[Some Moments Ago.]

[Bunker.]

​After walking through the eerie, suffocating passage where the air grew thick with a metallic tang, the group finally reached the bunker. It was meant to be an impenetrable fortress, a masterpiece of modern survival engineering.

​They stood frozen, staring at the heavy metal door, which was torn opened as if it were made of cheap tin. The massive hinges were completely warped, sheared off by a force that defied earthly physics.

​Mirabella stepped forward, her blue eyes staring at the massive, deep claw marks on it, and exhaled:

​"It seems the monster destroyed the door." She said, and followed the gap, entering inside.

​Grace and Carl followed behind her, both entering the gateway with their weapons drawn and senses heightened. They moved their gazes on the dried, dark blood stains all over the place, their faces paled as the sheer brutality of the scene painted a picture of absolute slaughter. The impregnable safe room had been turned into a butcher’s block.

​Mirabella picked up a crushed picture frame on the ground, wiping away a layer of ash and staring at the four smiling people on it.

​"Are these your parents?" She asked, passing the picture to Grace. "Is that Blondie your sister?"

​Grace slowly nodded her head, her hands trembling as her thumb traced the glass over the faces she had lost. "Yes, my family." Grace Answered, as tears rolled down her cheeks, dropping onto the cracked glass.

​Mirabella nodded, processing the details but remaining anchored to the reality. She turned to the side, staring at the back wall with a deep frown. Her perception caught a dissonance in the spatial density.

​"Something doesn’t feel right." She moved towards the wall, feeling the unnatural hum vibrating through the steel, and placed her palm on it.

​BAM!!!

​"....?!!"

​Carl, Grace, Adira and Cupcake turned to the side, watching as the thick titanium wall shattered like brittle glass under Mirabella’s aura, revealing a massive, dark cave stretching endlessly into the earth.

​"Huh?" Carl was dumbfounded, his angelic wings twitching.

​"Impossible! This Bunker is made of titanium! What can dig a hole this big here?!" Grace asked in shock, holding the picture tight against her chest.

​"Remember those black spiderwebs, I think we found the source." Mirabella said, gesturing to the huge tunnel, which was filled with nothing but the same impenetrable black webs that had lined the basement, pulsing with a faint energy. She turned to face Grace, her voice adopting a clinical, detached edge.

​"Your Sister isn’t here, same with your mother. There are two outcomes; one, your mother and Sister are dead; and I am sure your sister wasn’t killed in this bunker, so the monster chased her to the room, and killed her there. Two; she activated her galaxy bracelet and is now inside the galaxy space." Mirabella said, her tone flat, mapping out the grim logistics of survival.

​’Big sister, can you at least stop mentioning the word; kill...?’ Carl thought with a sigh, his empathetic nature wincing at the blunt force of her logic.

​"I believe she is still alive." Grace said, staring at the dark tunnel before her, her voice trembling but laced with a desperate, unyielding conviction.

​Mirabella stared at Grace for a long moment. Beneath the merciless exterior of the Dragon Team captain, a faint sliver of humanity recognized the girl’s desperate hope. She sighed, deciding to shoulder the burden.

​"After this, you will get me a pack of sweets... Deal?" She asked, staring at Grace, injecting a sliver of normalcy into the nightmare.

​Grace blinked for a couple of times, the sheer absurdity of the request snapping her out of her paralyzing terror, and nodded her head continuously: "Yes! Yes! Thank you, Senior! Thank you!!" She kept yelling, profound relief washing over her.

​"Alright, Alright. Let’s check this tunnel out." She took a step forward, her swords materializing in her grip, the four following behind her into the dark unknown.

___

​After five minutes of walking down the descending, web-choked throat of the earth, the group finally reached the end of the tunnel.

​"Be careful."

​With that sharp warning from Mirabella, the group stepped out from the tunnel, entering an open huge cavern.

​"....?"

​They were flabbergasted, staring at the glowing cocoons in sheer disbelief. The architecture of the abyss was unlike anything they had seen. The Cocoon before then were like transparent jade, the green light Illuminating the whole cavern, and revealing the people suspended inside. They weren’t rotting corpses or drained husks; they were all asleep, because Mirabella’s enhanced hearing could clearly hear their rhythmic heartbeats echoing in the vast space.

​"These people aren’t dead." She said, pointing at the hundreds of Cocoons before them, which were all arranged in a massive, mathematically perfect circular row.

​"Come on, let’s check---"

​"--SISTER!!!"

​Grace yelled in shock, cutting Mirabella off, her finger pointing frantically at the little girl in the only Cocoon standing vertically at the very center of the formation.

​WHOOSH!!

​A sudden, unnatural cold breeze washed over them, chilling them to the bone and freezing the five in place.

​’Breeze? But we’re underground!’ Mirabella thought in shock, a slight frown on her face as her combat instincts screamed at her.

​’I also felt Hitachi’s gaze, what’s happening up there?’ She raised her head to the cavern ceiling.

​WHOOSH!!!

​The next moment, an oppressive, suffocating pressure instantly descended on the group, so heavy it threatened to crush their lungs. The five turned their heads to the side, watching a huge black energy blast—a condensed sphere of pure, annihilating dark energy—heading straight towards them at blinding speed.

​"What the?!"

​Mirabella quickly moved forward, her agility activating as she placed herself directly between the blast and her team. She stood before the two, and blocked the attack by crossing her twin swords.

​BOOOOOOOOOM!!!

​The impact was cataclysmic. The two blades, weapons forged to slay lv500 beasts, shattered into pieces as if they were made of cheap plastic, the remaining force of the blast smashing right into her armored form.

​BAM!

​She flew backward like a broken doll, her feet digging deep trenches into the cavern ground, until she barely stabilized herself right before Carl, Grace, Adira and Cupcake.

​{Defense: 0.}

{Armor: Damaged.}

​Mirabella’s eyes widened in profound shock. Her legendary armor, her passive buffs, her titles—her defense, just one attacked wiped out all her defense stats. The power scaling of the unseen enemy was completely broken.

​She turned to the two: "I don’t know what just attacked us, but we must get out of here!!" She yelled at them, the reality of absolute defeat forcing a tactical retreat.

​"But, Britney!!" Grace screamed, reaching towards the central cocoon.

​"Let’s think about our lives first!! Adira, Cupcake, defend!!" Mirabella yelled, cutting off all debate, and raised her head towards the rocky ceiling:

​"I will burst a hole, and we will get out of this place!!" She yelled, channeling the last dregs of her spirit energy, and shot into the air like a rocket, placing her palm flat on the cavern ceiling.

​BOOOOM!!

​Space distorted again. The same black energy blast appeared, but now, they were five, tracking them flawlessly and all moving towards each one of them with terrifying precision.

​"Shit!"

​Mirabella sent her invisible guardians towards the attack to intercept, but the moment the dark energy touched them, they shattered into dust, completely erased from the world.

​The blasts kept on moving towards their targets, an unstoppable execution order.

​"BREAK!!!"

​BOOOOOOOOOM!!!

​Her spell detonated, and the ceiling shattered outward, revealing a direct, vertical shaft to the ruined estate above. Without wasting even a microsecond, Mirabella grabbed everyone with her telekinetic energy, and threw them all violently into the hole, leading to the surface to save them from the crossfire.

​Left alone in the falling debris, facing an entity that outscaled the very rules of the world, she glared into the darkness.

​"You stupid monster!! Meet me in the surface if you dare!!" She snapped, her pride as a reincarnator igniting as she activated all her remaining health buffs and survival titles, bracing herself and using her body like shield to absorb the incoming annihilation.

​BOOOOOOOOOM!!!!