Heaven's Greatest Professor

The immortal six seconds passed, and Warden plunged his blade into the skull of the hybrid wolf-bull. Void energy charged out of the sword a micro-second later, but the fiend was already overpowering him.

However, before he could have a real contest with his first fiend-rank monster, Agnes came flying. Large Black wings spread on her back, completely made out of the essence of darkness. Her speed rose to an unprecedented level, as in a matter of no time, she swooped down on them.

Her legs hurtled dozen on the back of the fiend, stunning it for an instance of a moment. But that instance was enough for her to swing her arm as a thick rope of darkness wrung around Warden and she took flight again.

Paying the creatures chasing after her no mind, she carried him into the warped way.

Instantly, they were in a new environment. It seemed like an ancient catacomb with dark spatial waves tittering all around. The suppression on them doubled just as immediately as they came down. it was closing in towards the 20% now.

Agnes spat blood on the ground, though there was no sign of weakness. She resigned her dark wings and turned to him.

"What kind of fucked up shit were you trying to pull?" she asked. "I thought you'd be grazed-- Shit! Shit! Where the fuck are the others?"

Warden looked around and found no sign of their companions. The atmosphere and natural swirl in the catacomb were simply chaotic enough that no residual aura a person leaves behind would survive there.

"My shitty luck!" the captain cursed again, but then her expression calms down. Finding him oblivious look, she explained, "They probably fell into a different part in this catacomb. It happens with these types of chaotic warped ways under some peculiarities."

"Does this happen often?" Warden couldn't help but ask.

Agnes nodded. "It's more common when there's no correct designated teleportation point. If there's a time gap between the people entering along with some other- well, don't worry about them, the catacomb is not dangerous, and they are resourceful people."

Warden could only agree to her. Under her lead, they began moving. Her familiarity in moving showed she had been here or place like this before.

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"Your darkness power," Warden said after moving around silently for a few minutes, trying to strike a small talk. "It has more utility than I thought."

Agnes replied with a solitary nod.

Failing to strike a conversation, Warden put his attention on the chaotic swirls of spatial waves. He pushed his awareness on them and found it dissolving in mere seconds before he could read anything in the current.

"We can actually find our way back to the warped gate, reading the spatial current," Agnes said as the passed a turn. "There's a pattern in things, even if this place was destroyed thousands of years ago."

Warden perked an eyebrow. Seems like Agnes was just as knowledgeable about stuff as June in these types of matters. Well, her perception and insight probably couldn't compare to his favourite elf. Honestly, very few could compare. Besides, Agnes's depth of power was combat-based.

"What?" she asked, finding him staring blankly.

Warden shook his head. "Just thinking about how brilliant Madame Captain is," he said, shooting a winning smile.

Agnes snorted and crept forward.

Soon they came to a crossroads which went five different ways. Agnes chose the one with the least spatial current. She seemed convinced that the path out of the catacomb should have the least spatial tear.

"It might be a little late to ask," Warden said, as they moved through the relatively dark pathways and the swirling mass of energy. "But what are we scouting for?"

"Did I not mention that to everyone already?" she said.

Warden shrugged.

"The high commands received some signs of a spirit essence vein in this part of the rift… we are the only ones they could spare scouting for it."

Warden frowned. "As far as I can tell, essence vein should be something precious for anyone. After all, the vein can give a ranker a shit ton of essence without hunting demonic beasts. You're telling me they could not spare more men for something like that?"

A hint of a cold smile appeared on the corner of her lips. "They probably will if they received any confirmation. Currently, no one wants to lose their precious underlings in the dangers of the rift…"

"So, it fell naturally to the 16th infantry," Warden said, realization dawning on him. But then his thoughts swirled. "wouldn't sending a gold ranker to be more productive for the search? Considering it is the case for an essence vein, I think they'll interested in it too. Or maybe it isn't worth their time?"

"Naturally, an essence vein is worthwhile even to a Dimond ranker," Agnes said.

"This doesn't make any sense then," Warden said. "Unless the tip of essence vein is too untrustworthy."

"The tip came from a resourceful source, but many things are at play here," Agnes explained. "Even with all that, don't you feel the suppression in the air, it only rises as we go deeper, not to mention the suppression is far higher for higher rankers."

Warden thought deeply on that point. He could feel the suppression prickling at his skin, gnawing at his heart, but he didn't think it was dependent on a ranker's personal power.

"We're still far from reaching the designated spot," Agnes said with a smile. "Honestly, even I'm not aware how terrible the suppression is. Those old fogies at high commands lived a long life, they'd rather throw away a bunch of insignificant lives for more information than walk into a place with a slim chance of their demise."

Warden swallowed the information, this mission turned out to be more complicated than expected. Of course, it was still about scouting, but the thing they were looking for was an Essence vein. An Iron grade one was enough to cause most rankers' greed to overflow, who knew what grade this one was?

"Honestly, I don't plan on doing much work that'll endanger my team," Agnes said with a snort. "It is a scouting mission, after all, I can just—"

Agnes faltered on her path, her eyebrows quirking. She raised a hand to silence him. A tangible cover of darkness manifested out of her and covered both of them as she shifted, gesturing him to keep his silence. She led him to one dark corner as he stayed completely still, leaning on the wall. Warden knew how stealth works, so he didn't mess up in anything.

Her cover of darkness did hamper some of his senses, sight mostly, but he did hear sounds of feet moving towards them. Agnes' eyes glowed in cold red light, as though she pierced right through the cover of darkness.

Warden's senses didn't pick up that much of a threat. Whatever that moving around wasn't dangerous, a couple of smaller humanoids—their shape indicated goblins, at the early stage of iron rank. They came their way, and without giving any look in their direction they went their way.

Agnes dropped her stealth a minute after, a contemplating look in her eyes.

"From your expression, I can guess goblins are not common in this part of the region," he said, and was about to ask the question, but she raised a hand to silence him, deep in thought.

After a few seconds, she let out a sigh and brought out a handy longread. She fidgeted a bit, but finding no connection, stowed it away.

The connection to outside of the rift was impossible for a longread, considering the glitch in the timeline, but it was somewhat possible to use the communication device inside the rift, However, it was never easy to communicate long distance with such suppression in natural energy and strong spatial currents.

"Probably won't connect unless we get back to the first fold of the rift," she muttered. But she didn't seem to mind that all that much, though her expression barely returned to normal. "Looks like we have something to worry about now. Goblins rarely move in small numbers."

"Did they get the winds of the essence vein somehow and came with the task of scouting as well?"

Agnes did not dislodge that idea, as the same thing had been playing in her mind after she sensed the goblin pair.

"Let's stalk after them," Warden said and brought his legendary cloak out of his subspace and draped it on. "My equipment has some stealth abilities."

He even turned on the ability and almost disappeared into the shadow to shoot it to her.

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The captain shot him an incredulous look. "If you had such an item, why have to stored it away? You didn't think it would be useful in this mission?"

Warden smiled awkwardly. "I'm too dependent on them."

Agnes gave him a look as if she didn't understand him. "I can glimpse there's a very deep connection between you and the cloak. They are not your regular artifact. It is bound to your soul, which is literally a part of you…"

In a way she was saying depending on them was nothing wrong.

Warden shrugged, not giving her more explanation. "So, we go after them?"

Agnes thought for a second and nodded. She used her stealth ability as the two of them moved in the direction the goblins moved.

About a minute had passed since the goblins moved on, and the spatial current had dissolved the aura from the atmosphere. Thankfully, goblins were rarely your silent type on their move.