Published at 22nd of October 2026 7:01 am

Chapter 212. Something new

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My team, all except Peter, who lacked the training and reflexes, managed to react instinctively. I saw a shadow of confusion cross Dave’s face as we all activated our protective artifacts and spells. To his credit, the man reacted almost as fast and managed to repeat my command. Sadly, the half-second delay was too much.

First came a muffled, wet splash, followed by the horrid sound of the massive metro train hitting something solid. Next, a loud groan of bending metal reached our ears. The wagon folded as its wheels left the tracks and it came to a screeching halt, catapulting all of us forward. Only Bakari stayed in place, digging his claws into the metal floor.

I barely managed to activate an armor spell stored in the staff as I smashed into the wall separating the wagon from the driver’s cabin. The world began to spin as we apparently rolled onto our side, judging by a moment of weightlessness followed by a nasty hit powerful enough to break my spell. The cacophony of metal grinding on metal and rocks smashing under the wagon's weight rang in all our ears.

I could not tell how long we tumbled through the tunnel. Seconds felt like hours as I tried to grab onto something while recasting the armor spell. Finally, like a wounded beast dragging itself a few last steps before falling, the wagon stopped. The thundering cacophony that accompanied the crash gave way to absolute silence, broken only by heavy breathing and groans of pain.

I looked around immediately, expecting an attack. Thankfully, Bakari was relatively unharmed and kept a wary eye out for enemies. The other person who remained vigilant was Myhur, who had enough strength and reflexes to land on his feet despite the tumble. He also managed to grab the now unconscious Josh, probably saving the empath's life.

The wagon lay on its side, dust filling the air and limiting visibility. I extended my senses as far as possible into the surroundings, searching for enemies. Instead of hostile creatures or spells, I felt ambient mana and a strange presence. It was an unusual, foreign sensation, an atmosphere unlike any I’d ever felt.

But for now, I sensed no danger. Satisfied, I looked at the others. Ophelia, Luna, and I took the crash relatively well. All three of us were clearly bruised despite our armor spells and protective artifacts. However, aside from that, we were alive and in one piece.

Myhur and Bakari took it the best, the mushroom coming out of it with barely a scratch. The tiger took it slightly worse, as his claws tore at the flooring when the wagon turned over. I noticed he was standing with one leg up in the air, apparently injured, but nothing too bad.

Next, I checked the FBI team. Surprisingly, those lying at the front with us had fared reasonably well. They had their body armor on, and it seemed they were just concussed and bruised.

However, not everyone ended up with just a scratch.

Looking back, I could see three dead bodies. Two were from the FBI team. One was farther down the wagon, having flown forward hard enough to break their neck against one of the poles. The other two bodies lay by the broken window, which now served as the floor with the wagon on its side. They were in much worse shape, with broken bones and dislocated limbs, their bodies torn by the jagged rocks sticking out of the ground.

One of the bodies was from the assault team.

Another was Peter. His neck was dislocated, and an arm and a leg stuck out at strange angles.

“Move to a safe spot! Carry the injured!” Dave shouted. “Get the bodies too. We are not leaving anyone behind.”

His people got up and moved toward Ophelia and Luna to help them, only to notice the women were in relatively good shape despite the lack of visible armor.

“We should go through the ceiling,” I said, pointing at the wagon ceiling, which now served as a wall.

“You got any steel cutter on you?” asked one of the people on the other team.

While the comment seemed sarcastic, the tone of voice was sincere, apparently expecting me to pull one from my sleeve.

“Something better,” I said, nodding at Myhur.

The mushroom set the unconscious Josh beside Rey, stood in front of the ceiling, and swung. In one smooth motion, he put his hand through the metal, wedged the other hand beside it, and pulled the ceiling apart as if opening a can.

Bakari also approached on three paws and helped, using his mouth.

“Impressive,” Dave commented before his eyes moved to the bodies.

The person who was wrapped around the pole was already taken care of, while two of his men approached the other two by the broken window. I could see a flicker of pain in Dave's eyes. He allowed himself a second of regret before regaining his composure. The man was a professional, I had to give it to him.

“You need help with him?” he asked, pointing to Peter’s body.

“No need,” I replied, approaching the kid.

To everyone's shock, I lightly kicked Peter. “You there?” I asked, earning myself a groan.

“Oh my God,” a woman from the FBI team whispered. “Don’t touch him!” she screamed, going for a medic’s bag by her side.

“No need,” I replied as Peter dropped the charade, his ghostly form slowly materializing next to me.

If his body was badly injured, he was supposed to play dead, waiting for a chance to slip away or for my signal. But there was no point in keeping up the charade now, since he couldn't move his flesh.

“I’m good,” he said, now floating over his own shell.

“What the fuck?” Filip whispered from the side.

“How was it?” I asked, curious, not sure how this damage had affected the shell.

“Well, it was kinda painful, but also not. I can feel my connection to the body weaken, though.”

“Interesting. Take your flesh outside. I’ll try to fix it up.”

Peter agreed, and as the other team stared in shock, he carried his own body through the opening in the metal.

It took us a while to organize by the wagon, check our wounds, and regroup. Luna healed Ophelia and Bakari, leaving my accelerated healing to take care of my wounds. I needed to work on Peter’s body, but that was low on the priority list for now.

Once the vampire was done with us, she offered Dave her help, but to my surprise, the man refused. Instead, his team members pulled out small potions and gulped them down. Strangely, I didn't sense much magic coming off the assault team, yet the potions worked on everyone, whether they had mana or not.

Luna helped Rey and Filip instead, as they ultimately decided to follow my advice and use an experienced healer. She could not do anything about Josh, who apparently hadn't gotten hurt but was still out of it.

I had to give it to the FBI team. Even now, despite the sudden change and deaths, they all kept their composure, sitting down while two of them watched the tunnel. I, on the other hand, was mostly confused. That was because of what we saw after exiting the wagon—a cave. A normal, natural-looking cave. Well, almost natural, except for patches of modern concrete here and there. Something I was pretty sure shouldn’t be part of the metro.

“Did your people check the tracks?” I asked Dave once we dealt with the wounded.

He looked into the darkness, lit only by his team's flashlights and a light spell from Luna.

“Yes,” he confirmed, with just as much confusion as I felt. “The tracks were empty. We checked everything up until the split. No homeless looking for shelter, no enemies. The tunnel was cleared to go.”

The FBI team missing signs of magic was one thing, but the cats also checked before the assault and gave us the all-clear to go. My thoughts wandered to spatial magic, but creating even a small pouch would take a sixth-circle mage. Creating a whole-ass portal, stable enough for a metro wagon to pass through, was the work of archwizards. Not something that would pop out of nowhere.

And then there was the old man I had seen in the wagon before we crashed. I had a theory about what he was, but one that didn’t make any sense.

“What do you think?” Luna asked as I approached the group, having learned nothing from the other leader.

I shook my head. “Not sure, to be honest. You?”

“It feels like it did in the singularity,” Ophelia said from the side, keeping her voice low. “As if the magic belongs to something, but… also doesn’t. But there is a presence.”

“Theeere is a hive here,” Myhur spoke up. “Its mental influence permeates this ground.”

This took me aback. “Are we that close?” I asked, giving the still-unconscious Josh a glance. “For you to feel its presence here. I mean…” I trailed off, my thoughts trying to connect the scattered dots.

Myhur stared into the cave's darkness for a few seconds before shaking his cap from side to side.

“Iii don’t know. The power, the hive’s mind, it’s here, but… it’s without a center. Like an echo of a scream still lost in those caves.” His body sagged slightly as he spoke, the moss bending under an invisible weight. “Something horrid happened here. I feel sadness, great sadness.”

I looked at my friend, not sure how to react. He was usually calm and collected, speaking of rot and death with a cheerfulness that always brought a smile to my face. So seeing him like that made me… strangely sad.

“Whatever it is, I say we confirm our way back is closed,” Bakari proposed.

“Why do you assume it’s closed?” Peter asked with a light tremor in his voice.

“It’s a trap. A strange one, sure, but obviously a trap. I doubt whoever did that hoped to take us out with the wagon accident,” I said. “I also doubt they'd let us just waltz out of here.”

Luna nodded, agreeing with Ophelia's earlier words. “Yeah, this place feels strange. I’m having flashbacks to the old Vatican.”

“You ended up net positive with the whole Vatican debacle,” Ophelia said, giving the vampire a reassuring smile.

“Healing powers and a permanent hairstyle change. Would almost die again,” Luna said sarcastically, playing with her now light-blond, almost white hair.

“I would. Was kinda fun,” I said, looking to Myhur.

However, instead of a remark about not being too cocky or any other argument, the mushroom just stared into the darkness.

Before I could say anything, we all saw Dave approach us with one of his people.

“We will send a group to establish communication and clear the way back,” he began, but I cut him off.

“We’re not civilians. Everyone here has been through battles or”—I gave Peter a glance—“is tough enough to handle bad news. Don’t bullshit.”

The man gave me a firm nod. “Fine. We want to send a group and confirm we are trapped and can’t go back. The rest should hold out here. This is a fairly defensible spot. Any objections?”

I shook my head. “Me, Ophelia, and Myhur will go with you.”

The man answered with a short, almost imperceptible nod and turned to his group. Our group consisted of seven from his team and three from mine. We made it over the overturned wagon and looked into the tunnel, using flashlights and light spells to see.

And the scenery was… strange, to say the least. Now that the tunnel was properly lit, it was clear there were no tracks, none at all. Not blown up or melted, but gone, as if they had vanished into thin air. What was even stranger was that we could see the end of the tunnel, or rather, cave. And it ended in a solid wall.

“Well, fuck,” someone from the other team groaned.

“Fuck indeed,” I agreed.

We approached the stone wall blocking the cave. If not for the wagon still lying behind us, I would have said we'd just woken up in a stone cavern merged with concrete here and there for no apparent reason.

“Can you go through it?” Dave asked one of his men.

The guy approached the wall and looked it over more closely, clicking his tongue from time to time.

“The parts that are concrete don't seem to go all the way through. We have explosives that should crack stone easily, but I'm worried about the stability of the whole tunnel,” he finally concluded.

“We might try without explosives,” I said, looking to the mycanoid beside me.

Myhur stared blankly for a few seconds before catching on to the suggestion. He approached the stone and cocked back his fist. I could feel his aura flare as he punched forward. His fist actually went into the wall by a good few centimeters. For a moment, we even thought we might get through that way as the mushroom pulled his fist back again.

Yet what happened next took that idea away. We all looked in shock as the stone began to heal itself.

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