Chapter 448 - A Costly Souvenir
Seeing how lying gave her no chance of surviving, the Viewfinder bent forward, and reached for her left leg with her cuffed hands. She then slid her fingers into the furry boots she was wearing, and from it, she took out a small magnifying glass.
This object was not as widely known as the necklace of immortality created by the system of the Deathbringer, or the door to dream state of the late Mindhive. However, just like the rest of the artifacts, it's power was nothing less than spectacular. Named 'Foreboding Mirror', this magnifying glass was able to assist the Viewfinder by granting her a look at a random moment in the future, that was relevant to her objective.
The last time the Viewfinder had made use of this object, was right before Daniel's return from the alien space. In it, she had seen a battle between him and a group of children of Iewah of which she was part of. In this premonition, Daniel appeared to be struggling to keep up with the larger group of chosen ones, and that was the reason why she had been so relaxed, and willing to participate in this event.
The most important aspect of this object, however, was the fact that its ability to show future events was not limited when used against other children of Iewah, meaning that she had a significant logical advantage against the rest of her siblings. Unfortunately, the usefulness of this object was solely relying on luck, and due to a streak of bad luck, she had been able to see the very short moment in which Daniel was losing, and no indication of her current situation.
Her disappointment towards the object was nothing compared to the pain she felt the moment she begrudgingly handed it over to Daniel, who satisfied by obtaining two more artifacts, put them away. "Put the masks on, and walk ahead." he said while putting on the helmet he had taken back from the alien scientist, and pointing at a cabinet by the far end of the corridor, which contained a few more sets used by the guards to move the prisoners outside of the area of the containment cells.
The alarm kept going stronger and stronger, and along with it, came the shaking of the ship, that was being attacked by something that Daniel, due to the limitations put onto him, could not see. The Unmovable and the Viewfinder followed their own mission, that identically to Daniel's, were telling exactly where to go in order to avoid being discovered.
Of the four people, the scientist could not believe what he was seeing. Whenever they would spot a soldier rush towards the ship's dock, they would be conveniently running in the opposite direction only to turn corner soon after. To him, it almost seemed that the three had already been in the ship, and that they knew it even better than he did.
After about twenty minutes of lurking in the cold metallic corridors of the ship, the four of them arrived at an intersection. The two paths by the sides were brightened by wall-mounted lights, and on their walls and floors, were green segmented lines, painted there to indicate the exit. The path ahead, on the other hand, was a flight of stairs that descended into a relatively darker corridor, marked by two parallel red lines.
Following their missions, the two siblings walked directly into the path on the right, which their systems assured them would be empty of guards and soldiers, but before taking more than a dozen steps, they turned around. Daniel had not followed them into the right corridor, and instead, had walked straight into the descending flight of stairs.
The two children of Iewah looked at Daniel's actions with puzzlement. In their minds, they had already made plans to get their artifacts back from him, and yet, their system did not have an option in which, in case they followed Daniel down the stairs, they would be able to safely escape the ship.
At the end of the day, artifacts were only tools. Extremely useful when accompanied by their unique abilities, but still not worth their lives, so the two decided to give up on betraying Daniel's kindness, and followed their own path towards freedom.. Hoping that one day, they would have another chance to get back what was theirs.
"This is the wrong way.." muttered the scientist while being forced down the stairs by Daniel, whose arms were still around his neck. "You are only going deeper into the ship!" he then added, worried that in case a soldier would find them snooping into the depths of the ship, he would be the first one to be killed.
While the scientist was not technically wrong with thinking that Daniel was going the wrong way, that was only because he thought that Daniel's objective was to simply leave the ship. Unfortunately, Daniel's objective was not the exit, but the room whose name was plastered over the walls more and more frequently, the further they walked.. The Ship's core room.
Alternating from walking through dark corridors and hiding themselves in the crevices in between pipes, Daniel kept going until finally, he found himself at the beginning of a catwalk. At the end of it, was a metallic double door eight meters high, and more than fifteen wide. Through the large transparent panels present in numerous parts of the door, Daniel could see dozens of alien operators, all of them focused on repairing, and making sure that the ship could work at the peak of its capabilities during this time of war.
"What do you want to do?? You will never kill all of them before one calls for help." Said the scientist as he was dragged all the way to the door.
"Shut up." Said Daniel before taking his hands off from the scientist. He then grabbed the arm on which he was wearing the bracelet, and moved it closer to a metallic panel right beside the large door. However, instead of allowing the bracelet to be scanned by the technological lock of the panel, Daniel stopped for a bit, and closed his eyes. In his mind numbers were counted down, "Four.. three.. Two.."
As the numbers reaches the zero, a large spear constructed by metal essence pierced the external metallic panels of the ship, and landed right into one of the more important panels. The moment the spear destroyed this panel, the artificial gravitational pull within the ship was deactivated, and the many mechanics were sent floating all around the large core room. It was at this moment that Daniel pressed the alien's wrist against the scanner, and moments later, the large door opened.
As soon as the door opened, Daniel bent his body forward, and with a push of his legs, he shot himself into the core room, in the middle of which was a massive tubular container, was a grey orb of trembling matter. Their presence was immediately noticed by the workers who, unable to reach for the alarms, would point at them, and shout incomprehensible words.
The trajectory of the two did not take them to the thick glass container, and instead, led them to a locker present on the other side of the room, where Daniel found a pistol shaped instrument that was usually used to deactivate any type of faulty piece of technology whose malfunction could prove dangerous to the ship, without damaging it.
After getting the hang of it, Daniel pointed the object at his handcuffs, and with a gentle pressure over its trigger, shot an electromagnetic pulse that completely deactivated any of the handcuffs' functions.
Now back in possession of his powers, Daniel turned his hands into intangible darkness, and slipped out of the limiting object. He then tied all of the floating workers with constructed metallic wires, and turned towards the container in the middle of the room. Like a ghost, he floated right through the twenty centimeters of glass, and without even stopping to think about it, he stored the ship's core inside his spatial ring, stopping it from operating ever again.
Naturally, Daniel was aware of how much he had exaggerated when claiming that the ship would depart soon to Sewah's siblings. In reality, he had no intention of letting the ship leave the battleground, as he needed it to cover for his own escape.
The moment the grey core disappeared from within its casing, the energy shieldings of the ship went from damaged, to completely absent. The trembling of the ship kept increasing, as thousands upon thousands of attacks shook it with increasing force.
After stealing the ship's core, Daniel left the tubular container, and landed next to the scientist, who looked at him with a fearful expression while being dragged in front of one of the doors that connected the core room, to one of the engine rooms.
For the next few minutes, Daniel appeared to be measuring the distance between the door, and a point of that corridor, causing the scientist to once again look at him with confusion. Now that he had his powers, the alien had assumed that Daniel would disappear, but that was not the case. Instead, he calculated around forty steps away from the door, and stood in wait for a few seconds.
To clarify the scientist confusion was Daniel, who grabbed him by the waist, and started to cover the distance with the running speed of a mortal human. The confusion on the face of the scientist was quickly turned into sheer terror, as a few moments before reaching the door, something hit the ship, causing for everything that was on the other side to be blasted into empty space.
Daniel did not stop, and directly hit the door with his shoulder, destroying its hinges, and detaching it completely from the wall it was mounted on. The scientist began to panic, and think that he would be dead in a matter of seconds, but Daniel's following actions left him more confused than ever before. This action was to slide one of his hands back into one of the handcuffs, and releasing a weak electric shock to restart them.
The alien could not understand the reason for Daniel's actions at first, but as they quietly floated through the battlefield undisturbed, he started to realize. By keeping only one of his hands cuffed, Daniel had halved the absorption rate. If he decided to, he could activate Time is Precious, and boost his production of essence to a point where he would be able to use his powers to a certain extent, but until then, he would be completely undetectable. Not different than an inanimate wreck that floated away from the chaotic battlefield.
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For the following couple of days, the two remained in each other's company while slowly, yet not so slowly, making their into the depths of space.
"I hope you thought further ahead than just escaping the flagship." Said the alien with newfound respect, after all, the absolute success of Daniel's brilliant escape elevated the opinion that the alien had towards him.
Daniel did not respond, and instead, after making sure that the two of them had floated far enough, he quickly removed his handcuffs once and for all, and opened a portal large enough for the two of them and the door to pass through, and just like that, in a few moments, they were gone. When they reappeared, the two found themselves in a sector of space hundreds of thousands of kilometers away.
Not many people possessed a deeper understanding of space travel than the alien scientist, so when it seemed that Daniel intended on traveling by using the very limited power of his teleportation, he began to worry. "It will take us years to reach the closest planet, at this point." He said.
"What are you talking about? We are already here." Said Daniel as the darkness in front of him dissipated, uncovering a massive and flourishing planet.