“Master? Master Liaoran?” Liaowu’s voice came from the handheld radiht after the makeshift EMP was activated: “What did you do?”

  “We used your EMP. ” Master Liaoran responded: “But - it seemed to have disabled more than just eleics. Did you add some ritualistigredients or arrays to it?”

  “No! No - you know I am not able to do that!” Liaowu responded, his voice was breaking over the radio, as interference of unknown sources took effeewhere along the way of their transmission. At the same time, the lights grew dimmer, the air colder, and the dark spots all around them began spreading and expanding.

  “Then it is the designs of this pce. They went beyond his inal designs. They used electric devices to guard the intrinsic curse aive energy of this pce.” Master Liaoran responded, nodding: “Things will bee chaotic. You be careful and go on lockdown.”

  “And you as well. Because I just saw - holy fuck!” Liaoed: “There are Blood Rainbows f around that building. Several of them, oh - there’s more! Holy shit! Holy shit!”

  “Alright, go into loode and cut off unications for now. When you’re safe, just break radio silence.” Master Liaoran ordered, then put the radio back: “We o move. Go up first, and maybe down ter.”

  “Why?” Marcus’ heart could not stop pounding his chest after what he heard. Blood Rainbows f in an area and in increasing numbers, that sounded beyond catastrophid nightmarish. His father and Liaowu were both civilians out in the open, they would not stand a ce. “Is there something wrong? Is - ”

  “Liaowu had a ton of experience surviving through paranormal situations as a civilian. Your father’s in good pany.” Master Liaoran Marcus: “His van may not look like it, but it’s actually a carefully designed paranormal shelter.”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get out in time.” Gloria held Marcus by his left elboill.”

  “Sorry - I - ” Marcus took a deep breath: “I should have been calmer. There’s no use panig right now.”

  “There’s o walk the stairs now.” Master Liaoran thought for a brief moment: “Everyone, back off a little.”

  Marcus instantly knew what the master meant, so he just pushed everyone around him back, leaving some room around the master. “We’re gonna jump up there, and when it’s safe I’ll throw you upstairs.”

  “Boom!” Master Liaoran unleashed a fist strike directly upward, bsting a hole with the diameter of the width of the hallway above. Before the dust eveled, his feet tapped the ground and unched himself just at the floor above. Streams of Qi shot from his fingers, and a few male grunting came from the above. “Alright, e.”

  The first oo go up there was Mick, the oh puter skills and some training with both standard martial arts and marksmanship. The sed was Kevin. Then it was Tae Kuo.

  “You go first.” Marcus looked at Gloria.

  “No, you go, I’ll follow.”

  “Fug hell!” Keryn stepped forward and jumped up.

  “Hey! Who are you!?” Just when Marcus was about to speak to Gloria, a voice came from behind them. Both of them jumped upwards at the same time, evading the bullets shooting their way and breaking a few more slivers off the edge of the hole made by the master.

  The rht above the hole was indeed a security trol room, whiow was full of ss that were now dark and the smell of burronics filled the air. Several teis and security guards were either on the ground or on the desks and tables, breathing but not responding to any disturbahey were hit by Master Liaoran on their pressure points; acc to Marcus’ own experiehey would be immobilized for at least an hour or even two, unless someoh close to equal skill levels came to their rescue.

  “Looks like nothing be used here indeed. We don’t o haything.” Mick looked through several of the keyboards and monitors: “They’re all fried. Most of these plex eleics are not properly warded off - I ’t tell if the mainframes are affected though.”

  “Look for analogue systems, like old style phone lines, fiber optic cables, and - and maybe morse aes.” Kevin searched through the drawers on a tall locker. Ihese drawers were mostly folders and envelopes with disks, magic tapes and even cassettes in them. He took a few moments to look through the folders - they seemed to be reports and official dots of some sort. So he chose a few with graphs and pictures and stuffed them in his backpack.

  “We ’t stay here for long.” Marcus looked down from the hole through which they came up, w where those guards that shot at them went: “We were discovered when we came up, but - ”

  Gloria was equally fused, her fingers pying with a thin throwing bde: “Yeah, where did they - ”

  “Bang bang bang!” Someone knocked on the door to the trol room, through the obscured matte window, they could see a tall and muscur shadow wearing a helmet and holding what looked like a baton was right outside.

  “Hey! Hey! What’s happening in there!?” It was a hoarse male voice, one would expect from this kind of build: “Open up! What the hell is happening?”

  “Don’t answer.” Master Liaoran immediately ordered in a low but stern voice: “Don’t even aowledge. Let’s wait for a few minutes before leaving. Keep searg, if the system’s down, we should be going down, undeground.”

  “Underground? Is that where the core of the entire array is?” Tae Kuo asked: “I thought it would be up there - ”

  “Yes, and you are correct.” Master Liaoran sighed: “But like this monk said, there are multiple cores. And the most important core should be below the ground. Not too deep, not too shallow, but a clearly defined distance from the surface of the ke.”

  “Open up! OPEN UP!” The figure outside the door bahe dain, even more irate and aggressive. “If you still don’t open, I’ll shoot this door open! OPEN UP! RIGHT NOW!”

  Shout outs to my patrons:

  mant06

  Jonathan

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