen in Rundara, and so they might stand a chance if Maghrib attacked.

The facilities of the prison were dotted with the most powerful containment technology, powerful enough to hold the APB’s in the lowest level, and to keep them locked from the source of their power, but only the highest officers from the neutral army knew what they were truly protecting.

Augustus Rubik, Prince of Landia; and now a commissioned officer who was being instructed, realized some important facts about the existence of the prison itself.

-What do you mean with The Lost Army? –He asked surprised to the Field Commander.

-What you just heard, my boy… Ages ago, from Rogokan there was something that was sent here, to this very planet…

-Rogokan… Is that the Planet of the Ancient Guardians? –Rubik asked in total surprise.

-Yes it is, hundreds of thousands of years ago he sent a huge part of the Underworld Knights Army here, in his attempt to lock it away from the King of the Dead; he apparently succeeded in that, but the power of teleportation is very rare and destructive if not used wisely…

-And what all this has to be with Brionac? –He asked again.

The commissioned officer didn’t respond, yet gave him a small notebook full with handwritten notes that spoke on the from now on known simply as the Lost Army.

-You should go and have a read, this could give you an idea on why is extremely dangerous to let Al Maghrib do as they please…

Rubik took the small book with him and retired to his new room, in the ground level compounds of the prison, designed for the few officers that led the prison armies.

Landia was waiting for some valuable information from the young prince, but they still didn’t get anything.

Anastasius was getting angry about this, but the Queen Panmelis just convinced him that the situation was not permissible for anyone to send absolutely anything out of the wastelands.

The King agreed then to wait a little more time.

Rokudaira had all the tactical advantages as stated before, reason for which Al Maghrib’s armies didn’t get close at all to any occupied territory, it would be a massacre and they could be defeated.

The Fürer was carefully not to touch territories nor from the prison, nor Landia’s nor Mudahash’s, which was getting difficult due to the movements of the last week; being Landia the most probably to engage Al Maghrib in the near future.

Anastasius ordered that all the frontiers were to be checked out at all times in immediate response to frequent Maghrib’s marches.

It was clear for Landia that it was important to extend their defensive perimeter beyond the reach of platform’s artillery, and besides that, the platform allowed to see in real time all the movements from anything in the western part of the wastelands.

They could see anything from the base of their Great Bridge to any of the Great Bridges from Esmalfania and Al Maghrib, without a doubt, one of the best things they could ever get.

Al Maghrib’s armies were careful not to enter any town or city in the wastelands, and they only focused on raid the main old highways and make their advance faster.

One of the secondary plans of the Fürer was to build a Ring Highway across all the wastelands to mobilize his armies, and the first stage to this was clearly build a highway that could connect Al Maghrib to Rundara.

The engineer squads were deployed all along the main route of the neutral highways, and serving out from explosives and heavy machinery they started removing all rocks, dirt and everything that could break slow their advancement.

The march of their armies also served to plain the ground after them.

The most risky on this was that this highway had to follow a route that led them quite close to Madanbelle, where the neutral army was already aiming their weapons at them just in case…

-“…The Underworld Knights were one of the most destructive forces of all times, just beneath Neo Terrans of old, the only ones capable of controlling them completely were the Ancient Guardian and the King of Dead, both enemies that fought a cruelty war in the grounds of Rogokan…”

-But what are these soldiers? –He wondered and kept reading.

-“…The Underworld Knights were for always considered a nature force bending to serve the most powerful, but they must be called first, according to the remaining records from the Ancient Guardian, only a powerful enough energy pulse is able to wake them up, and automatically they will find themselves the one who summoned it and serve him to the end…”

-A powerful army that obeys who can control them, but how in the world…? –He suddenly stopped. He was thinking on something.

-A Massive energy source? An army that can be controlled completely? This cannot be true!!

After reading those short passages, Rubik went out to look for the Field Commander; there was something that they all needed to know…

-We can’t do anything about Esmalfania or Al Maghrib, but perhaps we can do something to avoid anyone to control the Brionac… That army is a serious problem…

In Mudahash meanwhile…

Skyla was being informed about the situation in Madanbelle, which wasn’t good at all; she and some of her officers had some informants allowed by the neutrals in the prison, hence she was immediately informed about the APB’s from the Field Commander himself.

-APB’s in this situation are extremely powerful, but not as the Neo Terrans, let me remind you that there have been only one of them ages ago that could handle one of the Energy Sources with absolutely no problem…

-Is there a Neo Terran here, Milady? –Dianna asked.

-It is possible, according to these informs there is something down there besides the APB’s, its description matches that of a Neo Terran, there cannot be mistake…

-How do they look like, Milady? –Dianna asked again.

-They look exactly like a common human, but there are some visible differences, to begin with, their eyes can glow in darkness, nobody knows why but they do, they have teeth like those of a huge shark, their bodies are extremely heavy due to their osseous system, and most of them have claws I their hands to use as personnel weapons… Indeed they are powerful creatures, and more over they are extremely difficult to kill…

Back in Madanbelle, Prince Rubik finally decided to call out to his father King of Landia…

Landia was just as peaceful as Mudahash, but their law enforcement was brutal when necessary, yet they weren’t that fans of death penalties, so this is why many of their prisoners were sent to Madanbelle for not having to take care of them with the resources of the country.

Madanbelle held more than 50 thousand prisoners in the middle levels, and Rubik was thinking of a curious idea about all of those prisoners…

It took some hours due to the preparations being started in Rokudaira and the King must be present there to supervise everything himself and to witness the marching of Al Maghrib’s forces.

Queen Panmelis was also out of the palace, for they only left their daughters in there to take charge of everything while their parents were out.

Panmelis was in the hospitals and all the compounds related to people security, Landia, of all other countries had the most advanced medical care insurance for all their citizens, and most of its resources were coming from the crops, as they had a law that forbid everyone to take resources from the extern sea of rivers beneath the platform.

Katia B. Valentine First Princess of Landia and the oldest of the three sons, was who received a call from his brother in Madanbelle, who informed he had not so much time, and that he was to send a letter with some information.

He asked politely that Katia would give that to his father upon his return.

Katia missed her brother for years, and she assured him he would do anything to make his father listen to his words…

Once the call was finished, Rubik started to plan what to do to prepare his men to the incoming battle, but for that he kept reading the notes in search for anything that could be helpful.

In the ruins of Rundara…

The Smiling Man received communication from the Fürer, who was eager to know about the progress in the desert.

He got the answer he was expecting: His powerful armies had taken over the fortress and they had found the passages to the underground maze.

The huge gate to the underground hallways was shielded, very well protected but at first sight it was noted that the gate hadn’t been touched in centuries, so breaking its seal would be a piece of cake for this powerful warrior.

The Smiling Man ordered his men to fall back and prepare their weapons in case there was something waiting for them in the other side.

He stood up in front of the gate, and he finally drew out his swords…

Just a couple of seconds passed, and no one could see how fast this monster moved, but when he got back to his position, everyone saw how the seal of the gate, along with it was trimmed to pieces with an incomparable violence.

The Smiling man sheathed his swords; there was nothing in there but some endless stairs he got back to his place and ordered the first battalion to enter the hallways to explore it.

Some cartographers were sent as well to document all the way they could explore by the end of the day.

It looked like that place had been abandoned for so long time, and besides that it was enormous, and endless hall that went deep into the crust of the planet, far beneath the sands of the desert over their heads.

The Smiling Man took a small breath before going down as he left the rest of the army preparing the defenses, since Esmalfania would be on crossed arms while they were preparing his incursion beneath the wastelands.

The place was so huge that they small flood lamps weren’t capable of lightning all the extension of the first platform.

They at first did not found anything but signs of what appeared to be huge battle, thousands of black armors, weapons, and skeletons of all kind of creatures that seemed to have taken part in that gruesome battle…

Two weeks later…

The neutral army in Madanbelle mobilized all of his men due to another attack from Al Maghrib to Esmalfanian armies in the northern region of the wastelands, the building if the highway was progressing, but for this, the Fürer’s armies charged onto the northern territories, destroying all resistance from Esmalfanian armies, but they as well were getting awfully closer to Mudahash’s positions.

Despite this, Mudahash’s army did not retreat beyond, the Queen allowed all of those who wanted to stay, that they remained in their current positions, but setting an absolute order to his soldiers, which basically was NOT TO ENGAGE the enemies.

The Queen’s soldiers were loyal and had no intention on engaging.