Throne of Steam

"The church is not going to like this."

The earsplitting sound gradually was replaced by the cracking sounds emitted by the fire. The bright illumination provided a safe harbor for the duo, and they were finally able to breathe a sigh of relief.

"Are you even worried about that?" Garett rebuked with a frown. "At least we are alive."

"You had no guarantee that this would work!" Alice protested with vehemence. "We could very well have died in there!"

"Tsc. I had everything planned from the start." He frowned at her insistence while scanning the area with his eyes, and the street lights were gradually being lit up again. "But this doesn't solve things. Unless I luckily blew up the source of energy, they should still come back when it gets dark again."

The reminder brought back Alice to the truth of the situation, her eyebrows almost locking up together. They had almost died but haven't managed to uncover anything! The only thing they succeeded was in starting a huge fire!

"Haven't you brought the Mystery lens? Try to use it to find a source of energy. Hopefully, it should be easier to locate its energy that way."

'Right! I still have that thing. Not that it would have helped during the earlier battle...' Garett searched through his pockets briefly and took out the small artifact. Just as he was about to wear it, a sudden wave of dizziness came when he remembered how he felt last time, and that was inside his own apartment!

"Do you want to use it?" He suddenly offered, eliciting Alice to raise her eyebrows. "We are in the middle of the street... Using this inside my own apartment already made me dizzy..."

He chuckled drily at her stare, an uncomfortable feeling rising inside him. The lens was a very useful artifact, but the fact that it showed every single style of life energy that passed through the area was a very big downside!

"We don't want to see Life Energy, just use it in conjunction with the other artifact, maybe you can lock on the energy that created those dogs." Alice sighed helplessly before turning to look at the enormous fire again. "We can only hope the fire doesn't spread to the other residences..."

'That is very unlikely... Every building in this block is connected, so it's more likely that I burned up the entire lot...' Garett shook his head. He didn't regret using this strategy! Besides, the area was very close to the factories, so it's impossible that a squad of firefighters would arrive quickly.

'We need to find the source of energy before that; otherwise, even the firefighters will be in danger after the fire is put off...' Garett steeled his resolve. Putting one hand in his pocket, he followed the old Keeper's instructions of using both artifacts at the same time! He adjusted the time on the watch just a few minutes ago when everything started. An invisible wave abruptly traveled the area around them, and Garett could feel it clearly passing through his body as if it was scanning him!

'This should lock the energy and make it easier to detect it. So even if the lens was not created to scan this kind of energy, I should be able to see it...' Garett closed his eyes and put on the mystery lens, and after preparing himself for a sudden headache, he opened his eyes!

"Uff..." He sighed in relief. He didn't know if it was because the street was deserted, or if the combination of the two artifacts was even better than expected, but he could only see a few shadows in the whole street! "Now... Let's go to where those things appeared."

"Yes, be careful to not leave the illuminated area."

The duo then circled around the house, their steps measured and steady, even if the lampposts had turned back on, they couldn't be so sure that those creatures wouldn't suddenly reform and attack again!

"It's here." Returning to the front of the building, the tension relaxed when they saw that everything was normal. "Now..."

Garett could see two shadows close to each other, apparently back-to-back while looking around! Surrounding them, a few quadruped figures were also captured by the lenses.

'What? Those things can emit life energy? That's weird...' Garett mused to himself, the image was too vivid for it to be the combination of artifacts, those specters seemed to be alive! Was it possible for a supernatural phenomenon to create something alive? Creating life was the realm of the gods! How could something like that create life on its own?

Focusing his mind, Garett could see that something was projecting those things here, just like a lamp projects light, a hazy trail of energy came from somewhere amidst the dark street!

"I can see something, but..." Garett informed with a troubled expression, helping Alice to instantly realize the situation.

"But it's somewhere dark, right?" She cut in. Things were never easy for hunters! "Where, more specifically?

"There." He pointed toward the darkness, only an indistinct figure belonging to a sewer entrance could be vaguely identified in that direction. "Inside the sewers."

"F**k"

It was the first time Garett heard Alice curse so openly, but he could understand how she felt. She was sent with him for a simple mission on investigating some supernatural phenomena, and now they would be held accountable for using the church's resources on a hotel and burning a whole building to boot! And worst, she knew she would bear the brunt of most of the criticism, as she was here to supervise Garett's actions!

'If we return to the church without any accomplishments, she'll be heavily punished again...' Garett shook his head with dejection, he felt that the church was also at fault for estimating wrongly the difficulty of this case! They should never have sent a recruit for the job, even more so accompanied by someone like Alice!

"What do we do now? The source should not be too far away, as otherwise, it wouldn't be able to materialize something so strong like those beasts."

"Yeah, but we aren't prepared for something like this." Dejection was evident in Alice's voice, but they needed to act quickly! A squad of firefighters was mostly composed of people who lived in the region, so it wasn't a formal organization like the ones run by the various churches.

"We just need light, right? We should be able to do something about it." Garett consoled her with words. "We only need to maintain illumination long enough for us to take care of the source..."

"And how do you expect we do that? We don't even know 'what' is the source, and for all we know, it could be a giant mutant living in the sewers!"

It wasn't unheard of mutant creatures living in the sewers; in fact, it was quite a common occurrence. The churches didn't divulge knowledge on how mutants were created, and this even made Garett doubt if they had this knowledge at all!

'Maybe it's something that only the upper echelons know... After all, why are they called mutants?...' Garett could only imagine the reasons for it, his conjectures left him with nothing but more doubts!

"I'll go," Alice suddenly said, her voice suffused with incredible conviction. "Give me the lens."

Garett stared at her with surprise. Alice seemed ready to die down there! The luster in her eyes was so vivid that it looked like she was ready to embark on a journey to meet the Goddess!

'Why are you so intent on risking yourself? Are you so afraid of the punishment!? How did the captain punish you last time?! For you to prefer to die...' Garett was at a loss for words, he never imagined that Alice would make such a choice! The corner of his eyes twitched just of imagining what had transpired for a strong woman like Alice to even consider death as an option!

"No. If we are going in, we can enter together." He shook his head. He wouldn't be able to live with the weight of Alice's life pressing on his shoulders! "Besides, we may just be overreacting, as those things completely disappeared after the explosion."

He turned around before Alice could muster a reply and made way to the closed manhole, in fact, he was quite confident of his guess! He hesitated just for a second before stepping into the darkness, the ability of Perception expanding to its limits while he looked around with the lens! He was ready to run at the slightest signal!

"Here goes nothing." He nodded to himself and continued to walk, only stopping when finally arriving at his destination. "See? I told you everything would be fine! Now, could you please use your giant gauntlets to pry this thing open?"

Alice was still staring at him dumbfoundedly, not believing Garett's crazy actions! She then remembered that during the battle with the A-ranked mutant, Garett ran towards the captain without caring for his own life! Her eyes instantly moistened a little.

'Miss... I think you are misunderstanding something here...' Garett's lips twitched when he noticed Alice's expression.