Good News, We Found the Exit

With a ventilation shaft, could the exit really be far away?

If all else failed, they could break open the ventilation shaft. Wouldn't that make it an exit?

"Great!" Lin En said excitedly in a lowered voice.

But Cecilia's expression had turned somewhat grave.

She seemed to have heard something.

But she did not jump to conclusions. She only said, "Let's go over and take a look first."

"What is it?" Lin En asked, looking at her.

Cecilia said gravely, "I'm not sure. We'll talk after we get there."

So they followed the passage in that direction.

They walked on and on.

Lin En also began to sense that something was wrong.

...Why does this place look more and more familiar?

Damn, isn't this the road to those Chaos Cultists' camp?

They continued forward along the passage.

The wind grew stronger, and the air fresher, but the stone walls around them also grew increasingly familiar.

Lin En even spotted the short crack in the stone he had crawled through.

...Damn, don't tell me...

Sad.

They followed the passage, turning left and right countless times for a long while before finally rounding a bend.

Then Cecilia stopped.

Lin En nearly crashed into her back, but fortunately, he stopped in time too.

He poked his head out and looked ahead along Cecilia's line of sight.

Sure enough, there was that same dim red glow again.

Ahead lay an extremely, extremely large cavern.

The cavern was truly gigantic, probably more than a thousand square meters.

The ceiling was as high as a church dome. Dim red patterns, seemingly some kind of mineral, covered the stone walls. The cavern floor was flat—smoothed flat by people—and polished like a huge whetstone.

That same kind of dim red torch burned along the cavern walls, while a stone platform stood in the center.

Lin En's breath caught for a moment.

This place was practically a larger version of the Chaos Cultist camp cavern he had found after waking up, only many times bigger.

Some sat in the corners, some leaned against the stone walls, and some paced back and forth in front of the door in the center of the cavern. They carried rusty knives or those red-glowing psychic weapons... They were all Chaos Cultists.

They all wore those blood-red robes, and seemed to belong to the same group.

Some were eating, some were muttering something under their breath, and some had their eyes closed in meditation. They looked completely at home.

Dark red psychic light radiated from several focusers, bathing the entire cavern in a bloodlike red glow.

This place...

This had to be the Chaos Cultists' lair.

...Who would have thought that following the airflow all the way would lead them straight to the Chaos Cultists' lair?

The wind swept past their ears and blew straight toward the rear.

As it passed through the enormous cavern, they could both see that there was a passage behind it.

There had been no wind in the other caverns. The wind was coming from that passage.

Sigh. So the Chaos Cultists' lair had to be located along the exit's ventilation route.

Otherwise, if they lit so many torches in a place with no air circulation, the flames alone would have suffocated them.

The good news was that they had found the exit.

The bad news was that the exit was right behind the Chaos Cultists' lair.

The Chaos Cultists were clustered around the entrance. This cavern had only one exit, and there was no way to go around them.

To get out, they would definitely have to break through the Chaos Cultists' encirclement.

Cecilia slowly, slowly crouched down against the rock wall.

Lin En hurriedly crouched down too, waiting to see whether Sister Cecilia had any ideas.

In the dim red light, Cecilia's slit pupils narrowed into lines so thin they were almost invisible. Her lips were pressed tightly together. Lin En saw her eyes moving from left to right, then up to down, counting how many Chaos Cultists were in the cavern.

...A lot.

Far too many.

And among those Chaos Cultists were psykers, along with many psychic weapons.

That psychic weapon was the one that had fired red light at Lin En earlier, directly activating his 30-Day Blood-Lock Protection.

The 30-Day Blood-Lock Protection only activated after he suffered a certain degree of injury. If Lin En had not had those thirty days, that one blast of red light would have been enough to kill him.

After Cecilia finished counting, she closed her eyes.

Too many.

And there were so many psykers.

Emperor, have mercy.

She had seen many hopeless situations, but never one like this—facing such a desperate situation after losing her weapons, equipment, and companions.

Cecilia remained calm for a long time. Finally, she clenched her teeth and opened her eyes.

She looked at Lin En, a young boy who had never seen the battlefield, and asked, "Are you afraid?"

Lin En froze for a moment. He thought about it.

Afraid. Of course he was afraid.

He was afraid of the rusty knives, afraid of the red-glowing psychic weapons, afraid of being captured and sacrificed to the Blood God, afraid of pain, afraid of being hacked apart, afraid of being burned, and afraid of death. There was nothing shameful about it. These were the natural fears of anyone who did not want to die.

So he nodded and answered honestly, "I am, Sister."

Cecilia closed her eyes again for a moment.

She could not leave Lin En here either.

Then she said nothing more. She turned her head back toward the passage behind the cavern, watching the shadows of the Chaos Cultists shifting in the dim red light.

Her lips moved slightly. She was probably praying—to the Emperor.

Lin En did not know what she prayed for, but immediately afterward, he saw that her back was straighter than before, her shoulders steadier, and her breathing slower, deeper, and heavier.

"The Emperor is with me," she said.

Swearing on the honor of a Battle Sister, a Battle Sister would never abandon a civilian.

Cecilia reached out and placed a hand on Lin En's shoulder, pressing it down until his shoulder sank.

Then she spoke, her voice heavy. "Lin En, follow me when we move. I'll go first."

Lin En nodded.

"If a fight breaks out, stay behind me. Don't charge forward. If I can't free myself and they haven't noticed you, run immediately. If someone spots you, then come back and find me, all right?"

Cecilia instructed him solemnly.

Lin En was just about to nod reflexively, but after realizing what she meant, his expression changed drastically. "Okay... Huh? Huh? No, no, no..."

Wasn't Cecilia planning to draw the enemies away and then let him escape?

Although he was a useless little nobody, a good young man from the twenty-first century, he could not let a companion go to her death while he ran away.

"Now isn't the time to worry about loyalty. This is the only way—"

Before they had finished discussing how to break through, a Chaos Cultist who seemed unusually perceptive sensed their gaze and lifted his head.

The dim red light fell across his face, illuminating a pair of murky, blood-red eyes that looked as though they had been soaking in blood. They stared directly at the two of them peering out from beyond the cavern.

Bad! The Chaos Cultists had noticed them!

Cecilia and Lin En's expressions changed drastically at the same time.

The Chaos Cultist confirmed that he had seen them.

"There are people over there—!!!" the Chaos Cultist shouted.

His voice was like a rusty knife scraping across the silence. In an instant, all the Chaos Cultists looked in the direction he pointed.

The Chaos Cultists sprang up from the ground, grabbed their knives, raised their red-glowing psychic weapons, and charged toward them.

Cecilia said nothing. She grabbed Lin En and turned to run.

She had planned to break through, but not under circumstances where every Chaos Cultist had spotted them.

Before the Chaos Cultists discovered them, she could observe from the shadows, wait, search for an opportunity, and choose a suitable breach while they were distracted, escaping at the lowest possible cost.

Now that every Chaos Cultist had spotted them, there was no opportunity left.

She could not resist so many Chaos Cultists alone, especially with Lin En behind her.

There was no other choice. They could only run.

Lin En took off after Cecilia with all his might.

The Chaos Cultists' shouts surged after them like a swarm of hornets.

"There are people! Intruders! Intruders!"

"They look like a Battle Sister and a psyker!"

"Don't let them get away!"

"Catch them! Offer them to the Blood God!"

Cecilia was extremely glad that she had met Lin En.

If she had been alone and encountered these Chaos Cultists without warning after going hungry for so long, she definitely would not have been able to run very fast.