‘Tell me exactly what did you see in your journey.’ Felix asked, knowing that he needs to take his words with a grain of salt.
Without the Queen to see the path and with the uncanny control of his thoughts, he could easily feed him lies.
‘After I emerged from the ventilation system, I grew my body back to normal height since I have been sent to an empty room with a single closed door in it.’
‘That was the entrance to the tunnel?’ Felix asked.
‘Yes, it was.’
‘How did you open it?’
‘I turned the doorknob and it got unlocked.’
‘Right.’ Felix said, trying his best to hold himself from sneering.
Like hell, he would believe that the researcher did all of that just to leave the entrance to his escape exposed like that.
Although Momo said that the room had only this door, making it inaccessible for strangers, he believed that the researcher should have doubled the security on the tunnel entrance.
After all, that was his lifeline.
‘Anyway, I walked down on a long staircase and when I reached the ground, I found myself in this tunnel. The rest is history.’ Momo concluded.
‘Well, thank you for the information.’ Felix ordered coldly, ‘Now, return to that room and remain there until I give further orders.’
‘What room?’ Momo asked.
‘You know what I am talking about.’ Felix’s veins began throbbing in anger as he realized that the f*cker was clearly trying to waste their team until the pirates arrive.
Speaking of the devil, Malak had just been informed by Samir that the pirate spaceship had flown over the hole.
‘It’s time to move guys.’ She said while beaming her tools.
‘Nooo.’
‘There are still hundreds more to take.’
Upon hearing so, Erik and the rest let out signs of dejection and frustration. They wanted to beam their tools and leave but their legs refused to move.
‘Don’t be stupid, we are not giving up on them forever.’ Malak’s eyelids twitched as she said, ‘We will just leave for now until we take care of the pirates. Then come back later and continue on our exploration.’
‘Malak is right.’ Felix agreed with her.
‘If it’s like that, I don’t have an issue.’ Jones smiled widely.
‘Phew, I am telling you my heart wouldn’t have been able to give up on everything here.’ Malissa sighed in relief.
Soon, all of them were on their feet, ready to walk away.
They didn’t look too nervous since they believed that Momo should have found the exit by now.’
They were merely waiting for Felix or Malak to lead them.
Alas, neither moved.
Malak was waiting patiently for Felix to lead them since he told her that he would be dealing with Momo while he had absolutely no f*cking clue where to head to!
‘Boss?’ Erik titled his head, ‘Shouldn’t we be moving now?’
Felix turned around and gave them a wry smile. Then, he came clean to them about Momo’s latest scheme. He didn’t go into details since time was of the essence.
But, just a few bits and pieces that he mentioned had set everyone in flames.
‘That motherf*cker is having a death wish!’
‘I can’t believe that he wants up dead this much. He wouldn’t gain anything from it!’ Pualani growled.
‘Sorry Sir Felix, it was my lack of judgment. I shouldn’t have hired him.’ Malak bowed her head deeply, feeling guilty that she signed a sociopath as a slave.
‘Let’s not waste time discussing this.’ Felix said, ‘We need to find a way to find that room. well, if there was any room in the first place.’
‘How about we just use the original escape method?’ Malissa suggested.
‘I agree, boss said that we won’t have enough time to make it but we can risk it instead of wasting time with that f*cker’s tunnel.’ Khodri agreed.
Seeing that they were nodding their heads in agreement, Felix smiled bitterly and said, ‘It will take us at least half an hour to use that exit because we need to enter the 3rd treasury. Believe me, that treasury is far more dangerous than everything that you have experienced here.’
‘I am telling you, the tunnel is the only way out.’ Felix affirmed, making everyone ditch that thought and jump back into the other ship.
All of them were doing their best to think of a solid plan. Felix wasn’t the only one with a brain.
‘How about we use the Queen connection to Momo’s consciousness as our guiding compass?’ Malak’s eyes brightened up a little as she clarified, ‘We know that he doesn’t own an AP bracelet so we can’t synchronize with him but we can use the connection to trace back all of his footsteps.’
Some of them were still confused after the clarification but the majority understood the jest quickly.
What she implied was simply to use the connection as a link to show the fastest path from them to Momo.
Naturally, it wouldn’t be a perfect path since the Queen was lacking a map of the maze but it would help them close the distance.
‘Smart, let’s give it a shot.’
After he praised her, Felix went to the golden gate that was behind the garden and solved its riddles quickly.
When the door was opened, Malak already had set a holographic screen, showing a messed-up blue line leading downward.
At the end of the line, there was a red dot that was moving rapidly.
‘It worked! Let’s go.’ Erik tried to dash forward but got caught by his collar.
‘Let me lead the way.’ Khodri said, ‘My senses are extremely sharp and I might survive traps if I stepped on one.’
Just as Erik wanted to argue with him, Felix gave him a side-glance, ‘Move now.’
Erik grouped up with the pack and they began jogging after Khodri who was running on his four legs.
They were all staying on their tiptoes since they had no idea what trap they were going to activate by going with this pace.
‘Turn left.’ Malak was responsible for guiding him since he would lose focus if he kept glancing at the blue line.
‘Turn right.’
‘Enter the 2nd entrance.’
‘keep going straight.’
Only Malak’s messages kept resounding in everyone’s minds. They had already spent a couple of minutes running and luckily no trap had been activated yet.
But, this was actually even more dreadful since the suspense of something big coming kept building up in the minds.
Upon seeing so, Felix decided to calm them down by saying, ‘Relax, the other squad had gone through this exact route and didn’t land in a trap.’
They didn’t know if he was lying or not but his words did affect them positively.
Felix wasn’t bullshitting since the pirates had taken this route to the 3rd treasury in the documentary.
Alas, the blue line didn’t remain in the same route but went to a different foreign path to Felix.
Now, they were truly sprinting in total darkness!
A minute later, Malak stopped everyone and pointed her finger at the blue line that seemed to have broken in half.
The remaining half was starting to go down from a place that was a few meters away from them.
But when they lifted their heads, they realized that nothing was in the corridor. Just golden walls made out of Strucrase’s rocks.
‘We are screwed!’
‘That bastard must have lied!’
This sight was enough to push them to the depth of despair. They knew that the Strucrase was unbreakable.
So, even if they wanted to indulge in Momo’s trail, they couldn’t dig a hole in the ground.
While some were despairing or sending curses to Momo, Felix and the rest were trying to figure out a way out.
‘If we consider that Momo was traveling all this time through the ventilation system and that the existence of the room was real, then it must be few meters below us.’ Felix rubbed his chin, ‘I am quite confident that the room should be real since a perfect lie needs some truth to it.’
Felix believed that Momo was lying about a bunch of things but he needs a core to his lie.
That would be the room since he knew it would be almost impossible for them to get into it because he accessed it by the ventilation system.
In addition, Felix believed in its existence because the researcher wasn’t a rat to access the tunnel by the ventilation system.
There should be a secret door or a hole that was big enough to allow for a human-sized person to access the room, leading to the tunnel.
To solidify his theory, Felix hovered towards the exact location of the room and started surveying the area with squinted eyes.
‘What are you doing boss?’ Erik inquired.
‘I want every one of you to start looking for anything peculiar in the walls, the ground, or even the ceiling.’ Felix requested without turning his head.
Erik and the rest glanced at each other in confusion by they still obliged silently.
They were willing to grasp into anything at this moment.
Seconds went by then minutes…Felix checked on the time and realized that the captain should have arrived by now.
He was absolutely right!
The captain and his fleet were currently tens of kilometers above the hole while Samir’s spaceship was flying far away from the ruins.
This was done by choice so the pirates wouldn’t assume that someone was down there and he wanted to protect them.
In his eyes, if they felt that the ruins were empty, they wouldn’t point their guns at it.
“Now what kiddo?” Declan wondered while watching this silent stand-off.
Samir looked at the ruins with a hopeful look and said, “We can only play it cool and not agitate them until we get conformal to their escape.”
“Well…” Declan pointed his shriveled finger at the fleet that had their guns brightened up and said speechlessly, “I don’t think they approve of your plan.”
