Reign and the others moved quickly, they were still being shrouded by Reign's ability and were nearly invisible, but compared to their slow, methodical movement from earlier, they were visibly flustered and were moving faster right now.
"Aethion, anything?"
"No, these guys, they're messed up, their souls, their memories, everything is wrong, pieces of their memories are pretty much stitched together, making no sense," Aethion said in a low voice as he continued interrogating the two souls.
He had already finished interrogating the three souls that Reign and the others had captured before, and unfortunately, he gained nothing. They didn't have any secret information to give him and he simply moved them to the back, slowly corroding their souls and making them suitable for Reign to use in combat.
"What do you mean their memories are stitched together, that makes no sense!" Reign said in frustration as Aethion sighed.
"I know, that's why I'm confused as well, it seems like somebody had experimented on them, they barely have a consciousness and most of their memory is gone, that's why it makes no sense, because bits and pieces of their memories have been stitched, or more like glued together, making absolutely no sense to anybody but them I guess."
"We won't get anything from them, I can assure you that much, it's better for us to just get rid of them, I'll remove their consciousness and have them transformed to souls suitable to be used in combat."
Reign nodded as he and the other two moved quickly through the hallways, but even after a couple more minutes, they found nothing. It was like they were lost as the basement was like a maze. Hallways intersected each other, there were some dead ends as well.
"Could this be for those like the two we helped out?" Wolf suddenly asked Reign.
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we all agree that the way the basement has been built makes no sense, it's a maze, one that only those that know it by heart can move through without getting lost, but why would anyone build anything so complex if they didn't need to?"
"I think the maze is here so that anyone that escapes gets lost and found by those that are here, I would even say the basement is here for entertainment, but there are no cameras here, nothing, so the maze is probably here to keep people inside, or in the case somebody like we manage to infiltrate, to keep us out," Wolf said in a serious manner as Reign and Elijah nodded at him as that made sense.
"So, how do we get in then?"
"Easy, if we're lucky, we might come across another person that's trying to escape, instead of helping them out, let the person get captured, and then we will follow them," Wolf said as Reign sighed before nodding his head.
The plan seemed easy, but it relied on luck quite heavily as even after 5 minutes, Reign and the others didn't come across anyone. They had started getting annoyed and Reign was even thinking of starting to destroy some hallways in order to draw the attention of the enemy when they heard footsteps.
Three more men appeared, each one running for their life. They were all malnourished, wore rags, and were quite weak. The trio stopped and observed this time as three men appeared, each one running after one of the three that was getting away. It didn't take them long to capture them, and some started beating up the men in anger, one even used his clear to deliver a couple of deep cuts to a man's legs before dragging him back.
Reign and Elijah stared in anger but held themselves back from attacking the trio that was dressed in leather like the two they had previously killed. They followed them, keeping a distance of only 2 meters as they didn't want to risk losing them.
The trio didn't just move through the hallways, but they also sometimes touched the walls, which prompted them to open and allow them to easily pass through so that they didn't have to go around. This was probably the main reason nobody would ever escape as no matter how fast they were, they would keep getting lost and would have to go around while their pursuers could simply go straight.
As they walked more and more, Wolf noticed that they weren't walking straight, but that there was a gentle slope, which meant they were walking further below the ground. As they reached what seemed to be the end of the basement, a large staircase appeared, and the trio made their way down, each one pulling one man with them, causing them to hit themselves on the stairs.
'What the hell is going on here, their souls, it's just like you said, they're wrong, but I have never sensed something like this before, not even those possessed by demons are like this.' Reign told Aethion who nodded his head.
"As I said before, it seems somebody played around with their souls, making them go crazy, but also it seems they made them quite obedient as well." Reign merely nodded at Aethion's words as they entered the lower floor of the basement, which also had a maze, but this one was much shorter and they got out of it in just a minute.
As they passed the maze, Reign and the others suddenly stopped and stared at the sight in front of them.
A huge open area was seen in front of them. A slope that led down was in front of them, going for about 40 meters, and then everything was straight. It wasn't a cave, but what looked like a giant warehouse, one that was filled with many things.
The walls were yellow and white, and in the very center of the basement, one could see a giant machine working tirelessly.
The heavy stench of blood immediately assaulted Reign and the others, and the existence of hundreds if not thousands of souls made Reign a bit dizzy, taking him a couple of moments to collect himself before continuing forward.
"What the hell is this, what are they doing down here?" Elijah asked in shock as he observed around them.
Tens of people who were wearing lab coats moved around while even more of those that were wearing leather could be seen. What caught their attention was the existence of tens of giant cages in which a hundred people could fit. The cages looked old, and the three men they had been following opened one before throwing the three men who they had captured inside.
"Marco!" One of the men inside the cage yelled as he made his way to the front and held the young man whose legs were badly wounded.
"Dammit, I told you guys to not try escaping, nobody manages to escape, no matter how many times they try, they always get captured." The man said as he tore some clothes and started bandaging the legs of the young man.
"It seems you have been here for quite some time." Suddenly a voice said from outside the cage, prompting the men inside to look out, only to see Reign and the others for a brief moment before they became invisible yet again.
"We're here to help you, so don't shout or anything, tell me everything you know of this place," Wolf said as the men all stared in shock.
"You … are you really here to help us?" One man asked while others all grabbed him.
"Shut up you idiot, it's a trick, they're trying to test us!"
"For god's sake." Wolf suddenly destroyed the lock on the cage door before opening it.
"Listen, all of the men that have been keeping you here are about to die, we just want to know what they have been doing down here," Wolf said as the men still stared ahead as he was still invisible.
"We … we don't know, we live in the city, we were simply grabbed one day as we were walking to work or back home, and after that, we found ourselves here, but we don't know what is going on, we just know that from time to time, those men will take some people and they will never be seen again."
"Don't move from here, we'll come free you after we are finished." Reign said as Wolf used his ability to heat the door up and caused it to fuse with the rest of the cage.
They moved to the center of the large warehouse, moving past the men in lab coats who were talking with each other.
Reign and the rest tried listening in, but they only understood some parts of their conversation.
The words 'purity', 'quality', and such were often mentioned, and it was clear that they were creating something here.
As Reign and the others made it to the center of the warehouse where the giant machine was, they all suddenly stopped and stared in horror at the machine. Tens of monsters and people could be seen inside, all of them being slowly cut into shreds by the giant blades of the machine.
Their blood was flowing out and was sucked in containers that were outside of the machine while a giant press would crush their bodies from time to time as the machine had several compartments, each one equipped with a different tool for killing people.
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