Capítulo 2: Life Flashes...

Golden eyes, like the light of fireflies, and short golden-colored hair gently blowing in the wind, formed from the chaos happening currently.

Captain Morgan looked at the white-faced young man, whose handsome face only made him turn a shade paler.

The powerful screech of a wyrm rang out from the sides, its gigantic maw closing in on him, but he didn't move a single inch from where he stood, still looking dazedly at the young man in front of him.

RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP

Blood splashed on the side of Captain Morgan's face as the gigantic head of the wyrm rolled down to his legs, while the young man in front of him swiped the purple blood away from his blade.

"This is tiring…" The lazy voice rang out, echoing throughout the swampy area as the golden-haired young man disappeared from where he stood.

A blade flashed through the world with speed, followed by a wyrm's head soaring into the sky.

Using its gigantic body as steps, the young man rapidly climbed, ascending higher into the air before jumping off its body, his figure blasting through the air.

A wyrm rapidly extended its mouth, wanting to snap the young man in the air, but he didn't even look below him as he plucked three circular balls from his uniform and released them.

The circular balls were pulled into the wyrm's mouth by gravity before a devastating explosion rang out, causing its gigantic body to explode into pieces.

The young man soared through the air, arriving before the last wyrm as two curved daggers appeared in his hands, the wyrm snapped at him, but the young man's suit released flames from the thrusters, pushing him up slightly as he rolled midair, avoiding the bite while arriving at the back of the wyrm.

The two daggers immediately dug into the wyrm's back and sliced down the wyrm's body, completely severing it into two as he landed on the ground with a thud, both sides of the wyrm landing beside his leg.

"AHHHHHHHHH…" Stale white air puffed out from his mouth, his battle suits completely covered in purple blood while beneath his shoes were remains of the wyrms, which he stepped on as he continued moving towards the captain.

Arriving before him, his emotionless eyes looked at him as he whispered, "Can we move on…"

"Ah yes…" The captain said, regaining his wit as he looked at the remaining soldiers.

Two of the soldiers were lost in the small fight that just took place. With the first one that was killed by the wyrm, it made a total of three people dead.

Now their team was only left with five people, including the captain.

"If you knew this was the wyrm's lair when we first descended, why did you keep quiet about it? We could have avoided this unnecessary loss of life…" One of the soldiers suddenly challenged as he looked at the golden-haired young man with hatred in his eyes.

Khan slowly wiped off the blood off his uniform before turning to look at the soldier.

"You seem to be forgetting I'm an elite death soldier. I'm not concerned with your life or death; it isn't relevant. I'm only concerned with obtaining that item and returning it to base. Whether you all died or lived, it matters not to me…"

"You…" The soldier clenched his teeth in anger, a vein popping in his forehead, but before he could do anything, the captain raised his hands, shutting him up.

"We continue…"

The group quickly got a hold of themselves as they continued on the mission.

Having lost a total of three soldiers, Captain Morgan grew more careful as he made sure to use the life-detecting scanner to avoid potential beasts.

While the path would become longer, they were able to avoid anyone dying.

Slowly, they moved past the swampy area and soon arrived in a clearing where a completely demolished building could be seen.

The rubble made of concrete and blocks was scattered around the place, leaving nothing special about it, but at the center of the building was a small altar around a meter in height.

The altar was covered in strange blood-red runes that released flashes of ominous red-colored lights. Two gigantic statues were at its side, one depicting a tiger with four wings, while the other was that of a bear with a scorpion tail.

But what caught the attention of the group was the blue-colored crystal gently floating at the top of the altar.

The captain's eyes narrowed looking at the crystal before turning to look at the holographic, which confirmed this was really the target of the mission.

The group grew even more alert, clenching their guns in their hands as they all looked at the environment, but there was still no sign of life around the area.

The captain could confirm this by the life-detecting scanner in his hands.

He slightly relaxed as he walked towards the altar, arriving before the crystal that revealed bursts of beautiful blue light.

He slowly extended his right hand towards it, but suddenly stopped just an inch from touching it.

Without pulling his hands back, he looked at the environment still, seeing it was calm before he finally grabbed hold of the crystal.

With the crystal in his hands, Captain Morgan breathed out a sigh of relief as he wiped away the perspiration from his face.

Walking back towards the group, he looked at them before a smile broke out on his otherwise sharp face.

"We've secured the object. Now we just need to head back to the ship; it's just 2 kilometers away to the east…" He said as a smile broke out on the soldiers' faces, but the Captain suddenly noticed there was a particular somebody absent.

Looking behind him, he saw Khan standing in front of the large statue of the four-winged tiger, as he kept looking at it dazedly.

"What's wrong…"

"It is all too quiet. If you noticed, the Crystal was radiating powerful electromagnetic waves…" Khan said with his brows furrowed.

"And what's wrong with that…"

"An object radiating a powerful electromagnetic wave in the middle of the wild. Tell me, who is the most sensitive towards electromagnetic waves…" Khan asked as the Captain replied absentmindedly.

"The Abyssal creatures…"

"How come we didn't see any of them here or even around here? It is like this place is some sort of forbidden ground…"

The captain's eyes narrowed on hearing that.

Khan's attention was suddenly diverted towards the bottom of the statue as he saw the same blood-red runes on the altar on it.

His eyes narrowed as he dug his hands into the piece of sand beneath the statue and quickly came in contact with a solid matter.

Pulling it out, it was the skull of an especially large Abyssal creature.

Captain Morgan bent to his knees to take a closer look like Khan cleared another part of the sand and brought out the ribs of another Abyssal creature.

"Unless this is a…" Khan said as he turned to look at the Captain, his eyes widening with every passing second.

"Deathtrap…" The captain completed and then,

RUUUUUUUUUUUUMBLE

The statue slowly began shaking as the sand it was made with slowly poured down.

The duo slowly retreated, hands on their guns. The entire group had their mouths widened to the absolute limit as they watched the 'statue' pour down its sand, and a gigantic tiger with four wings slowly opened its red eyes while the bear stood upright, its scorpion-like tail sneaking around it creating loud slicing sounds of the air being sliced as its blood-red eyes turned down to look at the group.

"Me... Meteor rank stage abyssal!!" The captain said, every bit of hope fading from his face as the gun in his hands dropped to the ground, and he fell to his knees.

ROO000000000000AR.

While the captain himself was on his knees, the will to live of the elite soldiers was stronger as they immediately opened fire, throwing all their plasma bullets at the beasts and their pseudo-atomic bomb.

A minor explosion raised the sands, but it soon cleared revealing the two beasts who stood at their initial position with not a single mark on their body.

Airwaves blasted around the place as the captain felt the crystal in his hand immediately disappear, the thief none other than a golden-haired figure flashed by him with inhumane speed and quickly disappeared into the distance but it wasn't long gone when the bear's paw slammed out at the entire group.

KABO0O000000OM

It was like a nuclear bomb was dropped beside them as the entire group immediately exploded into blood showers just from the crushing force of the palm alone.

Khan's eyes widened seeing the gigantic paw that was closing in on him, the wind already tearing apart his cloth and creating deep cuts on his skin, but before it could land on him, he rolled himself into a ball as he placed crystal at the front of his head.

BOO00000000000M

An apocalyptic force rammed into him sending him crashing through multitudes of trees as the sound of crushing bones rang out.

Khan finally slammed into a huge tree stopping his backward motion.

Blood gushed out of his mouth with bits of his intestines mixed in.

Landing face flat on the ground, the world slowly turned dark as blood seeped out from the slight crack that was present on his forehead.

Yet even though, the bones in his body have been broken apart, his muscles torn to pieces, and his skull cracked.

Khan still extended his hands forward, as his fingers inched closer toward the blue crystal.

The world was rapidly turning black the sound of the shaking ground was like a titan running towards it slowly grew quiet, yet there was nothing but a single thought in his mind as he extended his fingers forward to the crystal.

"The mission, the mission, the mission.." The gentle whisper was barely heard and his head dropped to the ground, lifelessly, but at the last second, his hands managed to touch the crystal while a single drop of his blood stained its glassy surface...

A bright flash of mesmerizing blue light!!!