Recently Zeel, Alice, and Elizabeth had delved into runic technology, which was just channeling dimensional power through runes that serve specific purposes.

Zeel believed this was somewhat similar to magic but still it was more technology-based.

Zeel had never visited a Universe that truly had magic, but he had come in contact with the mysterious energy before.

However, the majority of the time magicians were just people who manipulated Dimensional energies.

Zeel had only met two True Magicians in his lifetime and they were extremely secretive about their universe's location.

Thinking about this, Zeel was making the final tweaks to a program he created to analyze the runes that had been previously burned into his memory – Latvian Runes.

Zeel formulated new ways to make runes through The Red Queen's calculation so every rune would be especially suited for the situation, though he had yet to produce a truly successful result.

Some runes would work in some areas and others would not, some runes would work in some worlds vibrational threshold and some would not, some runes that are meant to gather a ball of water would gather a single drop, and so forth.

Further calibration was needed but so far this was the most important Project in Zeel's workshop at the moment.

His other projects were put on hold since technology could only take you so far and Alice had taken up the Consciousness Cloning Project since she could barely perceive the souls of those who deserved punishment now.

Alice described the appearance of the soul as a faint light that had splashes of black depending on the severity of the sin.

She also told Elizabeth and Zeel that while she could also see their souls, it was much brighter than others, almost blindingly so.

Hence, she couldn't get a good look at their soul states, but Zeel's had a black aura around it instead of spots on the soul itself.

"It is almost abyssal black in its entirety," Alice said as she describes Zeel's soul to him.

Zeel nodded but did not comment since this was only to be expected given the chains that sealed his soul.

Landing at the Athens International Airport, the group then made their way to a car rental shop.

While in the car, Zeel handed out disk-shaped isolation modules made with small traces of vibranium "It's a device that conducts excess frequency-sound dilations and converts it into kinetic energy that makes your jumps pack an extra punch if you use it correctly,"

"How does it work exactly?" David asked playing with it a bit.

"Figure it out on your own," Elizabeth snorted feeling like she was giving monkeys banana who still had the audacity to ask what it was.

After attaching the isolation modules, the group jumped to a nearby hotel Zeel had bought just earlier, opting to simply set their stuff down and continue to the Acropolis of Athens.

Zeel, Alice, and Elizabeth had their storage dimension so they simply left an empty bag at the hotel.

Jumping directly to the location, the group had a hard time imagining the structure as the base of the Paladins since it was kind of too obvious.

The Parthenon was located on elevated ground in the ancient city Acropolis of Athens, former home of the Goddess of Wisdom, War and Handicraft – Athena, at least that is the case should legends be believed.

"What do you feel?" Zeel asked no one in particular.

"A weakened sub-dimension," Alice replied to which he nodded.

Alice, Zeel, and Elizabeth were especially sensitive to energy changes, and spatial distortions so detecting a weakened sub-dimension was not difficult for them.

Alice was especially attuned to spatial changes since her telekinesis used space as a medium.

Zeel then waved over to David and Griffin as they once again held hands.

"Just like before jump towards the mountain and I'll do the rest," Zeel said since he didn't know if these guys had the necessary finesse to jump into a sub-dimension.

David and Griffin had their powers all their lives, but they had never truly changed their abilities as a scientist would.

David held Millie's hand reassuring her, and the group jumped towards the mountain, similar to what happened before, Zeel and Alice were conscious in the dimensional gap, while all the others were just a bit hazy as they approached the barriers.

Zeel waved his hand as a Hybrid Rune showed off its brilliance. Zeel called his self-created ruins 'Hybrid Ruins' that were based on Loric, Felian, and Ancient Latvian designs.

The Hybrid Rune for 'Penetrate' fuelled by the kinetic energy of the group, was materialized upon contact with a barrier.

Hybrid runes had the unique ability to use whatever ability the user had as a medium.

The Rune was projected forward and collided with a barrier as it twisted and turned, digging ever deeper into the barrier. Soon a pop sound was heard as everyone was sucked into a breach.

They breached the sub-dimension and landed on desolate land with the ground caving in from the momentum carried over by their jump.

"Where are we?" questioned Griffin looking around in bewilderment.

"Sub-dimension, an isolated dimension created by folding space, could be done with power or technology, not sure which one did this. But it is really weak after thousands of years," Zeel replied as he walked around observing everything before smiling bitterly to himself "This was never a Paladin base, they were unable to step inside here but now they can since we let them in, and they're gonna bring hell down on us,"

Elizabeth and Alice also felt their intuition blaring up, something they had not paid attention to in a long time.

*bzzt*

*bzzt*

*bzzt*

*bzzt*

All of a sudden, Paladins wearing ritual gowns began appearing in the sub-dimension, each armed to their teeth in weaponry that should have been impossible for the technological development stage of this world.

"So who was it?" Elizabeth asked who betrayed them since they would be aware of a trap was laid out in advance.

"Nobody in particular. Roland was just an idiot who did not even fully understand where their base was. They probably told him it was at the Parthenon and he believed," Alice clarified since Elizabeth would suspect everyone otherwise.

"But Zeel should have known, he read Roland's memories…" Elizabeth said but suddenly paused.

Zeel was walking around and answered from a couple of feet away "I did not read his memories, I simply suggested that he told us about certain things. I didn't want to enter the mind of a man,"

Everyone wore a deadpan face at Zeel's reasoning, while David pushed Milly a little further behind himself. David was a Casanova, so he could sense something similar in Zeel.

Zeel rolled his eyes as he looked disgusted at Milly behind David "Oh, please! I only sleep with the royal bloodlines of their respective races. Only the purest bloodline in any Universe is worthy to be bedded by me,"

Alice and Elizabeth stifled a laugh since it was true that Zeel preferred Princesses and Queens.

Looking at the glyphs lining the walls, Zeel began to read it "Many gods lived and played amongst their children. When the Feeders came, the gods decided to run and not fight, leaving their children vulnerable to destruction.

Some of the gods chose to stay behind and use the last of their divine power to hide the world. After hiding the world, two gods were left, Athena and Hermes.

Reaching a consensus as Hermes was the only god able to leave the world without giving away its location, Athena vowed to marry him in exchange for safe passage.

Then the rest is blah blah blah, Hermes betrayed. Athena was all like 'kill all his Travellers Servants' and so told the paladins to get revenge with the last of her domain fading away,"

"There you have it, Hermes running like he does every time," Alice said with a smirk finding the god of travels running from a marriage a bit hilarious.

Zeel gave Alice a disapproving gaze, but Elizabeth quickly placed herself between their meeting eyes.

"So how do we deal with this?" Zeel muttered to himself, before waving his hand.

*Boom*

The ground shattered as space twisted at the location, he used his remote detonation ability alongside his TechnoMancy ability, targeting the sub-dimension itself as a point of explosion instead of anyone in particular.

Taking that as a signal, the Paladins began firing their ionic cannons, while throwing grenades causing the already unstable sub-dimension to be thrown into more chaos.

David jumped Millie to a corner and began jumping all over the area throwing grenades back at their launchers, Griffin was jumping in close proximity to previous jumps building up momentum and using the kinetic energy stored up by his isolation module to send Paladins flying all over.

Alice was back to her roots with her guns and daggers play, however, every shot fired had a bit of her divine flames unconsciously mixed in; this was a major testament to her potential since ascending gods usually cannot use their divinities at all.

During the ascending period, the divinities needed the time to grow and stabilize since it was akin to a smoky-cloud that could be blown by the winds.

Zeel during the battle was making random eye contact with different paladins suggesting they commit suicide, which most did; however, he was mainly focusing on the glyphs as the majority of what he said earlier was bullshit.

Alice and Elizabeth should be aware as well.

The real information in the glyphs were much shorter and less vague, Hermes divided his divine core amongst 10,000 of his children, giving them the abilities of travelers.

He later hid his pocket dimension behind layers of barriers. Allowing his children to live free as he took his last breath.

Zeel did not believe that story one bit, but it could be true given all that he has learned thus far.