Chapter 1553: The Dark Facility (Part 1)
The number of Cerebus Guild members in the chamber matched the number of patients exactly. It couldn’t be coincidence. Everything about this scene felt rehearsed, structured, like a ritual they’d performed countless times before.
Alen’s only comfort was the one-way glass. They could see everything from their side, but the people inside couldn’t see them. If the patients had noticed anyone watching, they might have called out for help, and the guild members would have known immediately that intruders were nearby.
’I have to record everything,’ Alen thought, gripping his device tighter. ’This alone will be enough evidence to destroy them. One clear video of this, and the entire network will crumble.’
As he steadied his hands, light began to bloom from each of the Cerebus Guild members. Thin, radiant streams formed around their bodies before extending toward the patients lying motionless on the ground.
When the light struck, the muffled groans of agony changed. They didn’t stop, they shifted. The pain in their voices began to dull, fading into quiet gasps. Their trembling slowed. And before Beatrix’s eyes, their torn flesh began to mend.
The muscle tissue re-formed, veins sealed, and new layers of skin grew over their broken bodies. It was a grotesque miracle, life returning where there should have been none.
“They’re healing them,” Beatrix whispered. “Light magic…”
The truth of it sank in like a blade. The Cerebus Guild were using light magic, repairing the same bodies that had just been burned raw by pure mana. They weren’t saving them out of mercy, they were using them.
But even as the flesh mended, the deeper wounds didn’t. Alen could see the readings on the monitors, fractured magic cores, neural damage, residual traces of addiction. These people weren’t being cured. They were being reset.
“Are they trying to find a cure for the substances they’ve been distributing?” Beatrix asked, her voice sharp with disbelief. “If they can sell both the poison and the antidote, they’d make twice as much profit.”
Alen shook his head. “No,” he said quietly, and there was strain in his voice, something raw and angry beneath it.
When the healing was finished, the Cerebus Guild members stepped back without a word and walked out of the room. Their gold-trimmed robes shimmered faintly under the mana light. As soon as they left, the researchers at the console pressed more buttons.
The white light returned, blinding, engulfing the room once more.
Moments later, the same horror unfolded again. The patients were back to their near-death state. Their skin blistered, their bodies ravaged by the surge of mana.
And then the Cerebus Guild walked back in.
The same sequence repeated.
Light magic flared. Healing followed. The bodies restored. Then the mana light burned them again.
Beatrix’s breath hitched as she realized what was happening. “They’re… they’re doing it on purpose. Over and over. They’re torturing them, just to heal them again.”
Her fists trembled, the urge to break through the glass nearly overwhelming.
“This isn’t research,” Alen said. His tone was tight, every word controlled. “There’s no lab equipment here. No data being collected. The real experiments are done on the upper floors.”
He swallowed hard and looked back toward the glass, forcing himself to keep filming. “What they’re doing here is something else entirely.”
Beatrix turned to him, confused. “Then what?”
“They’re using them,” Alen said. “These people, the ones they deem useless, are being sacrificed for the guild’s gain. To increase their own affinity.”
Beatrix frowned. “Affinity?”
“Dark magic was banned across Alterian long ago,” Alen explained. “Rumors said the reason was because those who practiced it could only grow stronger by taking life. The more death they caused, the deeper their magic became. It made them unstable, too dangerous to exist.”
Beatrix’s eyes widened as the realization hit her.
“For light magic,” Alen continued, “the method is different. Its affinity grows through healing. The more one heals, the stronger their magic becomes. On the surface, it looks pure, righteous even. But what happens when healing alone isn’t enough?”
He pointed through the glass.
“When ordinary healing no longer strengthens them, they create pain. They destroy life just so they can restore it again, and again, until their light grows stronger than anyone else’s. They call it faith. But what we’re seeing now… this is the darkness of light.”
Beatrix stared in stunned silence. The idea that the revered Light Mages of the Cerebus Guild could do something so monstrous, it twisted her stomach.
The process continued. Over and over.
The same five guild members would enter, heal the half-dead patients, leave the room, and then let the pure mana burn them alive again.
By the sixth time, Beatrix could barely watch. Her nails dug into her palms hard enough to draw blood.
One of the patients, barely conscious, managed to move their mouth when the healing light touched them again. Their words were hoarse but filled with terror.
“Please… stop… not again… please…”
Then came the screams.
They knew what was coming next.
The pain. The light. The endless cycle.
They didn’t want to live through it anymore. Death would have been mercy.
Beatrix turned her head away, tears threatening to form. “This isn’t just cruel… it’s evil.”
Alen nodded grimly. “They’ve turned suffering into a tool. Every second of pain those people feel, every scream they make, becomes strength for the Cerebus Guild.”
The hum of the machinery deepened, the rhythm almost mechanical now, as though the entire room had settled into routine.
Six cycles. Six rounds of agony and restoration.
Each time, the light burned brighter. Each time, the healers looked calmer, more practiced, more detached.
And then, during the seventh round, one of the researchers frowned at his monitor. “One of the patients has flatlined,” he announced.
“Record it,” another said flatly. “We’ll bring in another one.”
Beatrix froze.
Another one.
How many had there been before? Hundreds? Thousands?
She looked at Alen. His jaw was clenched so tightly it looked painful, the fury behind his eyes almost radiating from him.
They had all the proof they needed.
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*****
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Chapter 1554: The Dark Facility (Part 2)
To produce the most effective results, the researchers had pushed their methods to extremes. Their goal was simple, to learn precisely how much magical damage a body could endure before death. For that, they had spent years refining the process. Each experiment hovered right on the edge of killing its subject.
Every patient was different, some had stronger bodies, some weaker. Their tolerance to mana exposure varied wildly, and even the strength of the Cerebus Guild healers was inconsistent. How much they could restore, how long they could sustain their light magic, all of it affected the outcome.
It was a gruesome balancing act.
After repeating the experiment enough times, every subject eventually died. Even if their outer wounds were healed, the inner toll always won. The body simply had a limit, a point where it could no longer bear the endless tearing and mending.
But none of that mattered to the people running the facility. There was always a fresh stream of new test subjects waiting above.
Beatrix’s entire body trembled. “What do you plan to do?” she asked, her voice low but shaking.
Her instincts screamed at her to intervene. The way she had been raised, the values of the Light Faction she once believed in, help those in pain if you have the power to do so, those lessons were carved into her soul. Even after discovering the Light Faction’s corruption, those beliefs had never left her.
Right now, every fiber of her being told her to act.
If she’d stepped in sooner, could she have saved the one who’d just died?
Alen could see her struggling. He shared her anger, but he forced himself to remain calm. “Originally,” he said, his jaw tight, “I planned to bring my men in. We’d raid the entire facility, take down the staff, and free everyone. But I didn’t know the Cerebus Guild themselves were here.”
He glanced back toward the glass wall. “You’re strong, Beatrix, stronger than anyone I’ve worked with, but my men? They wouldn’t stand a chance against these monsters. If we want to destroy this place, we’ll have to come back. Properly prepared.”
Beatrix’s fists clenched. She knew what those words cost him to say. Coming back later meant letting more people suffer. It meant more deaths before they could return.
Alen’s face hardened, but his thoughts were filled with guilt. If only I were as strong as Raze,
he thought bitterly. Maybe then we could end this right now.
They needed a plan to escape. The two of them were deep underground, beneath multiple layers of the facility. There was no lower floor they could descend to.
Even if they tried climbing back up through the ceiling, the researchers from the previous room would have returned by now.
“We can’t go up,” Alen muttered. “We’ll have to find another path, somewhere they won’t expect.”
“Let me check below first,” Beatrix said. “If there’s even a small tunnel, maybe something connected to the Underside world, we could slip out through there.”
It was a long shot. Facilities like this were usually sealed from every direction. Still, she pressed her staff against the ground and infused it with Qi. The earth trembled slightly as a small section of the floor shifted away, revealing what lay beneath.
Nothing.
Just solid rock.
No tunnels. No escape.
Before she could seal the floor again, one of the researchers turned from the console. “I’ll go bring in another patient,” the man said aloud.
Beatrix froze.
Alen’s sharp hearing caught the words, and the sound of the man’s footsteps turning toward their direction. His heart clenched. They were about to be seen.
The researcher’s eyes widened as he spotted the two figures standing in the shadows behind the one-way glass.
Before he could speak, Alen swung his arm. A sharp crescent of wind burst from his hand, slicing across the man’s throat. The researcher collapsed, clutching his neck, blood spilling across the console.
The other two turned in panic, but Beatrix was faster. She stepped forward, sword flashing in a clean arc. Two strikes, swift, silent, and fatal.
All three men dropped.
Beatrix stood still, her chest rising and falling. She hated killing. Every time she drew her sword against humans, it left a mark on her heart. But these men, no, these creatures, had given up their humanity long ago.
Still, the weight of it pressed on her.
“What now?” she asked, her voice hushed. “They’ll know something’s wrong. The moment those guild members realize the door isn’t opening, “
“They’ll come looking,” Alen finished grimly.
He scanned the room, mind racing. They could try signaling their allies outside, but even if help came, it would take time to reach them. Time they didn’t have.
His thoughts were interrupted by a cold, commanding voice.
“Hey,” one of the Cerebus Guild members called out.
Both Alen and Beatrix froze.
The voice came from inside the chamber, but it was directed at them.
“Why haven’t you opened the door to let us out?” the man said. His tone was calm, almost casual, but his eyes were fixed straight at the one-way glass, as if he could see through it.
For the first time since entering the facility, Beatrix felt genuine fear crawl up her spine.
“Alen…” she whispered. “Can he see us?”
It shouldn’t have been possible. The glass was reinforced with mana to block detection spells. But light mages, especially those with high affinity, had ways of perceiving more than sight. They could sense movement, heat, even life energy. Although not to the point of someone with God eyes.
Alen slowly stepped back. “We need to move,” he said quietly. “Now.”
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*****
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Chapter 1555: Breaking Out (Part 1)
A flood of thoughts tore through Beatrix and Alen’s minds as they stood frozen in the dimly lit chamber. The air itself felt heavy, charged with the presence of danger. Slowly, carefully, they backed away from the one-way window, each step measured.
Maybe, just maybe, the guild members would assume the staff had stepped out for a break. Perhaps the communicators had malfunctioned. If they could buy even a few seconds of confusion, it might be enough to disappear.
But what if the Cerebus Guild decided to act first? What if they didn’t wait?
Inside the chamber, the five guild members remained perfectly composed, exchanging calm, knowing looks.
“Well, this is a first, don’t you think?” said Tonto, the youngest among them. His scalp was cleanly shaved except for three jagged streaks of hair that stood upright like horns.
“Exactly,” Yellum replied, her tone cool yet sharp. “In all the time we’ve been assigned to this facility, the staff have never failed to alert us. Not once.”
Her short, angled black hair brushed just against her ears as she tilted her head. She radiated quiet authority, command that needed no shouting.
This was the Cerebus Guild’s elite squad, mages trained to handle the most dangerous operations in Alterian. Their names were whispered in military reports and political briefings alike. Each of them had earned notoriety for surviving missions that should have been impossible.
From where they stood, Alen recognized them instantly. Yellum and Tonto were infamous even among his own ranks, mages responsible for quelling uprisings and hunting rogue spellcasters who had turned on the Grand Magus.
If these five were here, this wasn’t just another experiment. It was something far bigger.
There were rumors, of course, of another unit, the masked squad, those who wore pure white masks that covered their entire faces. They appeared only beside Gizin himself, silent and untouchable.
But these five were terrifying enough.
Gizin, to the public eye, was a respected Grand Magus, the face of the largest pharmaceutical company in Alterian. People saw him as a genius, a savior of the sick, a man who had elevated medicine through magic. Few ever questioned what went on in his laboratories or who his guild really served.
The reality was far darker.
Yellum raised her hand and aimed it toward the one-way glass.
“Hey, what are you doing?” Tonto asked, alarmed.
“We can always pay for a new window,” Yellum said flatly. Her mana surged, white and violent. “Don’t worry about it.”
A roaring blast of energy exploded from her palm, pure mana condensed into a single destructive pulse. It smashed into the glass wall with a deafening crash, fracturing it into a thousand glittering shards that scattered across the tiles.
The others stepped back in surprise. To them, it seemed excessive. Surely, someone from the control room would appear at any second. But when the dust settled and the smoke cleared, the truth stared them in the face.
Three bodies.
The researchers lay sprawled across the floor, blood soaking into their coats.
“They’re dead,” Tonto muttered.
He vaulted cleanly over the broken frame and landed inside the control area, checking the bodies. After a moment, his voice echoed out, sharp and certain.
“They’re gone! Whoever did this, there’s no trace of them.”
Yellum’s eyes narrowed. “Then they can’t have gone far.” Her tone darkened. “Someone saw everything that happened in this room. This entire operation was targeted from the start.”
Mana pulsed around her like heat waves. “Burn this place to the ground if you have to. Find them!”
The command was immediate.
Without hesitation, the five elite mages split up, their magic auras flaring as they began their search. The air itself trembled from the energy they released, sealing off corridors and echoing through the halls like a growing storm.
They began with the lowest level, certain that intruders couldn’t have escaped upward. No one could move through solid walls, they thought, no one but Beatrix.
Up on the second floor, Beatrix and Alen emerged silently from beneath the ground. They had chosen a random spot far from the laboratory, pushing upward through the foundation with her staff’s Qi-infused power. When the stone gave way, they found themselves inside another holding cell, dark, narrow, and lined with reinforced steel.
“Do we hide here?” Beatrix whispered, her breathing shallow. “Or will they find us anyway?”
“They’ll find us,” Alen said grimly. “And when they do, they’ll chase us until one of us is dead.”
He was already weaving a small spell, his fingers flickering with blue light. “I’ve contacted the others. My team should be on their way. The ones outside will move in the moment they sense fighting. Until then, all we can do is hold out.”
Beatrix nodded. She had already accepted it, they were past the point of escape. “Then we fight.”
Alen hesitated for half a second, then gave a firm nod. “We fight.”
He didn’t want to. Not against this kind of enemy. But dragging his allies into this was unavoidable now.
He lifted his hand higher. “Clear the ceiling. I’ll signal them.”
Beatrix spun her staff and slammed its base into the floor. The ground groaned as it shifted, her Qi bending stone and steel like clay. A vertical shaft opened above them, stretching through the floors like a tunnel of air.
“Now!” Alen shouted.
Mana burst from his arm in a torrent of flame. A massive fire blast surged upward, cutting through the ceiling and every level above. It erupted out into the night sky like a beacon, bright, violent, unmistakable.
The explosion sent a shockwave through the entire facility. Dust rained down. The floor vibrated beneath their feet.
Every mage in the building would have felt it.
Outside, the crimson flare painted the clouds, scattering embers across the dark sky.
The signal was sent.
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*****
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When news of MVS, MWS, or any other series comes out, you will be able to see it there first, and you can reach out to me. If I’m not too busy, I tend to reply.
Chapter 1556: Breaking Out (Part 2)
The fireball shot through the ceiling and burst into countless crimson embers, scattering across the night sky like a shower of sparks. Outside, Alen’s soldiers immediately recognized it, the signal. Trouble.
Without hesitation, they moved. The soldiers and operatives who had been stationed nearby were already accustomed to such emergencies. They had rehearsed this countless times. None of them knew just how brutal the coming fight would be, but all of them ran toward the facility with unwavering resolve.
Inside, Beatrix stared at the rising smoke and then at Alen, her brows furrowed in concern. “We have to break out of here. I can take us up again and open a path through the wall,” she said quickly. “But I’m worried. Now that they know we’ve seen something, they might destroy this whole place just to cover it up, or burn it down trying to get us.”
Her guess wasn’t far off.
On the floor below, the Cerebus Guild mages were already tearing through rooms, destroying everything in sight. Explosions of light and flame echoed through the corridors. Every shattered wall and burning console served two purposes, eliminate potential hiding spots, and erase all evidence that the facility had ever existed.
Beatrix clenched her teeth. “I told those people we’d help them. That we’d come back to free them.”
Alen grabbed her hand. “Then we’ll just have to do that,” he said firmly. “And we’ll have to do it now.”
He stretched out his arm, mana surging in his palm, and unleashed a massive fireball that slammed into the steel gate ahead. The explosion tore the barrier from its hinges, sending fragments of molten metal scattering down the hall.
The moment the path cleared, Alen dashed forward. Guards were already on alert, shouting orders as they prepared spells of their own. Alen twisted his hand, spinning his wrist as flames burst outward in spiraling arcs. The blasts struck the first two guards in the chest, hurling them back into the walls with a crash.
Beatrix leapt after him, her feet barely touching the ground. She kicked off one wall, then the next, bounding from side to side along the narrow corridor. Each movement carried deadly precision. Her sword flashed with a faint silver glow as she sliced through the locks of every cell door in sight.
Metal screeched. Doors flew from their frames, falling to the ground one by one.
Alen caught a glimpse of her in motion, graceful, unstoppable, almost inhuman. Flames still burned at his fingertips, but he found himself slowing for a heartbeat, simply to watch.
He quickly shook off the thought and launched more fireballs toward the reinforcements rushing in. The hall filled with heat and chaos, smoke rising as spells collided. Beatrix moved effortlessly through it all, cutting down the last remaining cell doors until the corridor was completely open.
“All of you!” Beatrix shouted. Her voice carried over the roar of fire and alarms. “This is your chance, your breakout! Get out of here and head for the Underside! There’s someone there who can cure you, someone who can help! Go now! This is your only chance for freedom!”
For a brief second, silence followed her words.
Then, one by one, the prisoners began to step out. The desperation in their eyes shifted into disbelief, then hope.
They rushed forward, some limping, some half-crawling, but all determined to escape. The corridor filled with motion as they headed toward the reception area, guided by Beatrix’s voice and Alen’s fiery trail clearing the path.
Among them was the same man who had spoken to Beatrix earlier. He stopped briefly as he passed her, his eyes wide and wet with tears.
“I never thought… this would happen,” he said, his voice trembling. “Thank you… thank you so much.”
Beatrix met his gaze and smiled faintly. “Don’t thank me yet. Get them all to the Underside. If you do that, I promise, you’ll find help waiting for you there.”
The man nodded hard. “I will. I promise,” he said before running off to join the others.
But as Beatrix looked around, her expression hardened. Not everyone was moving.
Some prisoners remained in their cells, those too weak to stand, too far gone to respond. A few lay curled in corners, trembling, others lay motionless on the ground. Some stared blankly into space, trapped in a daze, unresponsive to sound or touch.
“I have to get them out of here,” Beatrix said under her breath.
Closing her eyes, she lifted her staff. The ground beneath her began to tremble as Qi surged through her body. The walls groaned, bending and shifting under her command. The very structure of the building began to change, stone and steel reshaping like soft clay.
Alen stepped back, shielding his face as dust and debris filled the air.
When Beatrix opened her eyes again, a wide staircase had formed, spiraling upward from the second floor all the way to the surface. A direct path to freedom.
There was no longer any point in hiding what they were doing. The entire facility already knew.
Without hesitation, Beatrix dashed forward. She moved through the hall, gathering the unconscious prisoners with astonishing speed. Her strength defied logic, lifting multiple people at once, carrying them under her arms, across her shoulders, and even by her fingertips as if they weighed nothing.
Alen stared in awe. “You… really are incredible,” he said quietly.
Beatrix didn’t slow down. She carried the last of them toward the new staircase when Alen suddenly froze. His senses flared.
Down the corridor, the temperature dropped.
The sound of crackling fire was replaced by a calm, steady voice.
“Well now,” the figure at the end of the hall said, stepping into view. His robes shimmered with golden embroidery, the insignia of the Cerebus Guild clearly visible across his chest. “It looks like I’ve found you.”
*****
For updates for MWS and future works, please follow me on my social media below.
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When news of MVS, MWS, or any other series comes out, you will be able to see it there first, and you can reach out to me. If I’m not too busy, I tend to reply.
