Chương 151: Chapter : 151

With a smooth, quick tug, Naomi pulled her dagger out of his leg. The man whimpered, curling up into a miserable ball on the floor. Naomi stood up, wiping the blood off her blade with a spare cloth. She looked at Sayma, Laxmi, and the rest of the allied teams. The fierce, unstoppable determination in her eyes was completely undeniable.

"Impenetrable just means we have to hit it harder," Naomi declared, her voice ringing with absolute confidence. She pointed her clean dagger down the dark hallway leading to the lowest levels.

"He is down there. Let's go break that vault wide open and find our teammate." The grand alliance didn't waste another second. Leaving the groaning, defeated scientists behind on the floor, the elite vanguards and the tired engineers sprinted down the final corridor. They were fully prepared to tear the heavy blast doors completely off their hinges. The final showdown with Augusto was just moments away, and Naomi was ready to burn the entire facility to the ground to get her messy, annoying friend back safely.

While the allied Royal teams were frantically fighting their way down through the upper levels of the bunker, Ken Eliot was already at the very bottom of the facility. Having safely faked his dramatic fall without taking a single scratch, Ken found himself standing in the deepest, most heavily restricted corridors of the underground laboratory. The flashing red emergency lights bathed the metal walls in a harsh, chaotic glow. Security sirens blared loudly in the distance.

But down here, Ken finally dropped his goofy, panicking slacker persona entirely. He did not slouch his shoulders. He did not run around waving his arms, and he did not yell about needing a snack. He simply shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his tailored navy blue suit and strolled casually down the dark hallway. His posture was completely relaxed, but his dark, sleepy eyes were now as cold and sharp as solid ice. He was thinking about his team upstairs.

Ever since he had jumped in front of that spear in the dungeon, things had changed. Naomi didn't treat him like a piece of garbage anymore. She treated him like a highly naughty, annoying friend who needed strict supervision to make sure he didn't wander into traffic. She actually cared about him now. Sayma, Laxmi, and the rest of the girls were fighting tooth and nail up there. Ken knew he needed to finish his part of the job down here quickly so he could get back to them before they worried too much.

As he walked, the heavy metal doors at the end of the corridor slid open. Three massive, heavily augmented security guards stepped out. They were pumped full of toxic green chemicals, their muscles bulging unnaturally against their armor. They held heavy magical rifles, their eyes scanning the hallway for intruders. When they saw the messy boy in the blue suit walking toward them, they immediately raised their weapons. The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"Intruder detected in Sector Zero!" the lead guard roared, his voice thick and distorted.

"Eliminate him!" Ken didn't even break his stride. He didn't stop walking, and he certainly didn't look scared. He just pulled his right hand out of his pocket and gave a lazy, casual flick of his wrist. A tiny, almost invisible spark of fiery magic floated from his fingertips. It didn't look like a massive explosion. It didn't make a loud, booming sound. But the second the spark touched the air in front of the guards, a wave of impossible, absolute heat washed over the hallway.

Instantly, effortlessly, the three heavily augmented guards were reduced to drifting piles of gray ash. Their armor, their weapons, and their bodies simply crumbled into dust and blew away in the ventilation draft. Ken stepped right over the small piles of ash without even looking down.

"I really hope this ash doesn't get on my pants," Ken mumbled quietly to himself, brushing a speck of dust off his sleeve.

"Naomi would definitely yell at me if I ruined this suit. She already treats me like a toddler who can't eat a bowl of cereal without spilling milk. I better keep it clean." He continued his casual stroll. A few seconds later, two horrific, mutated guard dogs leaped out from a side room. They were massive beasts covered in toxic, glowing green spikes. They snarled, bearing razor-sharp fangs, and lunged right at Ken's throat. Ken just sighed. He didn't even lift his hand this time.

He just let a tiny pulse of his fiery magic expand from his body. Poof. The two mutated beasts turned into gray ash before they even landed. The dust scattered across the metal floor grids. Ken just kept walking, completely unbothered by the deadly obstacles. To him, this highly secure, incredibly dangerous underground bunker was just a slightly annoying walking path. Eventually, Ken reached the very end of the corridor. Standing in front of him was a massive, incredibly thick pair of steel doors.

A sign above the doors read: Primary Control Room. Ken didn't bother looking for a keycard, and he didn't try to hack the keypad. He just lifted his cheap shoe and gave the center of the steel doors a lazy, casual kick. The heavy steel hinges screamed and completely snapped. The massive doors flew off their tracks, crashing violently into the room beyond with a deafening, ground-shaking clang. Ken stepped into the primary control room.

The room was filled with massive supercomputers, glowing digital maps, and hissing pipes. And standing right by the main desk was Augusto. The old, wild-haired scientist was in an absolute state of panic. He was frantically trying to pack his highly encrypted research data, hard drives, and glowing vials of toxic chemicals into a heavy metal briefcase. When the steel doors crashed to the floor, Augusto let out a loud gasp and spun around, dropping a handful of papers onto the desk.

Augusto's manic eyes widened in pure shock. He expected to see a team of elite Royal knights, or maybe a heavily armed squad of Imperial Police. Instead, he saw a messy, low-level servant with an untucked shirt and a completely crooked tie.

"What?!" Augusto demanded, his voice cracking with disbelief. He looked past Ken, checking the empty hallway.

"Who are you?! Where is my security detail? How in the world did a messy, pathetic servant bypass my state-of-the-art security grid?!" Ken slowly shoved his hands back into his pockets. He looked around the room, taking in the blinking screens and the toxic chemicals sitting on the desks. His posture was completely relaxed, looking exactly like a bored teenager waiting in line at the grocery store. But his dark eyes were as cold as ice.

"Your security grid was very loud and incredibly annoying," Ken said, his voice flat and calm.

"I turned it off." Augusto grabbed the edge of his desk, his face turning red with anger.

"You arrogant little rat! Do you have any idea whose laboratory you just broke into? I am Dr. Augusto! I am the greatest scientific mind in the Belmontia Empire!"