Lord of Annihilation

73rd Floor. Entry Restricted: Upper Management Only.

UEM Flagship, Avalon

The welcoming 'ding' of the elevator rang out followed by its doors opening. Olivia rushed out from within the elevator: her eyes bloodshot and her hair unkempt. Her face was unnaturally pale with tear stains visible underneath her eyes.

Rushing out of the elevator, she moved with speeds unseen by the naked eye through the long corridor. Thick, violet-colored energy surrounded her body bolstering her natural speed. 

In just seconds, she covered the few dozen meters long corridor, arriving before the door at its end. 

On the surface of the glass door, a sign reading 'DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PERMISSION' was seen. The distraught woman, however, paid no attention to this signage and simply burst in, meeting the door with a clenched fist.

A full-powered strike from a Stage 3 being wasn't something that a mere door could handle. Shattering at impact, the glass fragmented with the pieces flying through the air. 

Since she was the closest, a large portion of the broken shards headed towards her. Thankfully, the soul power enshrouding her figure protected her from being cut.

She then immediately entered the room, only to be greeted by a yell.

"Holy shit, Olivia!?! What's the matter with you? You can't just break in like that!"

A beautiful, golden-haired lady: Ka'lor'ah, sitting behind a long table at the far end of the room, greeted her. The large transparent window behind her back was darkened while a holographic screen flickered on the table in front of her. 

Ka'lor'ah seemed to have been in a call with someone before she had been interrupted by her student.

Seeing her teacher, Olivia could no longer hold back her tears and let them flow. Stumbling into the room, she pitifully called out.

"Teacher…" Losing strength in her body, Olivia slumped onto the floor.

"Good Lo–I'll call you back later, Mikon!" Ka'lor'ah ended the call on her screen and hurriedly rushed towards her precious disciple. Kneeling next to her, she hugged the crying woman and patted her back.

"Hey, hey, it's fine. Calm down. I'm here." She tried her best to placate her.

"Som-something's happened. Something's w-wrong," Olivia whimpered, her words barely intelligible. 

"What's wrong? Are we under attack? Is the Empire?" Ka'lor'ah questioned, her mind racing to consider the options. "Take a moment and tell me clearly. I'm here for you."

She then put one of her hands on Olivia's head. A golden light radiating warmth and comfort shone from her palm, helping Olivia to calm down. Soon, her cries turned into sobs, which then turned into quiet whimpers. 

"That's it. Now, tell me clearly. What's the issue?" Ka'lor'ah warmly asked. Her body as she held Olivia radiated a motherly comfort.

"It-it's Lucius," Olivia replied. 

"Lucius? Is he back?" Ka'lor'ah quizzically asked. 

"No!" Olivia exclaimed. "Something terrible has happened to Lucius!!"

"Oh, Olivia, we've spoken about this," Her teacher evenly spoke, trying her best to not sound dismissive. "Your worries are unfounded. There's not a lot of things in this Universe that can harm him, you know? I'm sure it's jus–" Her words abruptly stopped as Ka'lor'ah felt a sudden pain in her arms. 

Olivia's hands tightly latched onto her teacher's arms, her fingers digging into the latter flesh. With a maddened glint in her eyes, she stared into Ka'lor'ah deep, golden eyes and said, "It is NOT my imagination! I-I can feel that something has happened!" She screamed.

"Alright! Okay! Calm down! Let go of my arms first. You're hurting me!" Ka'lor'ah hurriedly replied. "Let me go so that I can check."

A trace of reason appeared within Olivia's crazy glint. She then released her iron grasp on her teacher and moved back. Seeing the golden blood on her fingers, Olivia hurriedly apologized. 

"I'm sorry. I'm very sorry! I didn't mean to hur–" Tears started to gather within her eyes once again. 

"It's fine! Look, it's already healed! I'm fine!" Ka'lor'ah quickly showed the sides of her arms to reassure her student. She did not want to deal with another bout of crying.

After seeing that her student had somewhat calmed down. Ka'lor'ah backed away a little and rose to her feet. She faintly glanced at her student who was constantly muttering something to herself while keeping her head lowered. 

'Wow! This is some crazy level of obsession. Was she always like this?' Ka'lor'ah asked herself. Unfortunately, she did not have the time to think too deep into this question. She wanted to confirm whether Olivia's worries were real or not.

First, she would check the easiest way. Closing her eyes, Ka'lor'ah looked deep within herself. After a few seconds of searching, she found the strand of soul power connecting herself to Lucius.

'Ah, here it is. As I expected. Everything is just…fine?' 

Her self-affirmation suddenly turned into a question as she followed the strand of soul power. The strand endlessly stretched into the deep darkness and then…ended.

'That's odd. It's not supposed to just end like that. It's supposed to endlessly stretch into the darkness and connect with him on the other side.'

However, if her senses were lying, it wasn't doing so. The strand stretched for a fairly long distance and then just stopped. 

It had been cut.

'It can't be cut. That's impossible! I would've felt it being cut.'

And yet, here it was. The connection had been cut, yet Ka'lor'ah had been none the wiser. 

'How did this happen!? More importantly, when?' She questioned herself. If not for Olivia barging in and making a big fuss today, Ka'lor'ah might've never noticed this issue.

And it was an issue. For if their soul connection had been cut without her knowledge, it meant one of two things: a greater power (above Stage 6) had taken an interest in the duo and had intervened, or that Lucius had died!

'No that's stupid. Lucius wouldn't die. He's Lucius!' It was very flimsy reasoning, however, it was the truth. 

Lucius wouldn't carelessly die just because he was him. 

"Teacher, what's wrong?" Ka'lor'ah heard her student suddenly ask. 

Opening her eyes, she looked down and saw her intently stare at her; the depths of her eyes were filled with worry and instability.

'I can't tell her the truth.' Ka'lor'ah immediately decided. 'If I tell her Lucius could've possibly died, no, if I even vaguely hint at it, she might actually go bonkers. There's no telling what she might do.'

Whatever it was, Ka'lor'ah couldn't imagine it being good. Or non-destructive. 

"I'm just facing some interference. The soul strand connecting Lucius and myself is being hindered by some greater power. Should be the defenses of Tartarus." Ka'lor'ah lied.

Well, it wasn't technically a lie since that had been normal, before this 'recent' change. 

"There shouldn't be an issue. But!" Ka'lor'ah hurriedly added, seeing the look on Olivia's face change for the worse. "I'll just perform a ritual to confirm it. Is that fine?"

Olivia did not reply but simply nodded her head. 

Maybe her teacher was right. Perhaps, she really was worrying too much over nothing, and that everything was inside her head.

However, Olivia had a strong feeling that she wasn't wrong. 

-------------

Under Ka'lor'ah's lead, the two women arrived at the 84th floor. The twenty floors above the 70th belonged to Ka'lor'ah and were under her purview. 

Stepping out of the elevator, Olivia was greeted with the sight of a large, empty space. White, square tiles covered the floor, the walls, and the ceiling of this space.

"Here we are. Go to that cabinet towards your right and retrieve four flasks containing the black-colored liquid." 

Her teacher instructed as such and started to walk away. Not wanting to delay, Olivia quickly ran towards the metal cabinet. 

Pushing down on the metal handle, she opened the door and scanned its contents. Its inside was filled with hundreds of test tubes and chemical flasks, each containing different items. Some were filled with colorful liquids, others were filled with powders and rocks, there were even some with flesh and organs within them.

Olivia cared for none of these, only looking to find the flash containing the black liquid. Scanning through the vast storage, she quickly found a row of flasks meeting the requirements hanging by the side. 

Grabbing four of those flasks, Olivia shut the cabinet, turned around, and rushed towards her teacher. 

"Be careful of where you are stepping. It took me a lot of effort to draw these lines."

The moment she approached, she heard a warning from her teacher. Looking down, Olivia noticed that the floor in front of her was covered by a vast, intricately drawn pattern. 

It was a formation array.

"Haah! Creating a formation is exhausting work," Ka'lor'ah complained while getting up. "Even a minor edit to an already existing formation drains a lot of my energy."

Turning to face her, Ka'lor'ah asked, "You found the items?"

Olivia nodded her head and presented the flasks. Handing it over to her teacher, she asked, "What are these?"

Ka'lor'ah opened one of the flasks and smiled. 

"Oh, this? This is Lucius' blood."

She then turned her hand, pouring the contents of the flask onto the ground.