Chapter 13

The Mass Murder at Dionaea Salon and Spa 8

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3 Days Later

Midnight

A dried up sewers 200 meters underneath Dionaea Salon and Spa

“*sigh*…. At least this part of the sewers isn’t filled with shit”

Theo despised going into the sewers.

Aside from the potential confrontation with the teenage mutant ninja squirrels, it simply stinked.

The good thing about this particular route was the lack of sewage flowing through the pipes. This was due to the chaotic building of the ever growing Vermilion City.

Due to the rapid expansion of the city, there were many instances of poorly planned construction decisions that would eventually lead to a useless piece of infrastructure.

The Commonwealth was the most powerful nation in the world in terms of military and economic might. A couple of useless infrastructure wouldn’t bother them that much.

It was nowhere near as bad as the Jade Empire’s ghost cities, but useless was still useless.

The dried up sewer was an example of these useless infrastructure.

About 10 meters from the dried up sewers as another sewer filled with liquefied shit.

Based on the map of the sewers, Theo assumed that the dried up sewer was constructed half a meter higher than the shit filled sewer, thus the sewage wouldn’t flow into it. The exception of this was during the rainy season.

Thanks to this design mishap, Theo was able to take a safe yet unconventional route into Dionaea Salon and Spa

He took off the power armor on his right hand and used his Midas Alchemy on the sewer wall.

He made a flight of stairs tall enough and wide enough for 2 people to walk side by side.

His stairs extended upward, passing beside a few sewer pipes and an underground railroad track before he reached the lowest basement of the Dionaea Salon and Spa

Now you’re probably asking ‘Why the roundabout method of infiltration?’

This was because the Dionaea building had an impressive security system that made it impossible for Theo to sneak in from topside

Aside from the expected surveillance cameras, Juno revealed that they also had a lot of ‘observer wards’.

Think of it as the magical equivalent of the surveillance camera.

Theo could easily deal with the electronic surveillance. All he needed to do was cut the power.

While Theo could detect exactly where the spycams were, he could not do the same to the observer wards.

Based on the HAA anti-magic training, the use of mana often generated large amounts of heat and destabilized the surrounding EMF (electromagnetic field).

Normally, Theo’s high tech gizmos could easily spot such things.

Unfortunately, Vermillion city was a chaotic hodgepodge of science and magic. Heat was generated everywhere and the EMF constantly fluctuated.

Based on Theo’s sensors, he could spot that there were large amounts of magic fueled devices around and within the Dionaea building. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell where exactly they were located due to the aforementioned chaotic mess of Vermillion city.

Thus the only entrance he could take was the one that had no surveillance: Underground.

It took Theo about 1 hour to transmute his way from the dry sewer to the basement of the Dionaea building.

While he called it a ‘basement’, it was actually more of a ‘dungeon’

The sight that welcomed Theo reminded him way too much of the Black Bible incident.

Inside the many prison cells either dying people, dead people or dismembered dead people.

He could try and save them, but they were nothing more than dead weight.

That would directly lead to Theo’s death.

While Theo was fuming in rage at his powerlessness, he kept his cool and focused on the prize.

Things would have been different if Juno was here with him, but she vehemently refused.

It was understandable. A woman in an Incubus’ lair was like throwing a lamb into a den of wolves.

For now, he ignored the lifeless living people and stealthily went up 2 dungeon levels.

For some reason, there were no guards.

They probably thought that those locked in here were too weak to even move.

A big mistake that Theo would gladly abuse.

He stopped at the door and prepared himself for an intense battle.

Juno stated that the interior of the Dionaea building was filled to the brim with observer wards.

He would be discovered the moment he stepped into the main floor.

He had a very short window to capture Raymond Dionaea before the police arrived.

He had to assume that the police would surround the building before he could finish his work.

As such, he made a some preparations for the worst case scenario.

On top of a tall building approximately 300 meters from the Dionaea building was a helicopter drone the size of a car.

It was a surveillance drone that was capable of listening into most radio frequencies.

It had cameras that constantly feed Theo a live video of the outside of the Dionaea compound

It had stealth capabilities that reduced its heat signature, EMF reading and even radar signal to almost nothing.

However, the most important function it had was to greatly boost Theo’s control signal range so he could control his other drones in case of emergencies.

More specifically, it was for Theo to control the Mobius One F-22A Raptor that was currently ready to launch. This was a weapon he would really prefer not using, but he had to keep his options open.

While he could bring more of his tech to the field, this was actually a bad idea.

Vermilion City was home to the HAA.

While they were mostly students, there were a few full pledge superheroes on standby. Some of them were active during the night.

If Theo made too much moves, it was safe to assume that the superheroes would track him down and beat the shit out of him.

While he could get away with being bombastic within the Hellhole District, the city proper was completely under the superheroes’ control.

He had to do this as fast and as silent as possible, hence his preference to drones with stealth technology.

If that fails (and it probably will), then he’ll obliterate any trace of his involvement.

He made one last arsenal check

1 grappling gun

4 Beretta 92 pistols

1 high frequency blade

1 fragmentation grenade

1 mini-incendiary bomb

1 stun grenade

And his personal favorite, 1 FN P-90 submachine gun.

In Theo’s opinion, the FN P-90 was the sexiest gun in existence.

Light, compact, can be used by any dominant hand and had a large magazine capacity.

It was perfect for a trigger happy person like Theo.

Sadly, it was lacking in range and stopping power compared to the Beretta ARX160 (Theo’s favorite assault rifle), thus he cant use it against the really big ones.

“That stupid incubus better be worth all the trouble!”

Though he complained, Theo was extremely excited at the prospect of satisfying his bloodlust

He silently opened the door and proceeded to his next battlefield with glee.

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