Chapter 138: Kestrel’s Rage (1)
Kestrel had just flown off when Ren quietly tiptoed behind her. It wasn’t the first time he had secretly followed her when she took off.
He was playing a dangerous game. If Kestrel found out he was shadowing her, the bond they had built over time could break instantly. But he couldn’t just stand by. He had to know why Kestrel forgot some of her memories and find a way to help her remember them.
Moving silently, Ren used all his senses. He listened super carefully, trying to catch any tiny noise in the distance, making sure he stayed as quiet as possible, like he was invisible, moving through the night.
He had known Kestrel for long and had teamed up with her in many challenges. He knew how she thought and how she moved around, which helped him dodge her special psychic senses.
This was no easy task.
All the creatures in this place were used to the dark, moved without making a sound, and had sharp hearing. Even the tiniest sound could give him away.
To make sure he could track Kestrel and avoid these creatures, Ren had rested a lot, making sure he was at his best physically and mentally.
Very carefully and fully focused, he followed her from a safe distance. That was, until suddenly, he heard the strange sound of tendrils slithering.
Kestrel was talking to Taja at the time when Ren stopped to eavesdrop, realizing they were in some corridor.
He heard Taja say:
"You can make him super sensitive, maybe even 100 times more. A tiny touch, and he’d be asking for a break."
"In his psychic landscape, there are even cooler things you can do. That strong guy won’t stand a chance. Haha, that’ll be so fun to watch."
"You’ll start to like it after a while. There are lots of strong alphas here all the time. You have so many options; you don’t need to fixate on one."
"You’re being too nice to that alpha alone. He might just take off."
Ren, hidden in the shadows of the ceiling, didn’t even breathe, listening closely. In his head, he kept track of how far they walked and tried to guess which way they went.
Then he heard Kestrel say, "He won’t leave. He gave me his word." The trust in her words hit Ren right in the feels, making him a little emotional.
He heard the sound of a big door opening, and both Kestrel and Taja went inside.
Ren waited a bit before quietly jumping down from his hiding spot, sneaking past a mutant that was on guard duty. He then followed the path Kestrel and Taja had taken, going into the corridor.
This place looked a lot like Kestrel’s den, and probably linked to it somehow. Inside, there were tons of hallways going every which way, crisscrossing with each other. The only sounds in the pitch-dark tunnels were the occasional drip-drip of water from above.
It was like a massive underground maze. The maze went on and on, and if it weren’t for the two people leading the way, Ren would have had no idea how to find this deep, hidden place.
He sneaked around in the darkness, sometimes turning on a dim light that was on his shoulder. As he went further in, he noticed the walls getting fancier, with big, creepy statues popping up here and there.
These weird-looking statues seemed to be everywhere – on the ceiling, on the walls – and they all looked down at Ren, like they were watching him.
As Ren ran his hand over the wall, he realized it felt cold and solid, made out of some unique metal. The walls were covered in fancy carvings that looked like pictures.
When Ren’s fingers touched these carvings, they lit up softly, showing stories hidden in the shadows.
He remembered seeing similar pictures in other Polluted Zones. Some pieces of these pictures were on the main gates of Polluted Zone Five and in the cave where the crimson egg was kept.
It looked like people these days didn’t care much about these pictures. No one had ever recorded them or showed them off. For the people nowadays, old stories didn’t matter as much as survival.
Staring at all the lit-up pictures, Ren realized he’d never seen so many in one place.
The light-up carvings moved in a smooth way, like they were alive, changing with Ren’s touch. The bright lines showed Ren a bunch of old-timey stories in order.
The first picture was of a huge ship. The sailors on it found a weird egg deep in the sea, which seemed to have a lot of power in it. Everyone on the ship was super happy. Back in that time, people had cool gadgets and tech, but they had a big problem: they were running out of power.
In the next picture, there was a dude with silver hair and a captain’s hat. He was holding a box with the egg inside and shouting, "This is going to change everything for us!"
But then, the story in the carvings got dark. A lot of people on the ship started acting super weird. A little note said, "When Humans Started Mutating."
Suddenly, the pictures showed big scary mutants fighting the regular crew. More and more crew members got sick and turned into monsters. Everything was going downhill real fast.
In a tough choice, to stop the dangerous stuff from the ship from reaching the land, the captain decided to do the unthinkable: he sunk his ship, called the Mary, and everyone on it deep into the ocean.
There was a small part of the mural that caught Ren’s eye. It showed the captain placing the egg’s box – a wooden box beautifully decorated with shiny gems, looking really old but detailed – into a secret spot inside a table.
Ren’s finger traced this part of the mural, making it light up on and off. In the picture, the captain looked so sad, holding the small box like it was his last hope.
The little box seemed to have a special shine, almost magical. It looked like the tech on the walls, lighting up to show different parts of history.
Even though it was just a small picture on the wall, Ren felt like he’d seen that box before. After thinking for a bit, he remembered that on a beach in Polluted Zone Five, Kestrel had given him all these valuable energy stones but had kept a simple wooden box.
The box Kestrel had didn’t shine like the one in the mural, but Ren had this strong feeling they were the same.
Ren’s fingers kept moving over the lit-up pictures, thinking about Kestrel and realizing that she was searching for some big secret from the past.
The glowing lines showed more pictures: the big ship Mary sinking sadly into the water, which didn’t stop the mutated crew from crawling back to land and spreading their weirdness.
Soon after that, loads of people got infected and turned into these strong mutated monsters. Cities were taken over, and the world changed completely.
In another bright picture, Ren saw the underground city he was in. After the mutants started spreading everywhere, humans built this place underground to hide. They wanted to get back to the normal world above, so many scientists down here worked hard to make strong weapons. A group of them raised an ’insectoid stone’, growing this old creature, and then used its blood to change humans. This is how they made the strongest fighters called alphas and betas.
The next pictures showed alphas and betas leading a big group, using cool techy weapons, to fight their way back up to the world above. They took over places and won back parts of the land for humans.
All of this had happened hundreds of years ago.
The mural showed soldiers pumped up and ready to go, backed by these massive ships and heavy guns, marching on a mission. People everywhere cheered them on, super excited. Everything looked perfect for humans.
