Lowly Ascent

The facility was like a maze, its empty halls suffused with the faint scent of disease. It took the pair forever to find the sector on sealing runes. It was in a small part of the facility and the rest of the facility seemed to be researching viruses.

But what came as a surprise was that they were not alone down here. When searching a room, some sort of monster crept out of the door and started attacking them.

Cain's heart pounded in his chest as he beheld the grotesque creature. Disgust and fascination intertwined within him, a conjuncture of repulsion and morbid curiosity.

The monster was extremely pale and its eyes were barely the size of an apple seed, all you could see were just two black dots. The creature's body was malnourished and deformed, the spine looked to have some form of scoliosis and it had hind legs like an animal.

Its skull looked similar to a human but it didn't have ears and its teeth were razor-sharp.

Cain was stunned to see such a creature and one that did not appear to have any good qualities, it was like a failed experiment of nature.

"Do you know what this thing is master?"

"No, but I'm guessing it's a failed or abandoned experiment. All this creation is good for is a scare. This thing can only kill something by scratching or biting really, unless it went the bludgeoning route. It's harmless, Let's move on quickly and find out how to open the box."

"Of course master, I saw a map in this room, I know the direction we need to go."

Traveling through the white halls, they came across a few more of those pale creatures. Cain dispatched them easily, his movements swift and precise.

However, as they neared their target location, a sudden power outage plunged the once-white walls into impenetrable darkness.

Silence ensued. The pair stopped in their tracks as darkness enveloped them, the silence was broken only by the distant echoes of footsteps and the putrid stench of innards that invaded their nostrils.

Xavier began to search his bag for his lantern but it was already too late. The halls echoed with footsteps as the smell of rot invaded their noses.

Low growls permeated into their ears and then high-pitched screeches sounded right next to them. Cain immediately pushed Xavier into a room beside them and closed the door.

Unable to see, Cain took a defensive position and prepared to fight. He could instantly feel the assault of the creatures' claws latching onto him, their relentless onslaught sending a surge of adrenaline through his veins.

With his Yurombi in hand, he unleashed a flurry of slashes, carving through the claws that dared to touch him.

This approach seemed to work at first as the creatures would back off or Cain would get lucky and slash at their head in the darkness, killing the weak creatures. After a while though, there were more and more creatures attaching to Cain, several of them would pounce on him and take small bites of his flesh.

It was like he was in a pool of piranhas, countless injuries began to stack up on Cain.

His healing ability would always heal these injuries in a second, but the more the creatures overran him the greater the injuries built up, enough injuries that even Cain couldn't heal from them fast enough.

The creatures would take more and more bites, deeper and deeper into his flesh. Soon his muscles were being ripped apart and then even his skeleton was being gnawed on.

The creatures no longer scratched and began to eat away at Cain.

'This is humiliating, I can't even deal with these weaklings. I guess I need to actually use that. It appears I can't always focus on body augmentation.'

With a sigh, Cain's blood that was flowing out of him began to boil. It became a red mist that swept through its surroundings. It didn't take long for Cain to hear the pained screams of these disgusting creatures. They yelled out in pain but to Cain it was like music to his ears.

After the screeches finally stopped, Cain took all the mist back into his body, using it to fully heal himself and stored the leftovers in his bloodstream. He then opened the door and Xavier came out, he didn't say a word but just bowed.

Moving on, It didn't take long for them to find what they were looking for. Entering a dimly lit room, ancient machines and intricate apparatuses stood as silent witnesses to the researchers' alchemic pursuits.

The air was heavy with the scent of aged paper and faded ink, while dust floated in the feeble light, the room looked perfectly preserved. It seemed none of those creatures ever entered this place.

"I will look for any notes or papers master, I will notify you when I find something"

Cain nodded and began to look around the room. There were machines and apparatuses like the other areas but there were what appeared to be weird inscription devices. With all these different devices it implied the researchers here were trying different methods for their alchemic runes.

Inscription machinery, a sharp heated needle made out of strong material hooked up to a robotic arm of sorts. Cain knew this type of hardware, there were a few in the Union.

'Branding machinery, there are preset runes on it. It looks to be a press of sorts that would use pressure to inscribe the runes on the desired material. A much more unique way of being used.'

There was also just simple chalk and ink that was used to write the runes by hand, these types of runes usually took the quickest to degrade and were used for temporary things.

There were a few more stations but Cain was called over by Xavier.

As he headed over, he saw Xavier was holding a leather book.

"Master I found what we needed, this is a book of one of the researchers, I only decoded a bit of it but they talked about rune sealing that can be undone by blood"

"Can you read the rest?"

"Yes, I just need time to decode it, the author of this journal was quite paranoid, making the rune language they used very sophisticated. It might take me a day to decode all of it"

"Just do it, we have time"

...

After waiting, Xavier walked up to Cain who was resting on a chair.

"Master I have decoded everything. They were learning to create a seal that can only be opened by blood, well at least the author was. It seemed to be his own personal project but the runes he wrote in the book were exactly the same on the box. He is most likely the one who created the box."

'A coincidence?'

Cain asked Xavier, "So we need a dead man's blood to open it? Does he have any decedents?"

"He spoke of using the box to seal an important object of immense value, he wasn't a plague doctor so he planned to use the contributions he got from his group's project to get his son a mentor. He only wrote that in the box was the key to his family's future and he needed to prepare. Other than that the book just holds the translations for the runes"

"Did the author leave his name?"

"Yes, on the back in the lower right-hand corner, there is a print saying 'Property of Railan Salazar"

Cain began to laugh out loud, it went on for a few minutes and Xavier stayed silent the whole time.

"Hahaha...It seems I have to change my plans. I didn't plan on toppling an Empire so soon, but it appears I need some royal blood! I might as well kill a potential nuisance too! Hahaha!"

"We will be heading to Salazar, sir?"

"No, the Royal Palace, though I suppose I can stop in the city. In recent years the church made great progress there, they even are working with the rebels...."