18 Elder Witch Celine Part 1

"Where is Celine?" Roland inquired to the two Elder Witches appearing in front of him. He had waited for a few minutes for the third apparition to appear, but nothing happened.

Looking at the pale faces of the two remaining Elder Witches, he felt a lump in his throat.

"Is Celine alright?"

Pasha took the initiative to answer their liege's query, "She was currently being reported as MIA by the agent responsible in monitoring the unrest in the investigated region."

"Tell me everything you know right now." Roland read up the report inputted into his personal VIRCOF seriously while waiting for either Pasha or Alethea to brief him about the current affairs.

Pasha reported about the worldwide VIRCOF meeting for gathering intelligence to narrow down the investigation range to Roland. She had also included the destination of each Elder Witch and the 48 hours investigation time imposed on each Elder Witch.

Roland nodded in approval with their arrangements. He knew, travelling around the planet personally will take a lot of time, hence he never would've thought that the Witch Intelligence Agency (WIA) could obtain results within 72 hours. He had actually allocated them with one to two weeks.

However, the disappearance of Celine worried Roland incessantly. The reports from the local agent suggested the banding of the Dark Elves with the remnants of the Demon race, their mortal enemy, although only at trade-level.

Alethea had completed her mission the earliest and had returned to the Sanctuary first. Noticing that Celine did not respond to her message and call, she then deployed the Special Ops Team members nearest to the Dark Elves' war-torned underground kingdom as soon as possible.

Roland tapped his finger unconsciously while thinking on how to deal with this situation but to no avail. What was done by Alethea was what he would do too. He needed more information before moving to the next part.

All of them could only wait for the agents involved in the search-and-rescue mission inside the maze-like underground network to report back before they could do anything.

....

Selena swept her sweat stricken brow with her left hand while panting exhaustedly. She didn't dare to use her good right hand as it was holding the high frequency dagger. It was dripping with the blood of Gigantic Sonic Bats, the sentinels of the underground caves.

This was already the sixth wave. The ferocious bats were equipped with razor sharp wings and sonic wave attacks. What was worse, their cunningness made them hard to deal with as they prefer sneak attacks. Although none of her subordinates were gravely injured, they were not light enough to be brushed off just like that. She could feel the enemy was chipping off their stamina progressively. Alarm bells were ringing in her mind issuing warnings.

She made series of hand gestures to her subordinates as they moved towards the left tunnel. The covert luminescent sign she wrote on the right side wall previously had shown that they had circled back again to the same location.

Everybody was extremely exhausted; although they had only entered the Dark Elves' underground network for five hours, they have been sieged non-stop by groups of Dark Elves and their sentinels. Bullets were inefficient in these cramp dark spaces, hence they needed to use the manual way; wielding their good ol'daggers and knives. Fortunately, their knives were extremely effective.

After a while, the combat witches entered a wide well-lit cavern. The space had shown signs of being artificially widened. Manmade structures resembling a wall with a large five meter high closed door made from polished marble-like materials stood in front of them, stopping them from moving forward. The assumed door has no handle or mechanism whatsoever. It seemed that they had finally neared the center of the underground labyrinth.

"How shall we proceed from here, Chief?" A brunette curly haired woman with a crossed scar on her cheek asked Selena. She was suspicious with the fact that no guards were protecting the important-looking door.

"We pushed hard. This is a time-sensitive mission. Every second we delay, we jeopardize Madam Celine's life. I'm ninety nine percent sure she must be on the other side of this door.

"What about that one percent?" She grinned while asking back. Several others were even chuckling slightly.

"It's probably a trap. Either with Madam Celine or without, the enemy will surely be there just waiting for us. Get ready. We must save Madam Celine! We must sacrifice our life if necessary. Glory to Neverwinter!"

Every membered echoed out the mantra three times to hype themselves up while thrusting their fists with weapons upwards.

Selena observed everyone's face which were full of determination. Loyalty and the will to sacrifice themselves were evident on their beautiful yet weary faces. To die in exchange for the survival of one of the most important witches in their organization was highly honorable.

The demolition expert, a ponytailed sweet-looking woman came forward and attached a black circular box the size of a palm at the center of the wall, exactly at the middle of the door-like structure. Although it looked shabby, it was actually one of the most popular bombs in the Sanctuary, the Kinetic Bomb.

The Kinetic Bomb was dubbed as the most efficient and 'clean' bom-like material in the WIA arsenal using the implosion method at the molecular level. She then took an antenna-like needle and pricked at differing locations on the wall after performing some calculations.

Five minutes was what it took to disintegrate the wall. The disintegration started at the core location where the black disc was embeddened. The kinetic waves travelled through the wall surface in the shape of cracks originated at the disc and ended at the needle points. A few seconds after the cracks appeared, the sturdy marble-like wall turned to dust.

Selena squinted her sky blue eyes to reduce the chances for dusts disrupting her vision, but adamantly didn't close them. She knew the real fight was here.

True to Selena's prediction, rows after rows of ferocious looking creatures occupied an extremely large space just behind the disintegrated wall. All of them showed a semblance of intelligence as they were poised to attack in an orderly manner. The only positive point she could make out were the familiar figure of their seriously injured Witch Elder being sieged by a group of strong-looking Dark Elves far in the distance.

"Move now! Assault Formation ten!"

Selena jumped into the fray followed by many of her loyal subordinates as vanguards, brandishing their high frequency blades and guns. They immediately entered an optimized attacking formation before started on their rampage in the bid to reach their Elder Witch in time.

....

Polka bit her plump cherry lips until it bleed while continuously tapping in midair; the bluish holographic numbers and words came and go so fast; others didn't even manage to catch what was written. She haphazardly inserted a microliter of grounded flesh from the sentinels caught one after another into a port just below the holographic panel with practiced hands. At that moment, there was already 26 differing samples from each ferocious beast being processed at lightning speed.

She counted from the corner of her eyes. [Three more, just three more, please let me make it in time!]

She saw four of her comrades being killed in action as her chest soured. The corner of her eyes leaked grieving tears. The last one was her bestie.

Polka was being surrounded by her remaining comrades; others had move forward to withstand the horrendous siege by the never-ending ferocious beasts. They protected her from being injured by stray bullets and random beasts who entered their range while she was activating the Annihilator 6.2.

As the most competent demolition expert in WIA, she was one of the only five witches who was able to activate the complex device. The activation procedures were so demanding as it needed to fit stringent criteria before it could be operated, hence became the most unpopular device among the agents although it was very powerful.

The techno-geek Polka could only enter the high profiled Special Ops Team led by Senior Witch Selena based on her ability in operating the complex device.

The Annihilator series could eradicate en masse in a certain radius selectively, as it was being modeled after the Instrument of Divine Retribution from the old empire-building era. Polka was the only one who loved the device the most, as it was actually developed and innovated by her idol, Elder Witch Celine. Polka was also the one who revised the device into its current version.

She sweated a lot from being high-strung but didn't even realized it. Her fair dexterous fingers were so fast as they blurred while she adjusted the parameters needed to activate the floating hexagonal metallic device suspended behind the holographic data panel. She knew they were fighting against time. Every second of delay might cost the lives of her team members.

She signaled four of her protectors. They injected four tubes of glowing translucent green solution into four ports simultaneously.

Her tappings stopped suddenly as the hexagonal device moved upwards and automatically opened up from the center like a flower spilling white blinding light!

Polka's vision was blocked out totally. She smirked with satisfaction while tears streamed from her eyes. It was too late for her poor bestie, but she can still save Madam Celine.

Every single ferocious beast touched by the blinding white light disintegrated into smithereens, leaving only blackish particles. Right now, there was only a group of Dark Elves present. All the witches present moved their target to them as they move forward towards their adversary.

Polka, together with her other protectors brandished their weapon and joined the vanguard team.

"Glory to Neverwinter!" They shouted as they intercepted the last attack on Elder Witch Celine and stormed the Dark Elves group with everything they had.