12 Einder Stronghold

In the pitch-black corridor, a light suddenly started appearing. A screeching sound could be heard as they continued to walk towards the source of the light.

As they continued to walk, the bright light had completely enveloped them.

"Welcome to the Einder Stronghold!" A female voice said.

They were then welcomed by a grand sight as the whole room was filled with machines and electronics that were flashing lights. There were lots of passages that seemed to lead towards different rooms.

Cray could clearly remember the owner of the voice. A certain AI came to mind when he thought of the owner of the voice.

"This voice? Note? Are you there?" Cray clearly rejoiced. Even the tone of his voice was so high. He never thought that he would be this happy hearing a familiar voice.

"Affirmative host!" The AI gleefully replied.

"What's that?" Stan curiously asked as he had never heard of a female voice ever talking when he entered other strongholds. He was a bit baffled when Cray seemed to even know where the voice was coming from.

Cray looked at him weirdly. "Aren't you supposed to be the one who should know this? After all, you seem to know a lot?." Even so, he gestured towards his chest as he took his silver necklace. "This is where it came from. It's an AI that seems to come from my father." He then explained how he got this necklace on his birthday.

"So that's why!" Stan looking like he had finally solved a difficult puzzle looked at the pendant with dazzling eyes. "This is a relic of the great Einder!" He then smiled as he looked at the treasure in front of him.

"Anyways now that we're here let's have a quick look around. This is the sole stronghold of the Western Continent. We should be able to find something useful." Stan then explained the reason why he came here with Cray.

"I got it." Cray then nodded as they split up while exploring the stronghold.

As cray was walking around he saw a large portrait hanging on the white walls. As he closely examined it, there were five people who were wearing rings and a person in the middle who was wearing the same necklace that he was wearing.

"He then asked Note "Could this be the man who made you?" Note then answered, "Host does not have the authority to know the answer." Cray looked a bit disappointed as he didn't get any response from Note.

Stan saw Cray looking at the portrait curiously, so he asked Cray, "Interested? This was a portrait of the five most loyal subordinates of the great Einder and the great Einder himself. The ones wearing rings are the guardians of each continent that rose for Einder's great cause."

He then suddenly showed his hand that was wearing a ring. "You see, I'm a ring bearer myself. I am the guardian of the North and the sole survivor of the Shadow Lurkers." He then gave a bit of smug look as he showed off his ring. "I came all the way here just to save you from the evil hands of the empire. Right now, the only remaining ring bearers are down to three. Me, Ye Chen from the Chen Clan of the Eastern Continent, and Gatsby Arcos from the Arcos Family of the Southern Continent. The others are no longer in touch and might have already died at the hands of the empire or fortunately are just hiding in the shadows."

Stan then clapped his hands, "Okay enough of that, let's get back to work." they then finished searching the whole stronghold and ended up exhausted. "Cray, did you find anything?"

"Uhmm...embarassingly I don't even know what's useful here, so I didn't find anything. Oh! But I saw this paper that seems to have something written on it." Cray then showed the paper to Stan.

"Thi- How could this be? Cray, we need to go now!" Stan looked so serious as he dragged Cray away.

"This is written in the secret code that only the ring bearers know about. It says here that this stronghold had already lost its protection. The empire should already know about us going to this location." Stan then took out another machine from the shadows, he rode it and gestured to Cray to do the same.

Cray looking puzzled still followed Stan as he said, "This is your first time riding a Cycle, right? Hold on tight!" He smiled as he made the machine burst forth in speed. Cray was out of his wits as he begins to hold Stan's waist.

Meanwhile, on top of the stronghold, hundreds of soldiers from the empire stormed the building as they were to catch two men

Each and every one of these soldiers are elites that are battle hardened. Some even had a very strong background within the empire. They were all members of the Spearhead army directly controlled by the emperor. Right now, there were some who grumbled "Why are we sent here to take just a kid? Shouldn't we be sent to quell the rebellion in the east? That should've been more important. I don't know what the emperor is thinking but he's got to be insane." A man who was still yawning replied back at him "You shouldn't have asked that question. You might be subjected to treason y'know? Regardless I completely agree with you. Why do we have to be sent to this backwater place?" A man who was their superior scolded them for not taking this seriously. With that, they both continued to guard all exits while making dissatisfied faces.

As they had completed the set-up half of the soldiers then slowly marched towards all the entrances of the stronghold as they wanted to completely corner Cray and Stan.

The superior who had just scolded the two men thought on the back of his head. Those two fools. Had they seen the face that the right-hand man was making while the emperor gave this tasked to me then they wouldn't even make fun of this mission.

He had clearly understood the importance of this mission.