I take a deep breath and sigh; there's yet another exploded gate right in front of me. And there is also the familiar yet gruesome scene surrounding the destroyed construct. At this point, I'm starting to believe that the Empire is either terrible at building teleportation gates or that they intentionally purged most of the personnel of this particular facility.

The second option doesn't make a lot of sense. These people working here must be very knowledgeable in their fields. Killing them all is a waste unless the leadership of the Empire is getting paranoid. It wouldn't surprise me if they started to purge people left and right for any perceived slight.

I can't blame them if that's the case. I would probably do something similar if not for the Oath that binds all the members of the Order to my will. I know myself, and I would purge people without a second thought if I ever caught a glimpse of traitorous thoughts.

But let's stop sympathizing with the enemy. This conflict is a war of extermination, a total war of unprecedented proportions for the magical community of Earth. And, as much as it pains me to admit, the Empire is only the tip of the iceberg. The larger groups of Enforcers who are bound to oppose the Stonecrushers are surely about to strike at any moment, and we'll have to deal with them. The logistical nightmares caused by this war is already enough to strain our resources. I cannot even begin to imagine what fighting a bunch of united Families is going to be like.

Just thinking about it is enough to give me painful headaches.

However, thinking about our bleak future is not going to help me in the slightest. Instead, I should focus on what we should do now that most of the lab has been cleared. We haven't found any other group of survivors asides from the scientists from the biological weapon lab. The rare snippets of data we recovered are heavily encrypted; it will take us a long time to decode the information they contains. Furthermore, we have to hope that the information will be useful or even usable.

Once again, I can't help but feel like this operation was a fiasco. In truth, it wasn't since we no doubt crippled, or at least slowed down Imperial research. We also captured members of their research team who might reveal essential information to us. But the operation wasn't perfect, the outcome wasn't what I hoped, and we didn't achieve all the objectives I wanted.

The worse thing, and why I can't help but consider that this operation failed, is that no amount of Rewinds would be able to fix the situation. I could go back in time and beeline for the facility's entrance. But taking down the barrier protecting the lab would take way too much time for us to catch any more survivors. And, even if by some miracle, we ended up at the facility before most of the evacuation happened, then we would have to navigate the massive complex on foot. After all, teleportation would be still prohibited in the complex by a rather staggering amount of anti-teleportation barriers spread around the massive complex.

If we are lucky, then we might be vaporized by an exploding teleportation gate, so there's that. I can't help but feel helpless; there's no way to correct the situation no matter what I do. I wonder how other people deal with that? I got so used to be able to Rewind everything away until I'm satisfied.

But there are still rare instances where the Rewinder cannot do shit to help me. I get flashbacks of my fight against the Oracle, that bitch killed us all in an instant, and we were locked into an infinite stalemate.

I would have given up fighting her at some point; the unexpected but brief reveal of Phase 3 is what saved my ass back then. I doubt that it will work again.

I also cannot say a precise number, but I know that the requirements of Phase 3 are still way beyond what I have in stock. For fuck's sake, I don't even know if Phase 4 exists, so thinking about its requirements is pointless.

A grin creeps on my face as my shoulder slumps, my soul strength is so high that a demon took notice of me, but it's still not enough. The Phases burn through my soul strength like nothing else, and I don't have a right way of replenishing it except by constantly Rewinding. And, even then, the growth is staggeringly small compared to eating the soul of another strong being despite the diminishing returns with each new timeline. As a side note, I don't know why I'm able to eat the soul of other people, or even why I'm able to more or less force them to enter my Soul World.

But that doesn't seem to be relevant for now. There are no Spirits on Earth, and knowledge about souls appears to be almost nonexistent on Earth, so I have a bit of leeway in that regard. It will not be the same thing when I face the Oracle again-

"Prometheus, we cleared the last room and found nothing." A sudden voice from our communication system interrupts my train of thoughts, and I nod before answering. "Alright, then let's continue with the rest of the plan," I order before using my Portal Gun to sink into the ground and appear back into the commanding room.

It doesn't take too long for some of my soldiers to evacuate the facility while another small elite team of Fabricators investigates the destroyed Gates. I overlook the returning Legionaries and take a deep breath; what are we supposed to do now? The Empire will not react kindly to this attack, and I bet that they are going to send reinforcements... Or they might not. It would be pretty stupid of them to not at least attempt to retake the facility. On the other hand, it seems like they don't intend to since the Empire scrapped every bit of machinery as well as the personnel.

In the end, we can only wait and see while the Fabricators do their things, and the Legionaries finish their interrogations. I wonder what the Imperials are doing, and how are they reacting to the attack. I can't contain the grin creeping on my face; I bet that those arrogant fucks are seething with anger.

And it's only the beginning!