Chapter 88 Breaking Out

Within the forest,

"What happened", Van asked the person in front of him.

"Sir, we are working on it but it's not stopping", the person answered as he kept his head down.

"What is not stopping, what is it that you aren't telling? Speak! Now!", Van ordered the person as he shouted at him.

"Sir, a fire", The person answered in fear. His voice almost inaudible.

Yet, Van heard him clearly and when he did, his face flushed in age as he shouted,

"Are you an idiot? Don't you know that if there is a fire, then you go extinguish it and not stand in front of me? There are bigger matters at hand and you called me here for a fire. Just get someone with a water ability-based system to extinguish it",

"Sir, we tried. The fire doesn't extinguish, not only that, it doesn't stop and continues to spread. Burning everything in its process, all our attempts have failed. It feels as if it has a life of its own", the person spoke as he gathered a bit of courage.

However, it seemed that the person was destined to be disappointed as Van only got more furious and shouted,

"Why didn't you say that before? If that fire let to spread as you say, it won't be long before we are exposed",

"Then what should we do?", the person asked as he tried to calm himself down and keep up the appearances but internally he was raging.

"Try to cut the route it follows, I am sure it will extinguish when its fuel runs out. Also, get all those with water or earth-based abilities and affinities to help you out", Van ordered and turned away to continue with his work.

On the other hand, the person simply nodded and turned away.

Meanwhile,

Near the cage where Emma and Ray we trapped. Emma kept a lookout on the surroundings for the people that were assigned to keep a watch on them.

"They are gone", Emma spoke as she continued to observe the surroundings while also using her ability to scan for any hidden presence.

Listening to her, Ray nodded and got to work.

At first, he supplied even more mana to the fire he caused to make it burn more intensely. Then, using his common ability to increase his strength, he broke the chains that bound him.

Freeing himself of his restrictions, Ray helped Emma out of hers.

Though this was just the easy part, the hard part came later. Ray opened his system inventory and took out the artifact, he talked about.

It was a strangely shaped wooden doll that looked more like a stick and clay stuck together to form a human shape. Ray took the doll in his hands and broke it into two pieces.

However, as soon as the dolls broke into two. They morphed into two perfectly identical dolls like before, albeit smaller than before.

After that, he cut his finger and poured a bit of blood on one part of it, and then placed it where he was chained.

After that, he turned to Emma and spoke as he handed the other piece of the doll to her,

"Do as I did and place the other piece to where you, were chained",

Emma simply nodded and did as Ray told her to do.

After she was done with it, Ray put his hands into the air and started forming different runes in the air. After forming the runes, he poured a bit of his mana into them and sent those runes to the dolls.

The moment the runes touched the dolls, they morphed and transformed into lifeless puppets of Ray and Emma.

The puppets sat in their place, their gaze completely dull and devoid of any life.

Looking at the puppets, Ray spoke,

"Its your turn Emma, to pour some aura into them so they don't look like complete robots",

"How long will they last?", Emma asked

"Not long, a few minutes at best", Ray answered her calmly.

"Okay", Emma said as she started to converge her aura into her hands and formed it into a spherical ball. After that, she opened her second hand and pointed toward Ray and started to converge his aura too.

It took only a few seconds and two spherical balls the size of a baseball floated in her hands. After that, she pushed the spheres toward the puppets.

Not long later, the puppets although silent seemed to gain a bit of humanity as they looked less like a robot and more like a human in a daze.

Seeing this, Ray nodded in satisfaction and broke out of the cage along with Emma.

"Where do we go now?", Emma asked after they broke out.

"We go and find some answers", Ray spoke determinedly as he walked deeper into the clearing.

Listening to Ray, Emma steeled her and followed behind him.

Ray continued to go deeper and as he did, the sounds of howling became clearer and clearer.

Not long later, Ray came to a startling view as he saw tens of werewolves chained to the ground as they howled in pain for no reason.

"What's with the effect of the drug, any progress?",

Ray heard the voice. Listening to it, he immediately hid in a nearby bush and pulled Emma along with him. Doing that, he continued to observe the situation to have a better idea of it,

He saw two men chatting as they walked leisurely, of the two, one wore a lab coat and looked like a researcher of some sort while the other was dressed in normal clothing.

However, only from looking at them, Ray guessed who was superior.

"Very little progress. Out of the 69 wolves, we have here, only a couple of them managed to overcome the drug's effect. Others continue to resist the drug", the researcher said as he simultaneously collected data from the wolves around him.

On the other hand, upon listening to the researcher's words, the man wearing normal clothes had a change of expression as his expression changed into one of impatience.

"If they are resisting, then increase the dosage. They could die for all I care, and I need at least 20 wolves who have overcome the drug's effect within an hour, or else you know what would happen", the man wearing normal clothes spoke as he continued to walk deeper into the forest.

"Yes sir", the researcher said as he bowed and rushed to comply with the orders he received.

Within the bush where Ray hid,

Having observed the whole conversation, Ray's expression turned to that of confusion as he thought of the reason they did all this.

Due to this, he asked for Aurora's thoughts,

"What do you think they are planning to do? Whatever it is, for them to take such a big step. It must be extremely important",

"I am not sure of what it is, though I have an idea of it I need to confirm it first. Can you follow the researcher and observe the effects of his drug on the wolves?", Aurora said as she requested Ray to observe the matter even more.

Listening to her, Ray readily agreed to her as that would also solve his curiosity and might as well provide him with some answers.

With that, Ray continued on with his investigation along with Emma.

Meanwhile,

The dean finally arrived at the outskirts of the forest as his face had an expression of fury while his eyes beamed with killing intent.

...

A/N:- Took a break yesterday, have fun reading.