"Is this really over?" Shasa asked. "No." Kugoh stared at his friend with determination. "This is just another cave. We’ve been trapped before and came out of it alive, Shasa. This time it will be no different." It had been almost two years since the day Shasa, Kugoh, and their late friend, Igord the Vagrash had dug their way down to the remnants of Hatorne’s lab in Kandria. They had hoped to find something precious enough to buy them an apprenticeship under an Awakened master. Find adventures at freewebnovel After all, Hatorne had been a Magus-level fake mage with a talent for Alchemy that rivaled Manohar’s for light magic. She had crafted countless wonders that still baffled the Awakened community. Even if the three Emperor Beasts found only scraps of her research, selling them should have earned them enough money to build a good magical lab. Shasa, Kugoh, and Igord were around seventy years old and nowhere near Awakening. They had been born Emperor Beasts, enrolled into the academies to learn specializations, and then spent their lives looking for guidance and enlightenment. They had never bothered saving money in the past and to settle down they needed a lot of it. Igord and his bloodline ability had allowed them to go deep into the ground, deeper than the Kingdom had ever dug, and away from the site of the explosion. Hatorne had bought the entire city block and the Emperor Beasts presumed the explosion had weakened before reaching the fringes of her massive lab. On top of that, unlike humans, they didn’t need stairs or a safe passage. The ground opened in front of the Vagrash and closed behind him, keeping the tunnel stable as they crossed it. After days of digging, Igord had found the mother lode. An entire room almost undamaged and filled with sealed vials. There was no way to open them safely but the three Emperor Beasts had no reason to. They just stored everything in their dimensional amulets and moved on. With Kugoh’s strength moving rubble or pebbles was the same thing. Igord dived past the blockages, scouting the nearby rooms to check if clearing the way was worth the effort. Shasa and his Life Maelstrom were insurance. Whatever obstacle they encountered, a spark of silver lightning was enough to clear it. While exploring the ruins of the labs, Igord had found several experimental potions, Alchemical devices, and then a library. It was then that tragedy had ambushed them, disguised as an opportunity. Emperor Beasts feared no human trap. When they met a lock, they just broke it. Hatorne was dead for years and without a master, the arrays had long since faded. As for the mechanical traps, there was nothing that could harm a Behemoth covered in enchanted Orichalcum. Or so they thought until Kugoh forced one of the drawers of one of Hatorne’s many work desks open, triggering the release of a thick stream of anti-mana toxins. Hatorne could always use new specimens and when someone reached so deep in her house, she liked to capture her intruders alive. Not out of curiosity, but to learn from them what weakness they had exposed and fix it. She was certain that once the anti-mana toxin stripped her uninvited guests of their magical abilities, they would be trapped, and she was right. The three Emperor Beasts still had their physical strength and abilities but had lost their powers. The toxin Hatorne had used for her trap was the kind that didn’t self-destruct and permeated the air for a long time. Not only were the Emperor Beasts soaked with it, but it also was absorbed through their skin. From there, it spread to the rest of their bodies. Cursing their bad luck, Kugoh and the others were trapped. Their bloodline abilities still worked but the anti-mana toxin made them hard to control and unpredictable. Igord almost died when the ground opened but no air came to him. Even after leaving the contaminated room, the toxin kept invading their bodies and degrading their cores until they became bright red. It would have taken a human body weeks to purge the anti-mana toxins but the Emperor Beasts’ mass diluted them so much that a few days sufficed. As their strength returned and mana filled their cores again, the three Emperor Beasts finally perceived the surrounding world energy and Awakened. They cried and danced in joy, hugging each other and thanking the gods for their blessing. Until it turned into a curse. As their mana cores recovered, the body refining progressed, becoming more violent and painful as the concentration of toxins in their bodies decreased. Igord and the others held strong, thinking they had just to endure a bit longer. Until the Vagrash exploded. The spasm had looked like any other, Igord’s body bulging and deforming in the attempt to rid itself of the biggest impurities plaguing it. The price of success, however, was the flesh and bones breaking apart beyond what even Invigoration could restore. Feeling their impending death, Kugoh had the presence of spirit of taking one of the milky white vials out of his dimensional amulet and swallowing half of it before passing it to Shasa. The Hippogriff was in too much pain to think and just followed suit. The anti-mana toxins suppressed the waves of mana and brought the pain to an end but it was only a temporary measure. Kugoh and Shasa moved right outside the contaminated area and entered it the moment the pain became unbearable again. They rolled in the toxins, letting them soak their bodies, and exited the room as soon as the body refining stopped. The excruciating pain of Awakening that was supposed to last minutes extended for over two weeks, forcing the two Emperor Beasts to ration their food and drink many of the vials they had collected. In the end, they survived only by consuming most of their loot and thanks to Shasa’s Life Maelstrom. As his powers returned, the Hippogriff used the silver lightning to strengthen solely their bodies, without affecting impurities and mana cores. It was a maddening experience but they survived. Escaping the cave almost cost their lives as well since without Igord, they had to tunnel through the ground with earth magic. The combination of the Behemoth’s strength boosted tenfold by the Life Maelstrom allowed them to survive the multiple cave-ins. Once freed, they had contacted their fellow Emperor Beasts, promising them Awakening in exchange for the funds necessary to study what was left of Hatorne’s toxins and her notes. It was how the band of Emperor Beast had started, exploiting the War of the Griffons to take over Kophar’s underworld and replacing the criminal organizations after running out of stolen money. Awakening a single Emperor Beast required lots of toxins and resources. Only a few could attempt the treatment and not all of them survived. Some had too many impurities, others too few and when that happened, they died before a control dose of toxins could be administered. "This is just another cave." Shasa nodded. "As long as we stick together, we’ll come out of this alive." *** Along the corridors of the second underground floor, the Emperor Beasts died like rats.