Transcendent Gene
Chapter 105: Premonition [1]

Chapter 105: Premonition [1]

The elevator was slow and meant to descend for a very long time. Amaya and Gio were standing there watching the surface become a small spot above them for several minutes before the walls around them expanded into anything.

But they eventually did.

The hole they moved through was reinforced with steel. When those several minutes passed, the space to their front and right expanded, while the space behind them turned into a wall that extended along the side of the facility.

They were boxed in by glass, and all of a sudden, it really looked like they were in an elevator entering a building.

And through the glass, they could see the scene beyond.

"This..."

Amaya’s expression was one of surprise. Gio’s was only grim.

The massive space was big enough to be a sports stadium. There were tubes lining the walls through which a milky white and almost translucent liquid flowed. The liquid was filled with starry clusters, making it look like a reflection of outer space.

"That’s our essence."

The Blood Essence of a human. It was completely different from the concept of a soul, yet represented humanity in totality in a similar way.

The perimeter of the chamber was where all of the processing took place. The essence entered through one side near where the elevator was and then did several laps around the space to be treated before it was allowed to leave.

The machines were so large that a space of this size was necessary to house them. The central area only existed so humans could easily move between the machines for inspection or maintenance.

They needed to find another use for it.

It was pointless to make a place like this a secondary base. The roar of machinery and other purposes it already held made it hard for people to gather properly.

However, it could be used for storage.

"Everything on the shelves you see is necessary to keep the machinery here up and running. If it isn’t, it’s necessary for the maintenance of some other part of the system," Gio explained as they neared the end of their descent.

"But everything is made so humans can move from place to place easily. After all, nothing here can operate on its own. They haven’t reached a point where they can implement artificial intelligence into these things. That’ll only happen if they’re allowed to keep developing without opposition."

Pssssh!

The floor below them seated itself perfectly in a small depression at the bottom of the hole. The glass turned into a set of double doors that slid open and allowed them access to the facility.

Everything that could be seen, they saw while they were moving through the elevator.

"What do you want to do here?" Amaya asked with a frown.

"That’s up to you," Gio said without hesitation.

"We can just destroy these machines if you want, but that doesn’t destroy the entire supply chain. It only alerts them to our presence."

"You want to go deeper into the facility?"

"I don’t know everything. I only have a rough understanding of their plan and how this machine works. If we want to find out enough to do something about it, we have to investigate."

Investigate. He said that word on purpose and Amaya knew it.

She sighed as she responded.

"I said I would investigate with you if what you said looked true."

"You did."

"This is essentially a real mission. It would usually be given to Jax, but I can do it too. The problem is..."

"You’ll have to move slower if you don’t want to carry me, but I won’t hold you back more than that. You know bringing me will be an advantage."

"Tch."

He was right. He knew more than she did, so if she came upon anything she didn’t understand, there was a chance he’d be able to explain it.

More than that, she was able to find this place because of him. He already said this was a matter related to the Apocalypse Church, so wasn’t it more dangerous to leave him unattended?

She didn’t really have a choice in the matter.

"Don’t get used to this."

"It makes me uncomfortable too, don’t worry."

With Gio securely on her back, Amaya ran out of the facility and into the tunnel leading far away from the villages they’d found.

She ran with her eyes peeled, looking for anything suspicious. However, for over ten minutes as she sprinted through the tunnel, she saw nothing but the tubes carrying Human Essence Blood.

They had to move for over half a mile before the tunnel branched off even once.

There was a door on the right side. Amaya almost missed it, skidding to a stop and moving back in its direction.

She fiddled with the handle for a moment and confirmed it was locked before looking back at Gio.

"Will there be alarms?"

"Yeah, we shou–"

Amaya and Gio both rapidly moved their hands to their ears. Gio was forced to jump off her back as they looked up at the ceiling in unison.

As if responding to their call, an alarm blared through the tunnel. It was so loud that voices became impossible to hear.

If it was already ringing...

Bang!

Amaya slammed her shoulder into the door, forcing it open with strength alone.

She and Gio ran into the room. As he slammed the door behind her, they relished in the fact that the alarms were not ringing inside as well.

The sound outside couldn’t be ignored, but it didn’t stand in the way of conversation anymore.

"Did we cause this?" Amaya questioned.

Gio immediately shook his head. He raised his head and pointed behind her.

Amaya raised a brow and turned around, her attention landing on the collection of screens present there.

"This must be a security room. The guards aren’t here because, well..."

Gio didn’t have to explain the rest.

Amaya herself could see the guards in question moving through the deeper parts of the tunnel, far ahead of where they were. The skid marks on the ground clearly caused by tires showed that they’d rushed out only moments before the two of them arrived.

As for the cause...

"What kind of coincidence is this?"

Amaya’s jaw dropped as she saw her own teammates reflected in her eyes. They were running through the facilities shown on the camera feeds, destroying everything they came by.

"We’re late to the party," Gio said. He sounded calm, but his thoughts were racing.

’They found this place?’

They were already destroying the first machine, so how did the Apocalypse Church gather the materials for another one so fast in the original timeline?

’Amaya would have been with them too. They would have been even stronger in the original timeline during this attack, so it makes no sense for them to have done nothing to the Apocalypse Church’s plans.’

They looked like they were doing far too well, but Gio knew that their actions didn’t have any real impact.

’For that to be the case, they can’t do any more than this.’

In other words, the original end of the Blue Steel Squadron...

It was either here or coming in the near future.

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