POV: MIGUEL CASTRO.
The smell of mold and burnt leather still lingered in the air as Noah and I crossed the rusted gates of the factory complex.
The sound of them creaking echoed through the place like a scream.
The flames that had devoured this place years ago left deep scars, the walls were yellowed, there were cracks in the beams and holes running through the concrete like open wounds, still damp with soot.
Dust rose around our feet, mingling with the cold breeze that seemed unwilling to die in there.
Two magical signals pulsed on the second floor, their force weak but steady.
I could feel them vibrating at the edge of my perception, like a low, insistent noise threatening to break my control.
The energy reading felt strange, but we'd only know why if we went there.
"Keep your eyes open, Noah," I murmured, not removing my hand from my weapon's grip
"Two signatures, both seem unstable. Be ready to react if needed."
"Yes, sir." Noah nodded, inhaling deeply as he channeled energy into his marks.
I sensed the air around him shift slightly as invisible waves spread out through the space.
Noah's magic always had this kind of silent, yet tangible presence.
We entered through the main hallway, and the air seemed to change density.
The first thing I saw was the skeleton of a production line, broken conveyor belts stretching for over four hundred meters, winding between industrial ovens, laser cutters, and presses deformed by heat.
Some still dripped dry oil; others were coated in a dark crust that smelled like rust and burning.
Also, the smell of burnt cardboard and mold spread everywhere possible.
The light coming through cracks in the broken ceiling formed crooked beams of dust, as if time had stopped in suspension.
Piled-up boxes of fabric exuded an acidic odor of burnt leather and chemicals.
Every step echoed through the warehouse and gave me the feeling the building itself was breathing with us.
To the left, the collapsed ceiling showed where the fire overcame the structure.
The twisted steel, with suspended, sagging beams, looked like the exposed ribs of a body.
Nearby, the old back exit was now just a cracked wall, stained and swallowed by shadow.
"Where's the way up to the second floor?" Noah asked.
"If the stairs are still standing, they won't hold our weight. We need to find another way," I replied, voice low.
He agreed with a brief nod.
"Check the back," I ordered. "I'll circle around and check the office. If you find anything, signal as usual."
"Alright, classic signal then," he said, aiming his weapon toward where he intended to go.
We split up.
The cold wind came in through the destroyed ceiling as I crossed the side corridor.
The echo of my steps kept me alert, something was wrong with that silence.
No animals, no outside noise.
As if the whole world had stopped outside the gates. The place I headed for was the original factory office.
There, I hoped to find something that might hint at a way up to the second floor or even a map of the internal structure.
I walked for a few minutes, cautiously, until I reached the door linking the production line to the office.
I tried to force it, but it wouldn't give. The office door was locked.
'Of course it is…'
I pressed my palm to the lock.
"Diamond of Mines!"
The enchantment vibrated at my wrist, and a concentrated flow of blue energy burst forth, focusing on the doorknob, ripping it loose with a dry snap.
The impact echoed through the metal, and a puff of silvery smoke escaped. The air turned electric.
I went in.
The office's main structure was mostly intact, but chaos was evident.
Burnt computers, open drawers, papers scattered on the floor like dead leaves.
The windows were half open, letting in the strong smell of mold and rust mixed with something sweet, maybe melted plastic.
Rainwater had started to erode part of the floor, making the tiles slippery in spots.
I walked to the main desk. The melted monitor reflected a glimpse of my face.
My uniform was slightly dirty with soot, likely leaving it smelling of smoke.
The kind of nuisance missions brought over the years, how many ended with that same scent of burning and destruction?
It was like a repeating sticker.
Breaking my reverie, I noticed a jacket left hanging behind the door. Filthy with age, someone had left it behind on the day of the fire.
Which made sense, when hell breaks out, you don't worry about your jacket.
'Seems like the panic froze the time in here…'
The chairs were overturned, a mug broken, coffee spilled over the notebook beside it.
So many little things, telling the story of what that day must have been.
Putting aside these details, there was nothing accessible on the burnt monitor.
I looked around to find any signage or something mapping out the structure.
But nothing stood out. I chose to move on;
Past the office, I entered another warehouse.
Here, the air was heavier, damp, saturated with the smell of old leather and stacked boxes.
A depot of leftovers. Moisture was evident from the walls, and the ground bore tracks of old footprints.
I took two more steps, then felt a shiver.
The first flash. Three short pulses.
Noah's signal. He'd found something.
I returned to the main hall the way I'd come, more carefully this time, ensuring all corners were truly empty.
Guided by the familiar magical signature, I advanced alongside the long production line, past a few shattered furnaces.
The floor trembled slightly beneath my feet. Or maybe it was just my magic flow echoing.
Minutes of searching brought me to Noah at the foot of a side metal staircase going straight up to the second floor. Bent, but sturdy enough.
And to reach him, I passed through a... hole in the wall?
Don't tell me he just smashed through that.
Hmpf…
"The path leads straight to the second floor," he said, breathing hard. His hands glowed faintly, traces of the energy he'd used to open a way.
"Did you knock down this wall?" I asked, already knowing the answer.
"Uh... about that, it's a complicated story…"
"Save it for later... Let's get upstairs."
We climbed with care. Each step groaned underfoot as if cursing our haste.
At the top, the scene repeated: mold on the walls, broken windows, burn marks, and distant echoes of drips.
I scanned for any sign of movement, but so far, all was calm.
It was yet another enormous storage area, with corridors and high shelves on both floors. All loaded with boxes, and several piles of ash where the flames had reached.
Noah and I moved down the main aisle toward the core of the warehouse, the source of those previous energy signatures.
As if complementing the strange sight, as we got closer, things grew stranger, the energy still unchanged since earlier, no alterations, no movement.
Despite the odd atmosphere, in the center of the hall, something even more anomalous appeared.
Arriving at the end of the main corridor, we finally saw the center of the hall.
There, we found two gurneys, surrounded by metal tables, test tubes, centrifuges, and portable ovens.
Scientific equipment spread out provocatively.
"This place isn't abandoned…" I commented while analyzing. "Someone's running an illegal research lab."
The energy in the environment felt dense, contaminated. Some kind of experimental magic.
We approached the two makeshift gurneys in the corner.
Two bodies. One middle-aged man, one young woman.
Both with their chests rising and falling irregularly, as if they were breathing underwater.
The energy we'd detected came from them. Or, more precisely, from inside them.
"Are they alive?" Noah asked.
"On some level, perhaps... But something is keeping them trapped…"
I stepped forward and then noticed: the beams nearby were marked.
Fine lines ran from the gurneys to the beams.
Trigger lines. Explosive detonators.
"Noah, back! Now!" I yelled instinctively.
He stared at me, confused, until he saw what I saw.
One detonator started blinking, a red flash beating like a heart.
'Damn, it's a trap…'
Instinctively, I channeled energy.
"Diamond of Mines!"
A blue explosion shone in front of me, and a solid energy barrier rose, isolating the nearest pillar.
Another, further away, went off brutally, splitting the beam in two, the ground opening beneath us with an apocalyptic roar.
The impact flung me into a pile of boxes, everything swallowed by dust.
The deafening sound echoed in my bones.
My vision blurred, the air smelled of gunpowder and concrete. I felt blood run down my forehead.
When the dust settled, the ceiling began to cave in. Looking around, I saw the metal tables now glowing purple.
Two cylinders were draining quickly, injecting into the bodies that had once been limp on the gurneys.
At that moment, both stood up.
Their magical signatures pulsed, intense, vibrating to the rhythm of the explosion that awoke them.
The man, the older one, stepped forward. His eyes were white, skin marked with bluish veins running to the neck.
His whole body was covered in marks, like tattoos or as if something infected his veins.
He attacked with superhuman strength, breaking the floor on his first blow.
I rolled aside and countered with a short blade of condensed energy, aiming for his flank—but he dodged as if he already knew my move.
The impact of his fist on my chest launched me backward, knocking the wind out of me.
I tried to recover, but he was already over me again, quick and relentless.
The second blow shoved me right into the crater left by the explosion.
The world spun. The sound of iron and stone colliding filled my ears.
The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was Noah turning to the woman.
And as he disappeared from my view, I saw the infected man jumping toward me.
POV: NOAH WILLIAMS.
"Miguel!" I shouted, but the explosion's sound swallowed my voice.
The impact shook the floor beneath my feet, a wave of dust and rubble rose, thick fog engulfed everything.
I saw his body vanish into the crater opening in the center of the hall, swallowed by the collapsing concrete and smoke.
The echo of the collapse seemed to last forever, ending only with the distant creak of caving beams and the whistle of air through cracks.
For a moment, I stood frozen. The stench of gunpowder and burnt iron, mixed with old mold, made the air barely breathable.
The metallic taste of smoke clung to my tongue.
My ears rang, but I had no time to think.
The silence shattered by a sound that made my stomach drop, a dry snap of living energy spreading through the air, as if the whole place breathed again.
The energy before me twisted, swirling the dust, and from it appeared the woman from the gurney.
Before, she looked inert, lifeless; now, she moved with an unnatural fluidity, as if every joint was controlled by something inhuman.
She couldn't be more than twenty-five, maybe younger.
Beautiful features in some corner beneath that distortion, delicate traits, dark hair plastered to damp skin, but the eyes…
Her eyes were completely empty. Pupils dilated, purple veins snaked down her neck and temples, forming pulsing symmetric patterns that glowed with energy.
They looked like living runes, shining beneath her skin.
She raised her right hand slowly, fingers trembling as if the body wasn't hers, and a hoarse voice escaped her lips.
A voice that scratched the air, blending pain and rage in a language no human ear should understand.
The words echoed, their sound didn't die out. Instead, they turned into glittering echoes,
Syllables became light, letters morphed into symbols. Magic circles opened before her, layered one over the other, forming a golden spiral.
Chains began to materialize, springing from the burning runes like polished fire snakes.
They writhed through the air, coming at me fast, hissing and scorching whatever they touched.
The heat radiating cracked the floor, sending dust flaring.
My body reacted before fear could catch up.
I crossed my forearms and unleashed my own energy, feeling the flow surge from feet to shoulders like an inverted lightning strike.
The mark on the back of my hand glowed, the spiral symbol of my spell burning deep blue.
"Babel Tower, be the translator of my magic to those who do not understand its power!"
The invocation burst from me like thunder. The symbol spiraled behind, runes ascending to the ruined ceiling.
An ethereal tower spun up. lines of luminous energy circling, vibrating at different tones.
The runes within spun and reshaped ceaselessly, seemingly translating elements around in random, ephemeral ways.
The golden chains smashed against my magical field, breaking into flames, sparks flying everywhere.
Each collision sounded like muted metal, as if the very air were steel in the forge.
Vibrations ran through ground, walls, and remains of the structure.
The woman screamed something in response, a sequence of words I didn't recognize.
A dead language, part agony and part command. Each syllable carried pressure, a weight, as if the air thickened itself.
The echo from the Tower of Babel responded, unraveling her spell, layer by layer, deconstructing it into neutral energy, and returning that energy toward her as waves of heat.
For a moment, the clash of our magic lit the entire floor. Shadows danced on the walls, revealing cracks, mold, and burn marks covering machines.
Test tubes on the tables vibrated and shattered, spilling black fluids that ran into corners.
The ceiling creaked.
Each second, things got more unstable. The beams trembled, chunks of concrete fell, the air grew thick with dust and electricity.
She staggered, but didn't stop. Eyes now entirely taken by the purple shine stared into the symbol behind me.
Veins in her neck throbbed, a flicker of rage crossing her inert features.
"ᚠᚱᛟ... ᛞᛖᛋᛏᚱᚢᚳᛏᛁᛟᚾ…" The sound was grotesque, guttural, distorted, impossible to translate fully.
The vibration from her words made the walls shake, and the ceiling answered with a loud crack.
Dust rained down thick as hail.
The whole structure was on the verge of collapse.
I could feel every fiber protesting under the weight of magic.
But I couldn't retreat.
Miguel was still below, buried in rubble. And both enemies, now standing, were alive.
One before me, the other likely falling alongside Miguel.
I swallowed the blood pooling in my throat, drew a rough breath, the dust burned in my lungs.
The woman's energy roiled like a caged beast, trying to break free of her control.
I could feel the instability, the failing pattern, the desperation in the way she cast.
It was broken magic, someone forced too many runes into a body that couldn't bear them.
I focused tighter through the Tower. The runes widened, rising to brush the ceiling.
The spiral glowed dazzlingly bright, the translation field amplifying the magical reverberation in the space.
Every speck of dust seemed to flare for an instant.
She attacked again. Thicker chains, pure energy, erupted from the floor, arching at me as if space itself warped.
It felt like being struck by lightning again and again, whips trying to lash me.
I braced myself, focusing energy at my wrists, and the Tower responded, spinning and expanding the rune circle protecting us.
The chains hit the field, bouncing off in golden explosions. The impact sent wind through the hall, toppling tables, breaking flasks, spreading the acid smell of chemicals.
Spell lights reflected off metal surfaces, scattering fleeting shadows on the walls.
For an instant, through the flashes, I saw her reflection, her face twisted between rage and pain.
Her skin was cracking along glowing runes, dark smoke seeping from the splits.
She screamed, a noise not human, sound. Her energy collapsed, the ground rippled beneath.
The ceiling groaned again, doom looming.
Yet I stayed, keeping the Tower up. With each beam I returned, each spell I reversed, I felt the pressure build.
Her energy began to fail, the golden circles around her splintered to fragments of light.
'Breathe, Noah. Focus.'
I shut my eyes for a half-second, seeking stability. Felt the Tower's heat at my back and the sharp cold in the air.
My mind aligned with the flow. Total silence, half a second long.
Opening my eyes, the Tower's runes pulsed in sync with my heartbeat.
One last push.
The woman tried to cast again, but her sound faded.
The translation finished, and the spell rebounded on her, shattered and inverted, a blinding flash filled the room.
The chains disintegrated. The golden glow went out.
She staggered, trembling, and fell to her knees, the purple veins gradually fading away.
I held my stance, breathing hard. Water dripped from the ceiling, mingling with dust and blood dripping down my forehead.
The whole building creaked, all but ready to give way.
I lowered my arms, energy still thrumming in my palms. The Tower began dissolving behind me, runes fading one by one until only a memory of light remained.
Miguel was still down there. The other body, still alive.
The mission was far from over.