Raz stood rigid by the car, his knuckles white on the door handle. "The signal should be live in at least forty-eight hours. If I don't hear from you by then-"
"You'll assume I'm dead and execute the secondary protocol." Eric finished, not looking at him. He adjusted the hem of his shirt, feeling the hidden stitch between his fingers.
"Your Highness..." Raz's voice cracked.
Eric finally met his gaze. "I'll find her, Raz. Whatever happens in there, I'll find her." A cold wind accompanied his words. "On my life."
A curt nod from Raz was all the acknowledgement Eric needed. He then turned and walked towards the Panacea transport without looking back.
They had arrived in the dead of night. Their procedures as cold and efficient as he remembered.
Eric tried to ignore his fears but they still gnawed at his heart.
Raz watched until the doors sealed, his face a stone mask.
The black car soon drove off into the distance, Eric inside.
Only then did Raz turn and get into his own vehicle, with a black book and Eric's necklace clenched tightly within his hand.
__________________________________________________
"So you're telling me data on every person of interest in the kingdom is on this pendant?" Silas asked incredulously, lifting Eric's necklace.
When Eric had said Raz would be in touch, they did not think it would mean the next day.
He had moved them from their grimy little apartment into a house within the woods on the capital's outskirts. Why Raz thought this place was safer, was beyond the two runaways.
Their masks were already discarded. The prince and his guard already knew so much about them the disguises felt useless before them.
Looking unamused, Raz took the necklace from the doctor. It was relatively large with a darkness which resembled a starless night sky. Only the intricate dragons carved into it's frame glistened.
Raz pressed down on the top and bottom, before twisting them in opposite directions.
With a soft pop, Raz removed the upper half soldered to the chain, revealing a tiny USB drive attached to its lower half. He handed the drive to Kai then pocketed the necklace.
"Are you familiar with Shatterpoint?" Raz asked Kai.
"You mean the most notorious black market site in the country?" Her voice dripped with sarcasm. "Yeah, I've heard of it."
"Good. I need you to create a secure, untraceable account. Then begin posting some of the information on that drive." Raz said.
Kai's brows perked up in curiosity.
Swivelling her chair to face her computer, she plugged in the drive and scanned the files. Her eyes widened with each scroll.
"Some of these are state secrets... Locations of private munitions caches, money hoards, lists of corrupt officials, names of undercover operatives..." The more Kai read the more shocked she was.
"Stars above," She whispered, clicking on a file. "General Dax has over 200 assault rifles, 50 kilos of C-4, and 5 million dollars in untraceable cash stored in a private vault beneath his mistress's townhouse."
She looked up at Raz, her sarcasm gone, replaced by genuine fear.
"Raz, if this information is true and I release them the entire capital's gonna go to shit." She was expectedly sceptical of his orders.
"That's the point." Raz spoke, gaining the same tinge of insanity the duo had also seen on Eric. "Release enough now to gain credibility on the site. I'll give you money to buy the position of the top spot too."
Raz lit a cigarette as he spoke. A habit he indulged only when away from those he served.
"You continue feeding easily verifiable information till we receive Eric's signal." He let out a gentle puff of smoke. "Then you release the bulk of it, with Panacea's glazed up location cradled within."
Silas looked disturbed by Raz's words. "You'd doom the capital for the Prince?"
Raz's deadpan stare made him flinch. "I'd do worse."
Silas persisted, his morality clawing at him. "And what happens after? When there's little of a government left to stop the carnage?"
Raz's smile was a thin, cruel line. "We'll be having a new Queen soon. Might as well prime her ascension."
After a pause for another drag, he continued. "Besides, this mostly hurts Ario's sycophants."
"Mostly..." Kai languidly repeated, her fingers already flashing across her keyboard.
"In the ensuing chaos we'll infiltrate the base and extract the Prince and Princess." He stated it as a fact. "Simple."
The room's atmosphere grew taut with tension.
Silas and Kai exchanged a glance, wondering if they'd live to regret helping the Prince.
____________________________________________
PANACEA.
Eric woke in a patient gown. They had knocked him out with some sort of gas in the car, just like he remembered.
Now he was once more surrounded by their unnatural white.
[MAIN QUEST: RECEIVE IMMORTAL CORE]
[REWARD: HUMAN-FORM CULTIVATION INITIATION ART]
[FAILURE: DEATH]
[SECONDARY QUEST: INFILTRATE PANACEA FACILITY - COMPLETED]
[REWARD: PHYSIQUE REINFORCEMENT - AWAITING COLLECTION]
[SECONDARY QUEST: SECURE HEAVEN'S LOOM]
[NOTE: ARTIFACT CRITICAL FOR LONG-TERM HOST STABILITY.]
[REWARD: FIVE FOUNDATIONAL FORMATIONS SET]
After dismissing the system's prompt, he observed his surrounding.
The room tried to emulate a hospital's sterility, but he could feel the death within its walls.
It was in the air, stale, like an olfactory representation of the facility's main colour. It was in the silence. The way even the staff seemed beaten and tortured.
Only broken or deranged people could survive this place long. He wondered which he was.
He had always believed the actual facility was underground. The room's lack of windows supported his theory.
An odd TV hung on the wall opposite his bed, tuned to a local news channel.
They reported a sudden, inexplicable rise in criminal activity across the capital over the past few hours. The crimes seemed unrelated, but their frequency had the authorities baffled.
Eric couldn't help but smile. 'Good job Raz.'
They had been running tests on him the whole day.
Diagnosing, assessing, prepping. Now, they wheeled in what would seal his fate.
The main equipment, the Core stabilizer, a large sphere of humming silver alloy entered the room.
Within was the immortal core.
Then Jackson walked in, his nose looking perfect. Eric had to mentally restrain himself from slamming the bastard's head into the floor till it caved in.
"Good evening, Your Highness." Jackson said. "The Ascension Procedure is ready."
Eric forced a simple nod in reply, his eyes trained on Jackson's face.
The man's lips twitched at the intensity of his stare, making Eric's smile broaden.
"We'll begin now."
A nurse quickly fixed the mask to deliver the anaesthesia to his face.
Slowly, Eric fell into another deep sleep.
The next moment he was forced out of consciousness with system messages flooding his mind.
[IMMORTAL CORE DETECTED]
[INITIATING SYNCHRONIZATION...]
[ANCHORING CORE TO DANTIAN SPACE...]
[ATTUNING MERIDIANS TO ARTIFICIAL DANTIAN...]
[SPIRITUAL ROOT NULL. OVERRIDING WITH CORE'S PROFILE...]
[COMMENCING HOST PHYSIQUE REINFORCEMENT...]
[WARNING: HOST VESSEL INTEGRITY - CRITICAL.]
[CONTINUED REINFORCEMENT BEARS MORTAL RISK.]
[PROCEED?]
The prompts were overwhelming.
Luckily, the grogginess of just waking didn't cloud his thinking.
Looking around, Eric realised he wasn't on the operating table. He wasn't anywhere he recognised.
He floated in a type of starry space, naked. A cold, static hum filled the air, raising the hair on his arms.
Only the system's blue light filled his vision.
'It just keeps getting weirder and weirder...' Eric thought to himself.
Remembering the urgency with which the system sent its messages, he quickly read through them.
'My body's too weak for the core...'
After somewhat understanding the situation, he became quiet.
Only the hum of the space persisted.
A few seconds later a derisive chuckle escaped his mouth.
"If I say no, do I wake up and tell Jackson to take the core out?" His voice filled the space.
He wanted to see if he might get a reaction, but it all remained silent.
When he saw there was no response coming, Eric steeled his resolve and spoke.
"I made my decision the moment I walked back through Panacea's doors." He took a deep breath between his words. "Proceed."
The instant he spoke, the unfolding darkness turned turbid and chaotic.
An overbearing presence suddenly enveloped all of Eric's being.
Primal fear, colder than any he'd felt in Panacea's labs, lanced down Eric's spine, at its appearance.
A deep mysterious voice cut through the lashing void, emanating from the presence.
"I will aid in stabilising you, but it will be... excruciating. Do not fight it."
The voice vanished before Eric could speak.
Immediately after, Eric felt the presence enclose him and pervade every inch of his mind and body.
Then a pain unlike any other ripped through Eric's gut, a feeling of his very cells being torn apart and rewoven.
The dream shattered.