SSS Rank: Strongest Beast Master

After another hour of intense climbing, the Gale-Screecher's sonar map in Jonah's mind showed they had arrived.

"This is it," he whispered, gesturing to a wide, dark opening in the cliff face ahead. "The cave the Bureau wanted us to find."

The team regrouped behind a cluster of rough rocks, the wind howling around them. Draven and Titus took up defensive positions, their eyes scanning the empty area.

"Specter's inside," Jonah reported, his eyes closed in concentration as he received the feed from his invisible Progeny. "The cave is… just a cave. It's big. There are a few Chimera corpses on the floor, but they're cold. They've been dead for days."

"Staged," Seraph growled. "They brought them here from the labs to set the scene."

"Anything else?" Jax asked.

"No," Jonah confirmed. "No Broodmother. No nursery. No living Chimeras at all. It's completely empty."

It was a stage, just as they'd suspected. A perfectly crafted theater for an assassination.

"Alright," Seraph said, her voice a low, dangerous command. "We go in. Cautiously. Vanessa, you're on point. Tell us what your runes are saying."

Vanessa nodded, her face pale but determined. She took out her runic detector, a small, compass-like device with a crystal needle. She took a deep breath. "Here goes nothing."

The team moved forward, their boots crunching softly on the loose rock. They entered the cave, and the howling of the wind was replaced by an oppressive silence. The air was cold and still. It carried the faint, smell of old Chimera blood.

Flashlight beams cut through the darkness, lighting up the large cavern. Just as Jonah had said, it was empty, except for three twisted Chimera bodies spread out on the floor. They looked like ugly props left after a show.

The team took a few steps inside, their weapons ready.

"Wait!"

Vanessa's voice was a sharp whisper. Everyone stopped at once.

"Stop!" she repeated, her eyes wide with terror. "Don't move a muscle!"

She was staring down at her runic detector. The crystal needle should have only twitched a little. But instead, it was spinning wildly.

"What is it?" Seraph demanded, her voice tight.

"It's a trap," Vanessa breathed, her voice trembling. "A huge one. My senses… they're screaming. The entire cave floor… it's not rock."

She looked up at them, her face pale. "It's a pressure-sensitive detonation rune."

A heavy silence fell over the group. They were all standing on a giant magical landmine. One wrong step, one shifted piece of rock, and… BOOM.

"Can you be more specific?" Draven rumbled, his body completely still, not daring to even shift his weight.

Vanessa swallowed hard, her eyes scanning across the floor as if she could see the glowing, invisible circuits beneath their feet. "It's… it's a Mana Annihilation Matrix. It's high-level military tech. Forbidden tech, actually. I've only ever read about it in restricted texts."

"What does it do?" Jonah asked, his own heart starting to pound against his ribs.

"It vaporizes everything," Vanessa said, her voice barely a whisper. "Once it's triggered, it releases a wave of pure, anti-magic energy. It doesn't just blow things up. It un-makes them. It would have turned the whole cave into vapor. Us, the evidence, everything. Nothing would be left except a smooth, glassy crater."

The truth of it hit them all like a physical blow. Colonel Boris wasn't just planning an unfortunate accident. She wasn't just trying to make it look like a rockslide. This was a clean, brutal and undeniable assassination. She was planning to erase them from existence.

Seraph's face, already hard as stone, seemed to get even colder.

"Vanessa," she said, her voice dangerously calm. "Can you disarm it?"

All eyes turned to the young runic engineer. The fate of the entire team now rested on her shoulders. For a moment, she looked terrified, overwhelmed. Then, she took a deep breath and the fear in her eyes was replaced by the intense focus of a master craftsman.

"Yes," she said, her voice small but firm. "I think so. But it's not going to be easy. It's like… a giant, explosive puzzle. It's a web of interlocking magical circuits. I have to sever the power feeds in the exact right sequence. If I cut the wrong one, or cut them out of order…"

She didn't need to finish the sentence. They all understood.

"Nobody moves," Seraph commanded. "Draven, Titus, Jax, watch the entrance. I'll watch her."

Vanessa carefully, slowly, knelt down. She placed her toolkit on the ground with the delicacy of someone handling a live bomb. She took out a pair of silver calipers and a small, crystal-tipped stylus.

"Okay," she whispered to herself. "Deep breaths. It's just a complex, many-layered, disaster-about-to-happen energy grid. No big deal."

She worked for what felt like forever. It was probably more than an hour. The only sounds in the cave were faint whimpers from Vanessa, who was muttering to herself in terror. And the distant howl of the wind. Sweat beaded on her forehead, dripping from the tip of her nose. Her hands, usually so steady in the workshop, were trembling slightly.

She used the calipers to measure the faint energy flows she could now see, her eyes moving back and forth, mapping the circuit in her mind.

"Okay… the primary capacitor is linked to the secondary initiator… so if I cut the feed to the pressure plate first… no, no, that will cause a power surge. Bad. Very bad."

Jonah watched, his own body tense with a helpless anxiety. He couldn't do anything. His Progeny were useless here. All he could do was stand perfectly still and trust his friend.

Finally, after an hour of hard, terrifying work, Vanessa took one last, deep breath. "Okay. This is it. The final connection."

She held the crystal-tipped stylus like a surgeon's scalpel. She hesitated for only a second, then, with a quick, decisive movement, she touched the tip to an invisible point on the floor.

There was a faint zing of magical energy.

For a terrifying moment, nothing happened.

Then, with a low groan, the faint hum in the air died. The massive, glowing rune that only Vanessa could see faded into darkness.

Vanessa collapsed backward, her body slumping to the floor, her energy completely spent. "It's… it's done," she gasped, her face pale but shining with a mixture of relief and pride.

She had successfully disarmed a weapon designed to kill them.

Seraph let out a slow breath she didn't realize she had been holding. She walked over and offered a hand to Vanessa, pulling her to her feet.

"Good work, specialist," she said. And for the first time, Jonah heard genuine respect in her voice when she spoke to Vanessa.

They stood in the now-safe cave, the silence heavy with the truth of what had just happened. The Bureau hadn't just tried to trick them. They had tried to murder them. To erase them.

The rules of the game had just changed. This was no longer a political chess match. It was a war.