Chapter 171: The Association’s Military Squad has Come!

The moment the first squad entered the contaminated zone, they were prepared for a fight.

Their orders were simple: find Nykos, capture him alive if possible, and if resistance made that impossible, they were authorized to suppress him by force. However, none of them had expected the contaminated zone itself to become the real problem.

The soldiers moved carefully through the entrance, their weapons raised and scanners sweeping across the walls. The contaminated zone had already been sealed from the outside, and several squads were stationed at different locations to prevent anyone from entering and escaping.

The officer leading the first squad walked behind the soldiers, his eyes fixed on the readings displayed on the screen attached to his wrist.

Colonel Cassian Rourke had served in the Association military for nearly twenty years. He had dealt with contaminated zones before, participated in suppression operations, and personally encountered several high-ranked Sentinels who had become corrupted by prolonged exposure to miasma. He had also heard enough stories about Nykos to know that rushing blindly into a confrontation with an SS-rank Sentinel was a good way to get his entire squad killed--which was why he had ordered his soldiers to advance slowly.

"Keep your formation," Colonel Rourke instructed, raising a hand as the soldiers ahead began to spread apart, descending the stairs. "Don’t chase anything you see unless I give the order."

"Yes, Colonel," came the immediate response of a soldier.

Suddenly, a faint vibration passed through the floor, and several soldiers stopped in place.

Colonel Rourke’s eyes narrowed. "Did anyone else feel that?"

"Yes, sir."

Another vibration followed, this one stronger, shaking dust loose from the ceiling.

The soldiers immediately raised their weapons toward the surrounding corridors, expecting an attack, their scanners flickering as they struggled to identify the source of the disturbance.

Then the lights overhead went out, and for several seconds the contaminated zone disappeared into darkness before their armor’s emergency illumination kicked in--pale lights on their shoulders flickering on one after another, casting narrow beams down the corridor. But there was nothing, only the faint sound of dripping water somewhere farther inside.

Colonel Rourke frowned. "This doesn’t make sense."

A soldier beside him glanced at his scanner. "Sir, the psychic signatures are fluctuating."

"From Nykos?"

"Not exactly," the soldier hesitated.

"Then what?"

"I... don’t know."

Colonel Rourke’s expression hardened, and before he could press him further, one of the soldiers farther ahead shouted, "Colonel!"

Rourke moved forward immediately.

The soldier was standing beside a doorway where a woman lay unconscious on the floor, dressed in ordinary clothes, her body covered in dirt and faint traces of blood. She wore no battlesuit and carried no weapon.

The soldier crouched beside her and checked her pulse. "She’s alive."

"Any injuries?"

"No, sir. She appears to be unconscious."

Colonel Rourke looked past her, toward the room behind, and his expression changed. Several metal cages had been installed against the far wall, each one containing a person. Some were unconscious; others barely moved. The soldiers who were following behind him stared, and for a moment nobody spoke.

"Sir..." one of them finally whispered.

Colonel Rourke walked closer, his face growing increasingly grim as he examined the people inside. These people weren’t prisoners... they were civilians. Men and women of different ages had been locked inside the cages, some with visible wounds, others severely malnourished.

"Get medical personnel in here," he said quietly, but everyone heard the weight behind it.

"Sir?"

"Now."

The soldier immediately ascended the stairs and contacted the squad outside.

Another soldier moved toward the unconscious woman. "Should we bring her out too?"

"Yes. Do it carefully."

Colonel Rourke noticed the blood—dark stains dried across the floor, leading farther inside. His eyes followed them to the bodies, at least several, left where they had fallen, some bearing injuries that clearly hadn’t been caused by ordinary miasma exposure. One soldier approached cautiously and scanned one of them.

"They’re all dead."

"How long?"

"An hour to a few hours ago."

That was too recent.

Colonel Rourke crouched beside a corpse. There were no identification tags, no Association markings, no obvious evidence of who had killed them. His gaze moved from one body to the next.

"Photograph everything," he ordered, and the soldiers began recording the scene. "Don’t touch anything unless necessary. We need to know who these people were and what happened here. Especially who killed them."

The discovery had completely changed the nature of their mission. They had entered the contaminated zone to capture a wanted criminal; now they had stumbled across murder.

"Colonel." A soldier hurried toward him. "We found another passage."

Rourke stood. "Where?"

"Below." The soldier pointed toward a partially concealed entrance. "There are stairs leading underground."

Colonel Rourke looked at the cages one last time before making his decision. "Split the squad." Several soldiers looked at him. "First and second teams stay here. Secure the civilians and make to protect them. Don’t let anyone remove anything until the investigation team arrives."

He turned toward the soldiers near the passage. "Third team, follow me."

"Yes, Colonel."

"And contact headquarters. Tell them we have uncovered evidence of illegal human trafficking and potential murder. I want investigators and medical personnel sent immediately."

The soldiers separated--the first team securing the cages while another carefully prepared the unconscious woman for extractiont--as Colonel Rourke led the remaining soldiers down the stairs.

The deeper they went, the colder the air became, and the smell changed with it. Miasma was present everywhere, but beneath it was something else: chemical residue, metal, something that smelled faintly familiar, like blood.

Colonel Rourke’s jaw tightened as they reached the bottom, and one of the soldiers pushed open the metal door.

The entire team froze. A cavern stretched before them, large enough to swallow an entire building, rows upon rows of tanks filling the chamber, dark liquid churning inside them. At first the soldiers couldn’t understand what they were looking at--then one of the tanks moved slightly, and something inside floated past the glass. It was a human hand.

"...What the hell?" The soldier’s voice cracked.

There were dozens--no, more than dozens of people inside the tanks.

These tanks continued far into the cavern, disappearing into the darkness, tubes running between the machinery and the tanks and carrying unknown substances through transparent pipes. Several machines continued operating despite the absence of whoever had once controlled them.

Colonel Rourke stood motionless. His years of military experience told him exactly what he was looking at--this wasn’t a temporary holding facility; it was an operation, and a large one, one that had been running long enough to require an entire underground complex.

His eyes moved from one tank to another. All of them had been subjected to some sadistic experiment. He didn’t know—but whatever had happened here, it had been done intentionally and strategically.

"Colonel..." A soldier swallowed hard. "There are too many of them."

Rourke couldn’t answer, his mouth tightly shut. He noticed the miasma being fed to the people inside the tanks, and his eyes couldn’t help but turn bloodshot with anger.

"Get the medical team down here," he finally ordered, his voice noticeably lower. "And contact headquarters again... No, report this to the Chief Master directly."

"Sir?"

"This is a serious illegal activity being done within the Association. Contact the Chief Master’s office and tell them to establish an internal lockdown. Nothing from this facility is to be transmitted outside official channels. No recordings, reports, or photographs."

"Yes, sir."

"And make sure the order reaches every squad. Tell them to not say a word about this to anyone outside this operation."