CHAPTER 42: CHAPTER 42: WAR PATH PT7 — MEMORIES

FLASHBACK — 6 YEARS AGO

Two men stood in front of a large metal circle that was propped up on the sides by huge poles. In the middle of the circle was a small miasma that was squirming everywhere but it was contained within the metal circle.

A younger Marquis stared at the screen showing signs of the progress of the miasma and a frown married his face—the thing was developing rather quickly, even with the preventative measures they had taken to ensure they delay its progression. Day by day, it was growing bigger and bigger.

"We cannot continue to study this." He mused to himself as he took note of the recent developments.

The door open and Yuan walked in holding a tray with two cups of coffee. "You should take a rest, it’s already midnight." He placed the coffee in front of Marquis and took his own—his attention shifted to the miasma. "Where do you think that came from? We designed the device for a jump in space to explore the quantum dimensions, do you think it comes from there?"

Marquis took a sip and shook his head. "No, the way it behaves is similar to how raw Neuro-Qi behaves through the leylines. But this one? It’s something I have never seen before."

"That’s problematic, but we can continue with the research."

"No Yuan, we must shut it down!"

Yuan turned to look at Marquis with wide eyes. "Why? This can revolutionize how refinement is done, the implants adaptability selection can be improv—"

Marquis slammed his cup on the table as he got to his feet. "Enough Yuan. We can’t proceed anymore with the research, this thing is a danger to us and everyone too." He turned around and left the room.

Yuan glared at the retreating back of Marquis and he scoffed. "We will see about that."

A few days passed with Yuan monitoring the schedules of the security that Marquis had placed in order to stop him and anyone else from entering the room where the miasma was—on this fateful night, Yuan was going to do a hands-on approach and figure out the mystery of the miasma.

He carefully timed the guards schedules and he knew the time of their rotation and how the room will not be guarded for that period—as the hour struck midnight and the guards rotation began, Yuan slipped through undetected and entered the room.

He carefully walked over to the device and stared up at the miasma.

His eyes gazed over and he started to findle with the computer turning off the protective veil set to stop the miasma from spreading outward—as the veil dropped, waves of a otherworldly energy flowed into the room and the miasma development jumped up in leaps and bounds, spreading to cover the section around the device and Yuan.

This caused a massive spike in energy which alerted every single floor causing panic to flood into the building.

Marquis ran along the corridor heading to the miasma room. Damn it Yuan, I told you. his heart raced, he did not care about the miasma, he just wanted his friend to be safe—he reached the entrance and swiped the access card opening the door and he was immediately hit by a stench of death. "YUAN!"

Yuan snapped out of his trance when he heard Marquis scream his name and he slowly returned to his senses—he looked at what he had done and his eyes widened. "What have I done."

"Get away from there!" Marquis ran upto the miasma and was flung back by an invisible force.

The miasma released more Qi causing the center of the metal circle holding it in place to glow and the space around the miasma tore open releasing a massive gravitational pull which dragged everything within 5 meters of it into the circle.

Yuan was no exception—he held onto the table that was moving towards the center, fear visible in his eyes. "Marquis, help me!"

Marquis got to his feet and ran upto the device only to be knocked back again by an invisible force—his eyes roamed the room and he saw the switch used to give power to the machine and he walked to it while pushing against the heavy winds. If he couldn’t get close to it—he was going to shut it down. He grabbed the chord and pulled it cutting the power supply to the machine causing it to die down.

However, the damage was done. His friend was lost in the spatial rift that had opened.

END OF FLASHBACK

Marquis was struck in place when he heard the declaration from Yuan. The long buried loathing thoughts surfaced.

It was you who killed Yuan

And you consider yourself, a friend?

You should allow yourself to die

His eyes trembled and his hands shook—they were correct, it was because of him that Yuan died, because of his own reckleness and stubbornness his friend turned out this way.

All because of HIMSELF.

GRAND CHARIOT

A golden spear flew across the air as the dragon lunged down on Marquis. The spear tore through the wooden dragon with ease and it continued until it stabbed the mountain in the distance, evaporizing it on impact.

Cheng stopped next to Marquis and he slightly tapped the man in the suit. "What are you doing?"

Marquis looked at the Sect master and the protector of Dravnel. "Thank you, I lost my cool there for a bit."

Cheng laughed. "Don’t you worry about a thing it happens." His demeanor changed as he looked at Yuan. "So this is the enemy we are supposed to fight huh?"

Marquis nodded. "Yes."

Cheng drove the golden chariot he was on, down to the ground. He got off and undid his ability causing the chariot to vanish into golden flakes. "My name is Li Cheng, and you are trespassing on my domain." his aura spiked up as he tried to intimidate Yuan.

Yuan chuckled menacingly. "You think just because you can pull off that amount of aura, you could intimidate me?" His eyes glowed as Qi flowed through him. "I possess something far greater." the raw force of his Qi caused the ground to shake as if an earthquake had hit.

Cheng was slightly taken back by the raw intensity of Yuan’s energy. For a brief moment, he saw despair, absolute despair but his tremendous will allowed him to overcome it, not without some sweat on his forehead.

Marquis knew the aura very well—he was there when sector 55 was shut down cause of the incident. The pillars floating behind him moved to his side and the tip parted revealing a dark channel within—within the channel, purple Neuro-Qi gathered and it fired releasing a sonic boom and multiple compressed air cones.

Yuan watched the destructive beam approach him and he raised his hand which glowed green—the beam struck his palm and instead of exploding, it twisted and warped as the purple light was slowly consumed by the green light.

Cheng seeing the man distracted closed the distance between them, and conjured up a golden helberg in his hands—he swung the weapon upward in an arc, cutting through Yuan and launching him in the air, while spilling his blood on the ground.