Free Web NovelChapter 284: Trapped Heralds
Ethan walked over to the heavy iron door, reaching for the latch to secure it from the inside. When he grabbed the metal handle and pulled, it refused to budge.
"Lupis locked the door," Ethan announced. His voice echoed hollowly across the stone vault.
Marcus frowned and joined him at the entrance, pushing against the iron while searching the frame for a hidden lever. The door remained completely unyielding.
"Stand back," Ethan instructed, raising his hands to generate a kinetic barrier. He intended to smash the hinges and force their way out of the estate before Iron-Scale arrived.
However, the moment his magic touched the metal, the barrier sputtered and dissipated into harmless sparks. Ethan stumbled backward, staring at his palms in shock. "My magic is barely working."
Liam stepped up to the wall, trying to summon a bone spike from the floor. A tiny fragment of calcified material cracked through the stone before instantly crumbling into dust.
Beside him, Emma attempted to superheat a drop of blood on her fingertip, producing only a wisp of smoke.
Sophia gripped her chest, her breathing growing shallow. "Our mana nodes feel completely constricted."
Near the corner of the room, Noah melted into a pocket of darkness. He crawled up the walls to peer into the narrow ventilation shafts near the ceiling, remaining hidden for several minutes while Marcus and Ethan desperately tried to force the door open with physical strikes.
Their fists thudded uselessly against the reinforced iron.
Eventually, Noah dropped back down to the floor and looked at Marcus.
"We are inside a trap," Noah reported. "I scouted the upper shafts. The entire perimeter of this basement is lined with suppression runes, and Lupis painted a magical dampener across the ceiling to paralyze us." freēwēbnovel.com
Elena looked around the well-lit room as the terrifying reality set in. The comfortable cots and fresh bread were just bait. Lupis had perfectly orchestrated their capture.
’We walked right into an execution chamber,’ Marcus realized, his grip tightening around the hilt of his golden broadsword. He still had his weapon, but physical strength alone would never break through the reinforced iron.
They were entirely trapped underground, waiting helplessly while their enemies secured the city above them.
Noah stared at the ceiling, focusing entirely on a hairline scratch in the painted runic circle near the ventilation grate. He closed his eyes and forced his body to liquefy into pure darkness.
The suppression field immediately fought back, burning his skin like dry ice, but he gritted his teeth and pushed his shadow form through the tiny flaw in the magic.
He slid through the iron grate and dragged himself up the narrow shaft, pulling his physical body into Lupis’s private study on the ground floor.
Noah solidified behind a velvet sofa and caught his breath. He drew a short blade forged from concentrated dark matter, fully intending to slit Lupis’s throat, steal the keys, and unlock the vault from the outside.
Footsteps echoed in the adjacent hallway before the study doors swung open.
Lupis walked into the room, looking completely relaxed as he led Hawl, Novus, Gulag, and Torix toward the basement entrance. Noah shrank further into the shadows, his eyes locking onto the iron key ring currently spinning around Hawl’s index finger.
’I cannot fight all four of them,’ Noah thought, watching Torix scuttle across the ceiling. ’But I can grab those keys and kill the traitor in the confusion.’
Waiting for the exact moment Lupis passed the sofa, Noah lunged. He materialized seamlessly from the darkness and swung his blade directly at Lupis’s neck.
Before the dark matter could sever the artery, a silver amulet tucked beneath Lupis’s collar flared with blinding kinetic light.
The protective artifact violently shattered, absorbing the brunt of the assassination attempt and deflecting the strike downward. Instead of a clean decapitation, Noah’s blade tore a deep gash across Lupis’s chest.
Lupis screamed and collapsed backward against the wall. He clutched his bleeding torso, severely injured but undeniably alive.
Hawl reacted with terrifying speed. He flicked his wrist, sending a poisoned dagger flying through the air to graze Noah’s shoulder. Novus drew his own weapons, while Gulag laughed and swung her club directly at the sofa, completely obliterating the furniture.
Realizing the protective artifact had ruined his only opening, Noah instantly dissolved back into the floorboards. He grabbed the keys and slid desperately down the ventilation shaft, escaping just before Torix spewed a net of webbing over the area.
Noah dropped onto the cold stone floor of the basement and materialized in front of Marcus and Ethan. He clutched his bleeding shoulder, struggling to catch his breath as the suppression runes instantly suffocated his magic again.
However, a triumphant grin broke across his face. He uncurled his uninjured hand to reveal the heavy iron key ring he had snatched from Hawl during the chaotic clash upstairs.
"I got them," Noah panted, tossing the metal ring onto the nearest cot.
Marcus grabbed the keys to unlock the door, but Lucas quickly intercepted his hand. Lucas stared intently at the collection of iron shapes, his eyes locking onto a single, peculiar key forged entirely from translucent glass.
"Wait," Lucas whispered, carefully pulling the glass piece away from the others. "Lupis painted the dampening field, but magical runes always need a physical anchor to maintain this kind of pressure. This is pure Aether-glass."
Without hesitating, Lucas placed his thumbs on the center of the glass and snapped it in half.
The oppressive weight crushing the room vanished in a single heartbeat. Elena gasped in relief as her healing magic surged back into her veins, allowing her to instantly mend the deep gash on Noah’s shoulder.
Emma ignited a bright crimson flame on her fingertip, confirming their mana nodes were completely unblocked and fully functional.
"They are right at the top of the stairs," Noah warned, stepping back from the entrance. "Two humans and two monsters are all waiting. If we open that door, we have to fight them in a narrow chokepoint."
"Then we do not use the door," Isabella stated confidently.
