Empire Building With Infinite Warehouse-Chapter 49: The Entity in the Dark

The apothecary shop, one they restored with their sweat, was now in ruin.

Shattered glass lined the floor, and heavy wooden shelves lay splintered across the ground, crushing the few remaining alchemical tools they had left.

Alice, the pale ghost, moved nervously near the blown-out doorway, her eyes constantly scanning the ruined street outside for any lingering threats.

"Chris? Come in, Chris!" Kiara’s voice crackled through the tiny speaker, distorted by heavy interference.

"Tell me you guys made it to the district safely."

Chris stared blankly at the ruined shop around him, his jaw clenched tight.

"We’re alive," he replied, his voice heavy with exhaustion.

"But we’re far from safe."

"We are still moving on foot," Kiara sighed, the sound of heavy boots hitting the ground echoing through her end of the line.

"How can we move that fast? We can’t use the aerial jets since the Red Gate’s mana interference completely grounded everything. We are moving on anyway. I’m just glad you guys escaped the first wave." She paused for a moment, the static buzzing loudly.

"Give the comms to Julien. I want to speak with him about something regarding our next arrangement."

Chris gripped the device tighter, his knuckles turning white.

"I can’t."

"What do you mean you can’t? Is he asleep?"

"He’s gone, Kiara," Chris said, his voice laced with a suppressed rage.

"You see, the thing is... he was kidnapped right after we escaped the blast zone. It was a syndicate crew. A massive enforcer used to be our customer. They ambushed us, knocked me out, and dragged him away. Alice and I are sitting in the broken apothecary right now with absolutely nothing."

A heavy, stunned silence fell over the line.

"What?!" Kiara’s voice spiked with sheer panic.

"We have to find him! If they realise what his System can do, they’ll, hold on, let me think of a way to track them..."

"Relax, kid. It’s fine." A deeper voice suddenly cut through the static.

It was Blaze.

"I will find him," Blaze stated, his tone carrying the calm, absolute authority of a high-ranking Awakened.

Kiara’s voice echoed faintly in the background, her tone filled with absolute shock.

"Uncle Blaze? Why are you doing this? You never do anything for anyone except the guild! Why are you helping? Are you just trying to rip him off now after seeing the quality of his products?"

A harsh scoff was transmitted through the speaker.

"Believe me, niece, I don’t want to do this either," Blaze replied smoothly.

"I have no interest in playing rescue ranger for a back-alley merchant. But my Guildmaster ordered it. So, I have to find him."

"The Guildmaster?!" Kiara sounded completely bewildered.

"Why is your master interested in Julien?"

"I can’t answer everything, Kiara. That information is above your clearance," Blaze deflected sharply, shutting down the interrogation.

"Right now, you just focus on being with your mother and staying alive. After handing you over to your aunt at the edge of District 7, I will track him down."

The comms shuffled again as Kiara took the device back.

"Chris, my uncle says he will look for him. Just hold on until we get there."

"We aren’t just going to sit here," Chris replied, his eyes narrowing as he stood up from the crate.

Chris cut the call, dropping the cracked device onto the table.

He turned toward the door, his expression grim.

*******

Miles away, deep within the abandoned factory, Julien couldn’t see a single thing.

He sat perfectly still in the heavy wooden chair, completely enveloped in a smoke of absolute black ink.

The pain of his hijacked optical nerves had settled into a dull, relentless throb behind his eyelids, the brutal price the System had extracted for the summon.

Did the beast kill him?

Julien wondered, his mind racing in the pitch-black silence.

The enforcer had been screaming, firing his crossbow wildly, and then... nothing.

Since the System had violently stripped away his vision, Julien’s remaining senses had hyper-adjusted to compensate.

The freezing air in the factory was thick, and he could smell everything, including the blood somewhere above the ground.

The bald man was definitely dead.

But I can’t feel the beast, Julien realised, a spike of cold adrenaline shooting into his veins. I can smell the slaughter, but the monster is completely silent.

Where did it go?

He strained his ears, desperate to pick up the sound of heavy footsteps or the grinding growl, but there was nothing.

Then, a sudden, unnatural coldness crept up the back of his neck.

Frost rapidly crystallised on his collarbone. The hairs on his arms stood straight up as the temperature around his chair plummeted to zero levels.

Something was moving directly in front of him, displacing the freezing air without making a single sound.

A heavy, wet breath was blown directly onto his face. It carried the horrifying scent of the earth and dried bones.

Julien swallowed hard, forcing his body to remain perfectly still.

In the absolute darkness of his ruined vision, two massive, piercing yellow eyes suddenly materialised. They were mere inches from his nose, radiating a terrifying malice.

The Beast was staring right into him, inspecting the fragile, weak human who had dared to anchor it to this dimension.

Then, the darkness shifted, and a deep, vibrating sound rumbled from the entity.

"K’thrall... vok thar’ul... shur-na... xel’kor..."

The syllables sounded different. It was a guttural, ancient gibberish that echoed with the weight of a dying dimension.

Julien’s System couldn’t even begin to translate it. The words vibrated directly against his skull, sending an agonising spike of pain behind his useless eyes.

He knew the System contract prevented the Beast from actively killing him, but, staring directly into those pupil-less yellow eyes, he realised just how thin and fragile that magical leash truly was.

Before the Beast could speak again, the heavy door at the end of the hallway groaned open.

"Hey! What the hell is taking so long down here?"

The voice was smooth, arrogant, and filled with extreme annoyance.

Cobra.

He stepped confidently through the doorway, his expensive, tailored corporate suit contrasting sharply with the ruin of the factory.

The emergency halogens were buzzing uselessly overhead, completely unable to penetrate the thick darkness.

"What the hell?" Cobra muttered, adjusting the cuffs of his suit.

"Did the breaker trip again? Where are you, you massive idiot?"

Getting no response from his enforcer, Cobra scoffed in irritation and took a confident step forward into the dark room.

Squish.

He looked down.

His eyes couldn’t see the concrete floor through the darkness, but the sole of his expensive leather shoe had just stepped into something incredibly warm, thick, and sticky.

The sound of thick blood adhering to the concrete echoed loudly in the quiet, freezing room.

His hand instinctively reached inside his tailored jacket for his hidden weapon.

He never got the chance to draw it.

From the absolute darkest corner of the ceiling, the shadows erupted.

SHHLLCK!

The dark tentacle pierced directly through Cobra’s mouth, shattering his teeth and severing his vocal cords before he could even register the pain or scream.

The thick, black spike erupted out of the back of his neck in a violent spray of red, instantly and perfectly silencing the syndicate boss.