Chapter 16 Secret Base

While the tournament was going on Yuna had another objective to accomplish.

"Come out." Yuna was all alone saying this so it looked comical.

Suddenly from under here a shadow moved quickly and multiple people materialized out of nowhere. Each were fully clothed in a black leather material showing nothing but their eyes, in front of them all was a person who wore a metal variant of the same black leather armor but his helmet was different. He also had a katana on his side while the others carried daggers and bows, they resembled shinobis and samurai.

"One of the kids reek of corruption, I'm sure you know what that means." Yuna said seriously.

"Yes master." The samurai said while kneeling in front of Yuna, never looking up.

"Find out where those rats' base is at, I want it done within the day." Yuna ordered.

"It shall be done." Immediately all the people in front of her vanished leaving her alone.

"I knew they were here beforehand, this world's level of magic and technology is so out of date for being here so long." Yuna scoffed before going back to the coliseum to watch her son. Before she could enter though, a portal opened in front of her but it looked much more crudely done than hers.

Slowly a man clad in blue and black armor appeared, his armor was high tech with lines of blue coursing through it showing it was powered by magic.

Before he could say anything he found himself flying back into a wall, Yuna approached him with her foot pressing down on his throat.

"Who are you?" She said angrily.

"I'm with the Tech Core!" He threw his hands up and surrendered immediately.

Yuna narrowed her eyes and inspected him.

"You aren't from this curve either, where are you from?"

"The Greek curve." He said hastily.

"I'm assuming you work under Hephaestus?"

"Yes!"

"Why are you here?" Yuna knew how difficult it was to get across curves, so she was internally baffled how he managed to do it.

"Take this! He said you'll get the information you need from it." The man tossed a circular object that had a sphere in the middle surrounded by a black metal frame.

"Stay there." Yuna ordered before picking it up and activating it.

——Arena

With the conclusion of the quarterfinals, only eight remained and this showed who were the strongest of the newest generation. Of course Ariel and Reiner made it, but so did the ruthless number one seed Carter.

"I'm going to kill that Carter guy." Ariel said with a vicious look on her face.

Dante just nodded to her statement, he hadn't seen Ariel or Carter fight so he kept his opinion to himself.

"Don't believe in me?" Ariel asked.

"Just not informed, I don't like lying."

"You could try believing in me." Ariel punched Dante's arm.

"Just be careful." Dante said with a slight tinge of concern for her.

Ariel picked up on that and just meekly shook her head before going silent.

"Ah, that was a great warmup!" Reiner yelled as he descended from his arena, since his battle style consisted of analyzing his opponent and then counterattacking, it took incredibly long to finish and he was typically the last match each round.

Reiner looked at Dante and just stared at him, multiple minutes passed before Reiner finally said something.

"I've never encountered someone I can't figure out in our age group, are you actually sixteen?" Reiner asked curiously.

"Can you even lie about your age? I thought they had artifacts for that in the school." Dante replied.

"True, I just don't understand you. You show up out of nowhere, you're a complete monster from my perspective. I was going to be happy getting first place but then you and Carter showed up out of nowhere. Just what hole did you guys crawl out of." Reiner scratched his head before sitting down.

"I won't give you an easy win." Was the last thing Reiner said before going silent for the first time ever. Clearly he really wanted to give Dante a run for his money.

"You should clobber him." Ariel whispered to Dante while she tugged the sleeve of his shirt.

Dante replied with a small smile and nod to affirm he would do something of the sorts. The giant blonde man had encroached enough into Dante's space, he needed to be taught a lesson that you don't overstep boundaries.

Unknowingly a devious smirk began to appear on Dante's face, merely thinking about beating Reiner made him happy.

"First seed versus fourth seed, both make their way to the arena." The judge announced.

For the last two rounds, instead of multiple arenas, only one giant arena was set up.

Right as Ariel stood up to leave she felt a tug at her shirt.

"Don't be stupid." Dante said while looking down, refusing to make eye contact because of embarrassment.

Ariel saw this and couldn't stop herself from wearing a slightly brighter smile as she walked forward to the arena.

"Hurry up slut." Carter said as he waited for Ariel.

"You love to run your dirty mouth." Ariel said as she readied her elven sword for combat.

"I can't wait to mutilate your pretty face." Carter had an insidious look on his face.

"Begin."

——Unknown location

"Run!" Screamed a woman who was running down a dark corridor lined with black stone.

Explosions and sounds of fighting were happening all around her but she was powerless to stop it.

Suddenly she slowed down and came to a standstill, in front of her at the only exit to her secret facility was a man dressed in all black armor and a weird looking helmet that resembled a samurai.

"Please don't kill m-" before she could finish her sentence a click sound was heard, shortly after her head was split in half horizontally and she fell to the ground.

"Wrap things up, keep the researchers and the boss alive." The black samurai said telepathically to his subordinates who were currently rampaging through the secret facility.

His group earlier were busy searching for this facility and managed to find it a few miles away from Unity Academy, after they all gathered together they launched a sting operation to bring the group who were associated with corruption down.

After half an hour the sound of explosions and fighting stopped, slowly one of the samurai's subordinates appeared in front of him.

"We've locked them in their dungeon Musashi." The subordinate said to the samurai.

"Good work, standby for Lady Yuna." Musashi made his way to the dungeon and saw a group of ten people. One was the leader of the facility who was a small man, he had long black hair with a very thin build, he had huge dark circles under his eyes showing how little rest he got.

"Kill me." The black haired man said.

"Pass, if I did then Lady Yuna would kill me." Musashi didn't fear many but Yuna was one person he strived to never upset.

"I won't tell you anything so why prolong the inevitable?"

"Because I have questions of course!" Yuna said loudly as she appeared through a portal with the same man she had kicked earlier.

"Oh great." The black haired man threw his arms up in defeat before sitting down on the ground.

"Nice base you've got here, must be one of those abandoned cities I keep finding around Aevis. I take it you're responsible for keeping this world from developing?" Yuna asked.

Throughout her years she had been exploring and noticed ruins hidden throughout the world that had been sealed. Many of these had evidence of more advanced civilizations than the current ones, clearly someone has been tampering with the development of Aevis.

"Your point?" The man said.

"How long ago did you guys come here is what I'm curious about, clearly whoever your leader is has been planning for a very long time. It's almost impressive, I bet this isn't the only curve who's dealt with this." Yuna was pacing back and forth in front of the cell the prisoners were in and just rubbing her chin in thought.

"Don't care." The black haired man replied.

"Maybe that's why the other curves were conquered so quickly, a lot of them didn't even get a chance to fight back. My curve was fully corrupted within fifty years, makes you think how long this plan has been going on for right?"

"Still don't care." On the outside the man still maintained his facade but internally he was freaking out.

"Fair enough, just know that I'm getting closer to solving this. I don't need you around, I just wanted to express myself. I can see I'm on the right track, thank you for that."

Yuna motioned Musashi to enter the cell.

"Any last words before he beheads you all?" Yuna asked everyone in the cell.

"What curve are you from?" The black haired man asked.

"Oh? As a dying wish I'll let you know." Yuna slowly walked forward and leaned into the man's ear.

"Mesopotamian." She whispered.

The man's eye went wide for a split second and a quick slash was delivered to his neck.

"Clean them up, I have to go back to the tournament."

Musashi nodded and he began brutally killing the last remnants of the facility.

"Why not interrogate them?" The man who worked under Hephaestus said.

"They're all branded, as soon as they try to answer they would implode." Yuna casually said.

"What's your name anyways?" Yuna asked.

"William." He replied.

"Dig around this facility and see if you can't discover anything, when you're finished have Musashi take you to his home." Yuna opened a portal and vanished.

"She's terrifying." William said to Musashi.

"You won't get used to it either." Musashi had been with Yuna for many years now and he still couldn't get accustomed to how ruthless and terrifying she was.