CHAPTER 6:

  The phone rang loudly throughout the room

  Annabelle picked up the phone reluctantly, fully knowing that on the other end it would be her partners

  “What's it gonna be this time? Gonna start asking for my soul also?”

  She asked sarcastically, at the same time she let her blonde hair down

  The man on the other end didn't seem as pleased, it was a bad day for him too

  “Don't make it difficult for the both of us, annabelle, you know what to do”

  Annabelle chuckled confidently before interrupting his words

  “You can go tell that money hungry pig for a boss of yours to piss off. We're officially breaking up this partnership”

  “Annabelle, stop playing games with me. This is not the time for games”

  “I don't care if you believe me or not, but I on my end, I'm completely serious about this”

  The phone was slammed against the concrete, it pissed her off beyond no belief

  “Annabelle? Hello? Hello!”

  The man shouted, hoping to get a response but none came through the phone

  His coworker, who was sitting on the desk next to him, looked at the man curiously

  “Yo dude, what got you riled up out of the blue?”

  The coworker adjusted his glasses as he spoke

  The other one slammed his fist against his desk at full force

  “That blonde bitch just cut ties with us, of course I'm pissed off”

  The other tried to reassure him, his voice now softer

  “Hey dude take it easy and not on the desk, listen, even if you call her again she's not gonna answer, you better bring this up with the boss”

  Of course he knew he had to do something about it

  Without a second thought he stormed off towards the bosses office

  The one with the glasses just sighed and got back to his work on the computer, not another word said

  The man stormed into the bosses office without even bothering to ask or knock first, his face was beating red from anger unbeknownst to him

  His old and fat boss got startled, due to that he spilled his coffee over himself, the shirt tie and suit were all drenched and steaming

  This was not only depressing but hurtful physically

  “Speak up now or be gone!”

  “Sir yes sir! Annabelle Richards has cut ties with us!”

  The boss's jaw dropped in utter shock, that hurt his ego and psyche a lot more than just a hit coffee

  However he only had one question in mind

  “But why would she even do that?”

  His words came odd as mumbling

  The man standing by the door upright didn't know what to do either or say in this situation, none of the employees did in fact

  “Sir I think we should call a meeting for this”

  The man finally mustered up the strength again to speak

  His boss just nodded at his suggestion, left with no other logical choice

  After a few hours a meeting was called between the boss and the shareholders of the company and the director of it

  Ideas were flying left and right, spewing from their mouths, but none of them landed

  By the end of the meeting they had reached no man's land

  So the company with no clear goal or direction immediately crumbled and declared bankruptcy

  It shut down completely the other day, headlines immediately arose with Annabelle rejecting them and the drama behind it

  What was clear to the media was that battle between Matthew and Haru had been selling like crazy

  But this one, this one was a new catch entirely, something they could milk for months to come

  This showcased just how easily social media would milk anything that they'd find

  Their desperation was reaching new levels as well as their greed

  Sooner or later this company will be forgotten too if there is nothing new out of it, it was with the circle of all things in the world…

  Annabelle tucked her foot as she stood on the roof in a random building in Paris

  The city of love this random night was illuminated with its usual lights used to decorate the streets

  The eiffel tower stood proudly and shining as per usual

  Traffic, shouting and road rage persisted in the streets

  Smells from the bakeries were delicate enough to attract even cats and animals

  It looked all the same to Annabelle

  “This shit is pointless”

  She blurted out without a care in the world

  Her body softly laid on the edge of the building

  The flashy lights and the atmosphere was something she grew up in so it didn't faze her

  “A city built on fame and glory, only to be so pathetic in the end”

  (First it was that damn brat and that elf who almost defeated me and now this? He's gonna pay big time)

  Back in the desert in Egypt, Haru and Matthew were still chatting…

  “Before I head first into another holy being I'd actually like to do something first”

  “You? You're actually taking a breather for once? To be honest, I didn't peg you as that type of guy, but ok”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Matthew added sarcastically, of course, to tease Haru, as he thought that's what friends do

  “Oh would you believe it, I actually have a life outside of being a hero. How sad am I right?”

  “You're being as childish as me now, but still, you're doing a pretty shitty job at maintaining that life”

  “Thanks but I didn't need you to point it out for me, mister genius”

  Haru sighed, running a hand through his hair, then he took out his penultimate rune card

  “Hey because I forgot, mind bringing me some rune cards later? I lucked out”

  “Sure thing”

  Matthew gave a thumbs up as Haru teleported away from the desert

  After a short while he used teleportation magic to teleport himself into Sylvia's room

  With no estimated coordinates, Matthew assumed it, surprisingly, it worked…

  Haru had teleported inside his home where he had expected to find his parents

  By now, the third time, he could get behind teleporting

  Although his head was still shaking violently

  With a fake smile on his face he entered the house

  Ready to get a warm welcoming after what felt like an eternity

  Instead, the house was completely empty

  To his horror, it seemed that his parents left last night

  As a lot of the things were left behind, almost like in a rush, not even leaving a note behind or something

  Haru was left speechless, sad, and angry at the same time, not knowing what to feel exactly

  In a desperate attempt he searched the house a second time and a third time

  But still, no luck, his parents truly had left without a trace

  He couldn't bring himself to believe or understand this, no matter how hard he tried inside his brain to think logically, the thoughts weren't coming to him in any way

  (Shit…what if-no…that isn't possible…)

  However, he still knew that he didn't have much time to be whining, even if he tried, he didn't want to stay any further

  He wanted to forget about this, hoping that things would just solve on their own like they used to when he was a kid

  Deep down he also knew that, it was never actually like that

  There had to be a component, and it didn't seem to be one in this situation

  (What could have caused this?...)

  He contacted Sylvia through the smartwatch, to calm down he tried deep breaths, it didn't help that much

  Seconds later Sylvia answered

  “Hey Sylvia, are you with Matthew? Or at least you should be”

  Sylvia hummed as she ate some pasta with Matthew by her side, sitting idly on a chair

  “Correct, he arrived here like 5 minutes ago, and his already way more of a gentleman than you ever were”

  “Ha ha ha, very funny Sylvia, quit the teasing already and tell me what do I do from here…don't worry about my voice it's just that it's a bit sore”

  Matthew hopped on the database of the computer

  Sylvia set the plate aside for now as Matthew typed, gulping down the last of the pasta before speaking

  “Well, says here that Lana Rossi of Rome is the current host of the true cross, looks like you will be traveling to Rome, Haru”

  Haru reached out to his pocket, running a hand, it was his last rune card

  “By the way, if I need any help, just send Matthew, and with some rune cards too”

  Before even Sylvia could respond, Haru had already left for Rome

  She was left angry, while Matthew laughed

  “That airhead, he doesn't even have manners, ughh”

  Sylvia groaned melodramatically

  “Oh, give the kid some slack, he'll grow, eventually”

  Matthew was trying to say, but it was mostly muffled by his choking…

  Haru arrived in a deep dark dungeon underground in Rome

  Even though he tried to look around, it was all dark and gloomy, even the path was narrow and eerie

  At least, from what he could make out

  “Oh for pete's sake, this is not what I imagined when I heard Italy”

  (Oh yeah, that's right, I didn't even look at the coordinates Sylvia sent me properly, I just memorized it without much thought…. Fuck sake…)

  Haru tried to navigate

  Along the way he found it hard with all the darkness and the narrowness

  Randomly along the path, he also realized that he burnt through of all his rune cards

  Thankfully he had Matthew for backup anyways so he was relieved, slightly

  While walking through the path, it was getting more and more narrow

  With a sigh he muttered to himself and continued on

  (This pathway is gonna take forever…)

  Spoken out of existence it did, the pathway took him at least 10 minutes of squeezing himself through

  Which led to a split road, 3 roads that split to be exact

  Surprisingly this crossroad had much more space than the pathway

  (I'm actually able to breathe here, what a relief…)

  (But now, which one do I decide to take? I don't have any ability to tell so I guess this time…)

  Looking around before taking a step forward, as he did, accidentally a single button was pressed that set off a trap that was under his foot

  An arrow flew by his head, momentarily hitting him in the head

  This was the first indication that this dungeon was guarded, he took a step back and reconsidered

  (I can't be too hasty here, if I spend all my time healing then I will never be able to reach this holy being…)

  Ultimately he decided to go to the right one blindly, he didn't have any indication, just what felt right to him

  (Lady luck, you better be on my side today…)

  On the way, he took the arrow off his head and tossed it on the floor

  While the head injury healed

  A plethora of arrows and traps kept hitting him, blood had painted the entire hallway

  Being pitch black he couldn't see anything either

  Blood had spilled all over his clothes and he was getting irritated by it

  (Need I wear such expensive clothes all the time? If I go around in public like this I'm gonna look like a psychopath…)

  He squeezed himself through the final stretch off the path and made it out

  (Fucking finally…)

  On the other end it was a huge room with a huge stone throne right in the middle of the giant room

  It was rather ominous that he couldn't see the throne clearly or who was on it

  What he could see though was multiple metal knights scattered all over the place

  He walked through the metal knights with a weirded out expression

  (Strange, why would there be a bunch of armors just standing in the open?...)

  As if having heard him the metal knights came to life one by one, their eyes were empty but they began moving towards him, gaining an unnatural glow to them

  A looming cloud of awkwardness floated above Haru's head in a comical way

  “I couldn't have jinxed myself in a better time even if I wanted to”

  With no hesitation the knights started attacking him from all flanks, diving and slicing him up

  (What the fuck?!...)

  Haru instantly focused but it wasn't enough

  The slashes were coming at him from all angles

  A sickening slicing sound reverberated in the large room

  “SEETH!”

  Through grit and pain he pushed through despite the healing

  An urge told him to fight back

  Making the best of his abilities to dodge and counterattack every attack although failing most

  (This is literally impossible!...)

  His bones were being broken multiple times in the process as he let out grunting noises constantly, his flesh and tissues were scattered all around the floor

  The fighting technique was a far cry from being perfect

  Then he stopped two swords with bloody hands at the same time, his body couldn't handle it anymore

  His knees gave out and brought him to the ground from, an uncountable amount of knights surrounded him

  Then a knight raised both his arms with a sword in his hands and sliced Haru's head off

  It regenerated back instantly but the pain was still felt, it was now or never

  He fought through the pain just to stand up, the boy couldn't let this obstacle block him from reaching his goal

  The knights kept hitting him in the same spots, but this time he didn't fall down immediately

  Upon hours and hours he kept fighting back with everything that he had

  The fight itself was brutal with endless slashes at him, in the end, he managed to dismantle them one by one

  His nails had also given up, the pain on his hands felt like graders

  The corpses stacked up like a small mountain

  His breath dragged on, and the bones in his body shivered in their places

  Being drenched in sweat, both body and mind alike were thoroughly messed up, even his clothes

  Eyes were shaking rapidly as blood dripped from his lips, he moved his hand with the sleeve, wiping the blood off his lips

  Surprisingly, their armors weren't that tough to begin with, of course he found out about that when he struck back

  Even after the fight he still didn't know exactly did these units(knights) come to life, all Haru was thinking about during the fight was survival

  He sat on one of the knights corpse to rest for a bit, examining a skull of his that he picked up from the ground

  (Interesting…)

  By itself it didn't give any valuable information but it was nevertheless intriguing seeing your skull from another point of view

  He tossed the skull to the ground and wiped the sweat of his forehead

  Standing up he saw his severed body parts lying around with pools of his own blood besides them, with a grim expression on his face he walked past them

  The battle reminded him that he would fail ever so often throughout this journey

  In an attempt to to contact Sylvia and Matthew his smartwatch seemed to have a malfunction, not knowing how to fix it, he set it aside for now

  While walking up the stairs leading to the throne made of stone, something caught his attention

  The stairs were almost carved perfectly, too perfectly

  (Was this place built by the church?...)

  The silence around him was eerily creepy, torches were the only source of light there as there were no windows leading to the outside

  Luckily, the place was filled with torches

  When he reached the last step, the first thing he gazed upon was a girl dressed in all black with blonde hair and hazel eyes

  Sitting on the stone made throne with a huge cross behind her

  Lana Rossi, laid her eyes upon him, it so seemed that her eyes lit up

  “How unexpected, someone deciding to visit poor old me? How noble of you”

  Haru wasn't amused at all, staring straight at her

  “So you're the one I'm supposed to befriend huh? I can't seem to get a read on you, oh well”

  Lana tapped her chin whilst holding back her laughter

  “What is it that throws you off so badly?”

  “Trurthfully, everything, your expression your stance this room, the setting, it throws me off completely”

  Lana sighed and stood up from her throne, the chains easily slipped from her body

  (Good thing I managed to find the key yesterday)

  “I suppose I do have a lot of explaining to do, but that's has to wait for now my dear”

  “That's the least of my worries for now, we can talk once this is finished”

  Lana chuckled softly in response, her gaze falling on him as if to size him up

  “I'll take you on that offer dear, i don't like your vibe anyway”

  She tapped her foot and a miniature version of the true cross appeared around her neck

  It was silver unlike Haru's cross, on top of that it was roman style and not orthodox

  Without any further words they engaged head on, both leaped into the air at a height of 1 meter

  Haru tried to catch her off guard but he couldn't

  Lana turned to aim at him with a kick but she missed, maybe it was luck, maybe not

  Both landed back on the cold concrete

  There was no other living organism with them, it seemed so the stage was clear

  Lana turned around to look at Haru, a hint of respect in her voice could be detected when she spoke

  “That was unexpected, most men would faint while being too close to me”

  “Then they're not real men, they shouldn't be focused on your body, instead they should focus in the fight”

  Lana grinned, her breasts swayed purposely but again no reaction, that only increased her amusement

  “How noble, not even a glance? I can't tell if you're gay or just a gentleman, it doesn't matter to me other way”

  “I have seen plenty of those before, it's just that we're fighting and you know, not being defeated is kind of my priority here”

  Just then, Lana did notice the pile of knights that Haru had stacked up

  “Wow, did you do that? You know what nevermind, I'll ask later”

  Haru furrowed his eyebrows, his only guess that she was talking about the reanimated knights

  “You mean those scrap metals? I admit they were tough at first, wait, you're telling me you didn't hear me fight them?”

  Lana simply shaked her head in mild amusement

  “No, you can hardly hear anything from up here”

  Haru noticed that it was true, not a single sound from below could be heard

  “Yeah sound doesn't transfer here so easily”

  “I still have a question. What exactly is this place?”

  “Well, this place was originally built as a prison, it quickly failed so they had to scrap that idea and reconstruct it as a dungeon meant to keep out tourists as they didn't have any other plans for it”

  “This of course, led to multiple adventurers ending up here because they were intrigued to the idea of a dungeon under the vatican”

  Haru looked up at the mention of being under the Vatican

  “So we're not just in Rome but under a micronation? I feel like prestige now”

  “Prestige? Oh don't fool yourself kid, this is just a prison cell for me”

  “Prison cell? Mind elaborating further on that?”

  His voice changed from emotionless to just a bit less emotionless

  “They threw me in prison here for the felonies that I committed. That's why I said poor old me in the beginning”

  Haru had already suspected that she would be dangerous, but he couldn't have guessed felonies level

  “You do have that aura”...

  All the way back in Greece, Sylvia was washing the plates that they had eaten pasta with

  While Matthew was monitoring the computer

  “Have you gotten into contact with Haru yet?”

  “No not yet. Whatever it is, we lost contact with him”

  “The signal has been bad for a few days now, for no reason”

  Matthew kept typing to no avail

  “There has to be a reason behind this. Whatever the reason may be, it is most likely a creative mind behind it(the reason)”

  Sylvia came out of the kitchen and entered her room

  “Do you think that there is any connection with the stolen stuff and this?”

  “Possibly, but there is no evidence to support it yet”

  Matthew leaned back in his chair a bit as he said that, his hands going off the keyboard

  “We will find it eventually, I'm sure of it”

  Sylvia yawned softly and closed her eyes

  Matthew glanced back at Sylvia slightly, she had already begun drifting away to sleep

  His cheeks reddened a bit, before shaking that thought of his mind quickly

  The way that she was sleeping, her face and body were appealing to him for some odd reason

  He quietly stood up from the pc and pushed the chair inside the desk, rubbing his eyes before going out the room and closing the light

  The door closed behind him before going to the living room

  He sat on the couch, gurning on the TV and put on whatever the channel had to pass the time

  In his mind, he just hoped that Haru would be safe out there or down there, I guess…