SHIT!!! FIRREEEE!!!

Immediately, Captain Aelia said that, two of the soldiers moved forward, both of them stretching their hands out, and magically, a small hole opened up on the metallic armor covering their palms.

What followed was a large stream of air that shifted away the sand particles from the surface of the metallic covering. After 30 seconds of blowing away the sand, the air finally stopped oozing out of their palms.

What was now on the ground was a circular metallic covering made of some strange dark crystal that radiated with motes of dark energy to Hael.

Bending to the ground, one of the soldiers carefully twisted the metallic covering and removed it.

With a raised hand signal, fingers clenched in a countdown of five seconds, Captain Aelia immediately jumped down the hole, her intense stare flashing around the darkness as she held her guns tightly in her hands while scanning the area.

But she could easily see there was no visible difference. Immediately after five seconds of her being in the hole, the entire group started descending down the hole, and Hael, who just happened to be the last to jump in, simply followed the crowd's movement.

Looking around him, he saw a pretty huge dark cave illuminated by the multicolored crystals hung all over the large stalactites and stalagmites emerging from the ground and from the top of the dark ceiling.

A long narrow path that continued far into the distance could be seen, and immediately the group steadily and stealthily advanced forward, white light from their guns illuminating the area for Hael to see as they rapidly traversed the straight and smooth path of the cave.

Thirty minutes later, the group was still traversing, the sight of the smallest creature not having been caught, nor a single anomaly having arisen.

That was when the feeling of danger began assaulting Hael's senses, the feeling as if something bad was about to happen. And that was what made him even more vigilant, as he spread out his senses and tried to connect with it, the only thing he was familiar with from Aetheria, and seemed to be unchanged no matter the location: the Mana.

He could almost feel it as if they were just an inch from his face. The Mana present in the air were usually multicolored, based on what he had learned from the books, and the multicolored light is due to the various elemental energies in their essence. But when he 'saw' the mana present in the cave, the essences were pitch black and looked like wandering snakes in a swamp, a pitch-black energy that flickered in and out of existence.

It was the first time Hael had ever seen such a color of mana and the strange phenomenon of there being only a single type of mana energy present in the air.

Having connected with the mana current, he tried to sense more, trying to feel just where the source of the mana was, and that was when he noticed an abnormality of Mana that shouldn't have been there, those mana were carefully hidden away from sight, under the runic lines that were deeply etched on the surface of the ground.

"These Mana are different from the mana in the room. Unlike the free mana in the cave, this one is restricted as if it had already been issued with a command, and it covered our path, just ten meters away from us. A restricted mana runic line on our path," Hael wondered before his eyes widened in shock.

This can only be a trap...

"Uh, Captain?" Hael suddenly called out, as the various flashes of light and guns from the soldiers were immediately pointed towards his face, causing sweat to drip down Hael's neck.

He didn't know how destructive a gun was, but seeing how the soldier clutched it even tighter than how a sword is clenched, believing it could save them from the harm of the unknown, it wasn't a good choice to have so many pointed in front of his face.

"What is it, kiddo?" Captain Aelia whispered out as Hael pointed to the ground, causing the soldier to shift away from him and point the light to the ground.

"Do those fancy lines look strange to you, Captain Aelia?" Hael asked as Aelia turned away from him and looked at the strange runic lines, crouching on the ground, with her hands moving closer. It suddenly stopped an inch from touching the lines as Aelia's eyes flashed.

"These aren't fancy lines, these are traps made from their forsaken dark magic!" Captain Aelia declared as she rose up from the ground, and spreading their light into the distance, they could see that the lines almost covered the entire area, leaving only a zig-zag path that was relatively free from those runic lines.

"Hey Hael..." Captain Aelia suddenly called out as Hael turned his attention to her.

"Yes, Captain Aelia..." "Come and stand behind me, and replicate every of my steps. I don't trust you enough to think you wouldn't activate the traps due to some stupid sorry mistake that could potentially ruin the mission..." Captain Aelia said as Hael's eyebrow furrowed, but he got tapped on the shoulder by Zhng, who gave him a look that said, 'You can trust her.'

"Yes, Captain Aelia..." Hale replied, and he made his way forward, coming to stand directly behind Captain Aelia.

Immediately, the signal to keep moving forward was sent as the group began moving forward in a strange zig-zag manner, even though the narrow path was no wider than ever.

Standing behind Captain Aelia wasn't only safe for Hale, as she was no doubt the strongest one among them and should better save his sorry ass in case of danger.

He could also now experience the dark magic present in those lines and the deeper they went, the more than Hael recognized something, something very strange.

"Captain Aelia..." He whispered behind her back as they kept advancing forward.

"What is it, Kiddo?" "I feel like... I feel like..." Hale struggled to say as Captain Aelia immediately stopped from her feet, the same as the rest of the soldiers, and she turned her full attention to Hael.

"You feel like what, Hael?"

"I feel like these traps were made just two minutes ago..." Hale declared as Captain Aelia's face massively changed, and in the next second, she immediately raised her gun directly into the air, and there it was, a large group of strange alien creatures that hung around the ceilings on all fours, their pitch-black eyes currently staring at them.

"SHIT!!! FIRE!!!!"