Chapter 367: Another orakun.

While others collected things blindly, Hunter and Achilles moved carefully. Things like energy stones were not the prize. The real prize where the things money couldn’t buy--at least, not a lot of money.

They packed away metal alloys that they found lined against the walls. They took away two warp gates, whose energy was unstable. There was writing on them which explained what they could do. They could transport people and beasts from one point to another.

"These are better than Soul maidens." Achilles whispered.

Hunter did not agree. "They can’t heal."

Achilles noticed two pods that had sleeping robots. He sent them into his beast pocket immediately, and looked around like a thief, worried that others would demand a share.

Hunter found a parasite ring. It had energy that attached to the soul, boosting power but slowly draining the wearer’s life force.

Achilles snatched it from him when he explained what it could do. "A perfect gift for Elliot."

When Zyra eventually looked up at the giant sand clock. A quarter of the sand was already gone.

"Thirty minutes!" she announced, her voice echoing in the room. "Only thirty minutes left!"

Her eyes scanned the floor and caught sight of pitch-black energy stones_ the dangerous kind used to turn normal beasts into corrupted beasts. She couldn’t understand what they were doing in a place like this.

"Beauty, store these ones safely we will destroy them later!" she commanded.

"Zyra! Come look at this!" Hunter’s voice called out from a dark corner. Zyra ran over and saw him holding a necklace. It looked almost identical to the one hanging around his own neck. "I found this down here." He pointed at the drag marks on the floor near a cabinet. "This has been moved too."

Zyra took it, flipped the pendant over, and froze. Etched into the back was a familiar name.

"My mother’s name_" Zyra whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs. "This belonged to my mother."

"She was here," Hunter said softly. "Which makes sense, I guess." His eyes flicked to the map on her wrist. It was hidden under her armor for now.

He pointed to the back of the delicate chain. The metal links were twisted and snapped, showing it had been violently ripped right off the owner’s neck. Zyra looked at Hunter, deep worry pooling in her eyes.

Hunter then pointed to dark, rusty stains on the stone floor. "Dry blood. Old blood. There was a terrible fight here." She touched her arm. There were other dungeons after this one, so she was certain her mother did not die here. But she still wondered what had happened in this place.

Hunter looked around the blood-stained floor carefully, he moved the cabinet and something caught his attention immediately. It was a strange device shaped like a five-pointed star, with bright purple resonance stones embedded into each section.

It was hidden in the floor and was the only thing there.

"This_ feels strangely familiar," Hunter mumbled, bending down to pick it up.

Achilles sauntered over, glanced at it, and snorted. "Looks like some ancient junk to me."

"With purple resonance stones?" Hunter frowned. "There is nothing ancient about this."

Achilles reached down to remove it from the floor, but as his clumsy thumb grabbed it, he accidentally pressed the big resonance stone right in the center. He didn’t even notice what he’d done, completely clueless. Hunter quickly took the star shaped relic from him and stuffed it safely inside his beast pocket. "It could be important. At least, it was important enough to hide."

Achilles kissed his teeth and shrugged. Maybe it would fetch a lump sum at an auction, he thought.

Zyra put her mother’s necklace in her bag and looked at the sand clock again. "Ten minutes are up! We need to_"

Before Zyra could finish her sentence, loud shouts, panic, and rapid gunfire echoed from outside the dungeon doors.

Zyra’s link band chimed instantly. Nero’s frantic voice cut through: "Boss! We’re under attack outside!"

"Nero, teleport to the valley right now!" Zyra barked. "We are leaving as well."

She turned to command Etania to open a portal. Etania was already three steps ahead, her hands glowing as a swirling spatial portal snapped open in front of them. "Move, move, move!"

The team scrambled through the portal, tumbling out into the garden in the courtyard.

Nero and his defense squad were already lying in there. But out of the ten strong men that he had stayed with, only six had made it back. Two were bleeding heavily, and Nero was cradling a visibly broken arm, gritting his teeth in pain.

The soul maidens were already attending to them.

Bertha, Neil and the remaining of their team had come too, they stood there for a moment, utterly captivated by the magnificent shelter but there was no time to stand around mesmerized, they had questions.

Zyra was horrified. "Nero! What on earth happened out there!?"

"A big guy_ just appeared out of nowhere," Nero panted, sweat pouring down his pale face. "He kept talking gibberish and asking for some key. We all had no idea what he was talking about."

Nero pulled on Hunter’s hand. "You know how strong I am... that man was ten times stronger. In fact, he was no just a man...that kind of strength is impossible. He tore our half-life beasts apart like they were dolls! Even after we shot at him, he kept coming at us. He had no armor! He was a monster in human skin! We are lucky that we got out of there when we did."

Before anyone could process his words, the valley’s blaring security alarms shattered the air, flashing red light everywhere but with no sound. Beauty had done this intentionally.

"Beauty! What’s going on?!" Zyra shouted in her mind.

Beauty’s voice popped up instantly: [Host, a powerful hostile beast is right outside the valley perimeter, frantically searching the area.]

Zyra immediately, thought that another king beast was in the area. She grabbed Hunter’s shoulder and teleported both of them straight into the security room.

The main monitor screens were already on. Zyra scanned the clear camera footage, expecting a giant dragon or a towering tiger. Instead, all she saw was a man with wildly disheveled long blonde hair sprinting in crazy circles outside the barrier, clawing frantically at the dirt like a rabid dog looking for a lost bone.

"Beauty, where’s the beast?" Zyra asked, confused. "Is he running away from it?"

[Host, you are looking directly at it.]

Zyra blinked. "Explain!"

[Deep bio-scan... Scan complete. Target is an Orakun, mumbling about a key.]

Zyra’s head snapped toward Hunter. An Orakun? Just like Hunter!? How many of them are there on earth?

She shook her head violently to clear her racing thoughts. "Nero said the man that attacked them was looking for a key. Could we have brought back something like that with us? We took many alien artifacts. Is one of them a key?"