Alexus had seen different scientists from different countries congregate in this one building, making this place quite an achievement in itself. All the intellectual minds are brought here to crack the case on Ouroboros' change.

However, what got him thinking was that Timothy had said the Animus Progressium project was classified under heavy protection. So even Timothy couldn’t go past the firewalls.

Something about this made him have a strange feeling that something would happen soon. He wasn’t sure if it was his nervousness or anticipation of what was to come.

“The soul’s progression,” Alexus repeated those words when he leaned forward, sitting on the bench, tying his shoes in the gym locker.

“Is something the matter?” Jones asked, looking over his shoulder towards Alexus. He was putting on a shirt when he heard Alexus mumble.

“What do you think about what Timothy had said?”

“What are you talking about?” Jones was confused at the sudden question.

“The secret project that he was talking about a few days ago.”

“Oh, that,” Jones replied. His head popped through the shirt; he reached over and pulled back his hair. “I’m honestly not sure, but I heard some strange rumors going around. For example, there has been a saying that the project plan to save humanity from a crisis, though I think that’s bogus.”

“Save humanity?” This was the first time Alexus heard something that didn’t sound too far off, but then again, going all religious wasn’t something he wanted to get into.

“Yea, something about an end of the world scenario in the next one hundred years or something like that. Honestly, I believe it's completely made up to scare people. Think about it, we had the Y2Kin 1999, COVID-19 in 2020, then supposedly another possible World War, and all that bullshit.” Jones waved his hand. “I believe that it's just going to be another day just like today. We’re going to live until we’re old and even have a happy family.”

That was a nice thought to dream about. One day settle down and even have kids, but right now, that wasn’t going to be any time soon. Alexus didn’t have a girlfriend to even attempt to think that far.

“Then where did the rumor even stem from?”

“Simon.”

Alexus went silent and thought over what he had said. “Wait, isn’t Simon the one who wants to bust out of here? If he is the one who started the rumor, then wouldn’t it be better to stay in this building?”

“Simon has his reasons. I don’t know about you, but I want to be with my girl if the end of the world even happens. During that so-called hundred years, I want to grow old and have a family. As a kid, I was an orphan, and I never want to go through something like that again.”

“Oh…” Alexus didn’t know what else to say.

Just when he was debating on what to say, Jones spoke. “So, if I were you, you should get ready to leave later tonight. We’re busting out of here. So, you in or out?”

Alexus wasn’t sure if he should just jump into this offer so quickly; the thought of escaping wasn’t on his priority list right this moment; there were so many things to learn about being an Ouroboros and being part of this company made it possible to filter through the immense database that they had.

“I’m not so sure yet.” Alexus was dressed entirely to go to the next planned event, pulling down his shirt. Today was the day to truly learn what he could do, especially since he couldn’t recreate the same thing that happened with the fire. No matter how many times he thought, motioned, or even pushed his body into a strenuous activity, he wasn’t able to do it again.

“You better hurry, or you won’t get another chance.” Jones started to head towards the door.

“Trust me, this place is not a sanctuary.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

Jones shook his head and sighed reluctantly. “I can tell that you’re already enamored with this place.”

“I have my reasons.”

“Well, I’ll see you around if you are ever back in the real world.”

“Yea,” Alexus was once again alone. Getting up from the bench, he walked out the door and headed down the winding hallway. He knew where he needed to go; the layout of this building wasn’t as complicated as he thought it would be. The living quarters were spaced out around the cafeteria and the medical room; these two rooms were where they usually go at least once a day or more. The gym, pool, testing room, and training rooms are further away and were placed in a U shape format around the living quarters.

Seventh Sanctum was a forty-story building, where twenty floors were dedicated to the Ouroboros, and the bottom floors were for the other employees. Seeing the other employees is relatively rare, except during medical examinations, as far as he knew. Most of the time, some people took notes on their everyday lives, even to the point where they had to go in and meet up with a psychologist.

He took a right and came upon the room that he had never gone into before until now. It was the testing room for Ouroboros. The moment he stepped inside, he came upon an ample open space. On one side were high-level technological computers and machines he had never seen before, behind a thick glass wall.

He was surprised to see Crystal working along with the other scientist, perfectly mingling with them as if they were nothing different. But then, she turned around and saw him. Her hand clicks the pen a couple of times before she walks out from behind the glass wall and stops in front of him.

“Mr. Tyger. I’m glad that you are here.”

Alexus' cheeks twitched. He wasn’t a massive fan of his last name because it reminded him of his father, but he still asked her to call him by his name last time instead of going all formal. Unfortunately, it seems that she has forgotten. “I would prefer Alexus.”

“Ah, I’m sorry. I forgot. I’m used to calling people by their last name.” She brought her clipboard to the side.

“No worries.” Alexus held up his hand and rubbed it together, anxious to see what would happen next. “So, what would we be doing today?”

“Well, first off, we’ll be running some diagnostics on your body. If you don’t mind.” Crystal motioned him to follow.

He walked behind her, and when he went around the glass wall. She placed her clipboard on the table, went over to a box, and rummaged through until she pulled out a one-piece black suit, a pair of gloves, and boots. The whole set reminded him of a motorcycle suit. All he needed was a helmet, and it was a complete set.

“Please wear this.” She came over and handed everything to him, dropping it into his arms. He fumbled, trying to not let them fall onto the ground.

“This is for?”

“This is what you will be testing out for today. It is state of the art, a technological suit that Mr. Sylvester had specifically commissioned to make for all the Ouroboros, though this is only the prototype.”

Alexus examined the suit in hand and brought it up in front of him. The suit was relatively light, soft, and flexible. Even attempting to stretch it apart, making it impossible to rip, making him wonder what kind of material they use to make something this extravagant. Even the U.S military might not even be able to mass-produce these kinds of suits. Under the fluorescent light, the black suit seems to shine like a snakeskin.

“We call it the Dragon Scale. You can think of it as body armor that can stop the force of a four gauge shotgun shell without dying, though you will have bruises.”

Alexus's hand gripped tightly on the suit and looked up towards her stupefied. Did she say that this suit piece can stop a four gauge shotgun blast?! Holy cow, this is one tough material. Not only that, she just threw out those words as if it wasn’t a big deal. He couldn’t help but stare at the piece of the suit in complete excitement. This is the best bodysuit armor he has ever heard of or seen in his life.

“The material is flexible, durable, waterproof, cold and hot to a certain degree. It also has sweat-proof and body odor-proof, so it doesn’t smell like old socks. Not only that,” Crystal reached over and handed Alexus a watch to wear with it, “It also reads and keeps up-to-date of all your vital organs and health and directly sends it to your watch.” She replied with pride.

Alexus couldn’t help but whistle at the highly advanced technology he had in his hand; this was a perfect item to use if he ever got into gunfights or maybe even against demons.

“Who made this?” Alexus flipped the suit back and forth.

“I did.”

Alexus froze, then looked up. “You...did?”

“Yes, this is the first one of its kind. Nobody has worn it until today, and you're the first tester.”

“Oh,” Alexus’ mouth opened and closed like a fish.

“I suggest you go behind the curtains and change. I recommend you go completely naked when you wear a suit. Your underwear will probably make you very uncomfortable.”

“Gotcha.” Looking around, Alexus found the curtains that she was talking about. Not too far away was a simple curtain drape that held up in a corner. He walked towards it, entered, and quickly changed.

For armor, the material was quite comfortable. The texture didn’t rub against Alexus' skin, irritating it, and it simply gilded with his movement. The downside of it all was that it felt like he was wearing nothing, the Dragon Scale almost perfectly fitted with the contour of his body. Luckily, some areas didn’t reveal too much, allowing him to move without any problem. Finally, with the Dragon Scale on, he exited.

When Alexus stepped out, he saw a large table with various guns laid out in a perfect row. There were three gun categories: a handgun, a rifle, and a shotgun, all neatly in line with a handful of magazines. He couldn’t help but wonder why she had them out laying on the table; they weren’t even any targets to be found for her to shoot at.

Crystal stopped what she was doing when she felt his gaze rested on her. She turned around with a handgun in her hand. A loud click could be heard as the slide moved back, loading up a bullet.

“Alexus.”

“Yes?”

“I want you to stand in the middle of the room.”

For some reason, he felt very uncomfortable. His instincts told him that something terrible was going to happen, and he didn’t know what.

“Stop.” She called out.

Alexus turned toward hers, waiting for her instructions.

“This here in my hand is a Glock 17. We will be testing the suit with it.”

“What?!” Alexus shouted in complete disbelief. Did he just hear her right? Testing the suit?!

“Yep, we already tested it without anyone being in it. Now we need an Ouroboros to field test it.”

“Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Hold up.” Alexus held up his hand to stop her. “Why in the world would you want a live test?! What if it penetrates through!”

“It won’t,” she said confidently. “There is a safety function in the suit, where if it does penetrate through the first layer, it will spew out mucus-like membrane to reinforce the area that it has hit. Not only that, this suit is specifically designed for an Ouroboros to help you have better control of your powers.”

Crystal pulled up her earmuffs with one hand, aimed, and fired before he could say no. A loud bang could be heard, ricocheting in the room, causing Alexus to go numb in fear.

His heart dropped to the floor, and he shakily looked down to see if he was bleeding. He frantically searched and did not even find a single dent in the Dragon Scale. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t even feel the bullet hit him. Confused, he turned around, trying to see if he was bleeding from the back. So far, he didn’t feel anything wet. Relief flooded through his senses as his leg shook. It took him a bit of time to get it back under control.

“Pass!” Crystal yelled; her hand was brought up in an okay sign. She then walked over towards the table, took out the magazine, cleared the chamber, and placed the handgun safely on the table. She then reached over towards the rifle, loaded it, and walked over.

“This is a Bushmaster M4, semi-automatic; the power in this is a lot stronger than a handgun. I suggest you stand still, or you're going to get hurt.” She shouted, making him whip his head towards her.

Alexus’ lips twitched, his eyes bulged, and his body tensed. So she was going to go through with these crazy antiques. He didn’t know if that bullet would be the one to kill him for sure, and once again, fear laced in his heart.

Before she even warned him, he heard gunshots firing. This time, he felt a slight tingle on his chest area, and a strange burst of energy shot outward from his core. The same golden swirl of power that he had seen during the Jones incident appeared before him moving with lightning speed. A swirl of gold slightly altered the bullet's trajectory and flew past and hit against the wall.

The wall completely stopped the bullet from penetration and clattered onto the ground with a loud metal ting. Crystal took a moment of silence as she stared in surprise. Eventually, she moved, and she reached over her and took off her earmuffs.

“It worked.” She gasped, opening her mouth like a gaping fish. “It worked.” She placed the rifle down.

Alexus wasn't sure what she meant, but his heart was fluttering around like a butterfly.

“How did you do that?”

“I don’t know.” Alexus’ voice came out as a squeak. He coughed a couple of times to clear his throat. The better question should be, am I okay?

“Did you create a force field or something?”

“No.”

“Then?”

She stared at me intensely, waiting for the answer that she wanted to hear. “Didn’t you see the golden energy?”

“Golden energy? Is that what changed the trajectory of the bullet?”

“Yes.”

Crystal's eyes became prominent, and a goofy smile plastered on her face. “I can’t believe it; there’s even such an ability. This is something worth testing out.” She walked over and placed the rifle down. Her hands quickly reached over towards the shotgun, and he heard the loud, scary sound of the shotgun shell loading.

“Woah. Woah. Woah.” He quickly spoke and ran up towards her, pushing the barrel down.

“Lady, there should be a limit when you know when to stop. My second life is precious, and I would like to keep living.”

Crystal bit her lips and scowled. She then turned towards him. “My name is Crystal.”

“Okay, Crystal. Please refrain from using something dangerous.”

“I know it's dangerous, plus we need to make sure that the last phase of the Dragon Scale Armor is ready for production.”

“Live testing it like this is not the way to go.” Alexus quickly replied. “There are other safer ways to do this than what we are doing.”

“Those tests have already been done. First, I needed to know if an Ouroboros could handle and activate the suit. So far, the mechanism needs a little bit of tinkering, but I could see that it has helped you in bringing out better control of your powers.”

Alexus sighed and scrunched his eyebrows at her. He looks up in complete disbelief. This lady was crazy to a certain level, making him wonder why he was even interested in her in the first place.

All of a sudden, the lights went completely out. For the first time in Alexus's life, he prayed inwardly towards a higher being. The test was temporarily over.

Alexus looked around to see what was going on, but instead, he only heard the voices. Then, a loud heavy sound could be heard, while a shrill-like beep followed. Luckily, all the computer monitors were still on, lighting up a portion of the large dark room.

“Everyone, calm down.” A male’s voice spoke out with a commanding tone towards the others.

“Luckily, we have the backup battery to give us sufficient time to save our work. In a moment, the backup generator will kick in. There must’ve been a blackout or something.”

Just like the man had said, the backup generator kicked in place. But, this time, instead of the whole lights turning on, only a select few ran across the ground floor, and the wall flashed white.

“We’ll get back to work; let’s wrap this up and save all your files. We don’t want to lose anything important, or we’ll have to do everything again.”

Everyone started to run around quickly, saving files and even packing away the equipment. Then, crystal started to safely put away the guns, rifles, and shotguns into their respective cases.

The thought of doing everything again didn’t sit too well with him, especially if it meant getting reshot by Crystal. That wasn’t something he wanted to do anytime soon. He thought he was crazy, but she was a whole nother level of crazy, pointing a gun at him like it was nothing. Thinking about it all over again made him shiver.

Not even a moment later, a blaring sound of alarm screeched through the room. Flashing red and white, all around us in a frenzy. Everyone froze as terror struck their face.

“Shit.” Crystal swore. She started to unpack her toys in a frenzy.

“What’s wrong?” Alexus shouted out towards her. Not liking how tense and worried she looked. Something was happening, and it wasn’t good. But, the only thought that went through his mind was what Jones said about escaping today.

“We got Code D on high alert!” She clicked a magazine into the Glock 17. She charged the slide back with a click, loading the bullet into the gun.

“Code D?”

Crystal grabbed the holster and wrapped it around her hip. She then holstered her gun and went straight towards the Bushmaster M4. Her fingers laced around as many magazines as Crystal could hold on her body. He was surprised at the number of places she managed to slip in without them falling out onto the ground.

Alexus swore, she looked like she was ready to go to war, and all he could do was stare dumbly at her, completely confused.

“A large number of Demon infiltration!” She pointed the rifle downwards and turned towards Alexus.

“You know how to use a handgun, right?”

“Uh….I've been taking a couple of lessons in the past few days. But, unfortunately, that’s all the experience I have.” Alexus felt embarrassed that he wasn’t that great of a marksman when shooting. He would miss nine out of ten, and only by a miracle shot would he hit the tenth one. Nevertheless, with a solemn dedication in his heart, he made it a top priority to learn how to correctly shoot and use all types of guns lying on the table.

Crystal frowned and sighed. “Damn, the worst time for a demon infiltration. Take the Katana. I don’t want you pointing a gun at my back when you're covering for me.”

“How do you know I won’t slash you?” Alexus asked, wondering where the sudden trust was coming from.

“Either you get the sword, or you can be my meat shield.”

“I’ll take the sword.” Alexus quickly replied and walked over towards the black Katana against the table next to the shotgun. When he took a closer inspection of the shotgun, he noticed the four gauge shotgun was already loaded. His cheeks twitched, and his eyebrows furrowed. She was going to shoot him with something even more dangerous than a regular shotgun. He reached over as his hand gripped against the worn-out wrappings of the sheathe and grabbed it. Even though he wasn’t skilled in using the sword, he at least knew how to swing it.

“What about the others?” Alexus asked, looking over towards the other scientist.

“They don’t know how to defend themselves.”

Couldn’t defend themselves? He thought the company would teach all the employees how to protect themselves against possible attacks, but he guessed not everyone wanted to learn.

“Are you sure we should leave all these guns lying around like that?”

“It’s fine. I have almost all the ammunition. Plus, they are not gun fans.” She replied; her feet quickly ran towards the door and placed her back on the wall.

“Not a gun fan?! What?! Didn’t they get the memo that Code D means a demon attack?” He sarcastically stated.

For them, not knowing how to defend themselves made me even more appalled at the scientist here. He thought they were crazy, but that’s a whole different level of mental. He followed behind her, wondering why they were leaving behind the safety of this room. Then, just when he was going to ask her, she spoke.

“We’re going demon hunting, and I hope you are ready for this.” Crystal turned towards Alexus and gave him a smirk.

Alexus couldn’t help but think that she was hot the way she held the rifle for that split moment. She knew how to use guns and had the brains, which in a nutshell was freakin amazing, but getting shot at brought down massive points about her.

“Are you ready?” She asked. Her gaze caught him for a moment, then she looked back towards the door, ready to peek out for any possible enemies.

He didn’t know if he should tell her yes or no. This was the second time in under one week that he had to fight for my very survival. He wasn’t sure if he would like constantly living on the edge, but what can he do when the demons are actually after their lives.

“Yes?” Alexus replied with a half-hearted dedication, not looking forward to what would happen next.