novelbin Chapter 1297: Thermal Accumulator [Monthly Bonus 5]
Chapter 1297: Thermal Accumulator [Monthly Bonus 5]
The vortex tore through the entire floor before eventually smashing into the second set of reinforced doors at the far end of the underground level.
’This floor is just a hallway that leads to that door?’
Evan made that observation as he silently retracted his magic power, causing the vortex to dissipate.
He then walked off the stairs and stepped onto the floor itself, ice spreading outward beneath his feet the moment he stepped onto the shredded ground, freezing the damaged surface smooth so he could continue walking forward with ease.
Naturally, the severed body parts, half-dead bodies, and corpses of the Demonic Hand members were frozen to the ground as well, but Evan paid them no mind.
Since he hadn’t used his full power, several Senior Members had survived the destruction, and they managed to break out of the thin layer of ice and raise their weapons while glaring at Evan with grim expressions.
When he saw their actions, Evan placed the Vanquisher on his shoulder and asked,
"Why bother?"
His voice echoed across the devastated underground floor.
"I’m sure you’ve realised by now that I’m a lot stronger than any of you expected, so don’t waste your effort. You’re going to die either way."
Hearing those words, the expressions of the Demonic Hand members darkened further.
Then one of them suddenly burst into laughter.
"Wasted efforts? Ha! You’re the one wasting your efforts."
Evan’s eyes narrowed slightly at the man’s words before he used Appraisal, instantly discovering something different.
Unlike the others present who belonged to the Fourth Division, this one was a Senior Member of the First Division.
’He knows something,’ Evan concluded.
However, the man definitely wasn’t going to willingly explain whatever they had prepared for him, so Evan intended to beat that information out of him.
He swung his sword once, activating Blade Cannon, and although the man managed to avoid the initial aura slash, the five fist-sized bullets that followed tore through his body and sent him crashing away.
The other Demonic Hand members instantly rushed Evan, and Evan simply swung his sword again, unleashing a wave of ice that engulfed all of them and froze them solid.
He then casually walked over to the man he had incapacitated, stabbed the Vanquisher into the ground, and picked him up before dragging him toward the room where the powerful energy signature Laurene had detected was coming from.
Evan’s earlier Elemental Vortex had already heavily damaged the doors, so all he had to do was kick lightly against them, knocking the reinforced doors completely off their hinges and breaking parts of the surrounding wall as they crashed onto the floor.
Immediately, a wave of immense heat slammed into Evan, causing him to frown as he looked up toward the source of that overwhelming heat in the centre of the massive room.
In the centre of the room was a large sphere of metal held up a metre from the ground by a reinforced support stand made of similar dark metal.
Thick metal cables extended from multiple points along its surface, running down into the ground and branching outward into surrounding equipment embedded into the walls around the room.
The sphere itself wasn’t smooth. Its surface was divided into segmented panels, like overlapping plates wrapped around a central core.
On the side of the sphere facing the door was a built-in LED display mounted into the outer casing. Displayed on it were multiple readouts, presumably live ones, including two that Evan quickly took note of.
A countdown timer and a percentage value that kept updating continuously.
[00:19:41 | 42%]
It was obvious this was tied to the intense heat radiating through the room, and when Evan used Full Appraisal on it to identify what it was, he frowned at the result he received.
|Refurbished Type-096 ’Null-Fuse’ Thermal Accumulator.
Type: Thermal Accumulation Bomb
Classified ordnance engineered by Aidosian Military Engineers during Year 503 of the Great Valmone War, designed to absorb and accumulate thermal energy until ███████
███▉▉▉ ERROR ▇ corrupted after field deployment near Cyroth IV by ̴█̵█̴█̸K̸
Purge Valve Actuator Status: MISSING.
———|
Very crucial bits of information were missing, but the parts Evan could see all screamed ’Bad News’.
’Clearly, it’s a bomb. The magic power condensed within it is ridiculous, and I don’t want to imagine what would happen if something with that level of energy detonates.’
But that line about a MISSING Purge Valve Actuator made Evan frown, because for it to have a dedicated line in the item’s description, it had to be important.
Just then, the Demonic Hand member Evan was dragging coughed up blood before screaming, "It’s too late! There’s nothing you can do to stop it! It’s already been activated! All of you, everyone you’re trying to save, everything is going to be blown to oblivion!"
He laughed maniacally, his bloodied teeth visible.
Evan lifted him by the neck, eyes cold as he demanded, "What is that thing?!"
The man, spitting a bit of blood onto Evan’s hand, replied, "What does it look like? It’s a fucking BOMB! You’re all going to be blown to oblivion! There’s nothing you can do to stop it! Ah! I’d love to see your faces before you all get blown to pieces!"
His maniacal laughter was what Zaos, Laurene, Eliza, and Abigail heard the moment they arrived after passing through the scenes of devastation Evan had left behind on the way there.
"Why is it so hot?" Eliza murmured as she looked around.
Abigail and Laurene shared the same question in mind, but the moment both of them looked at the device in the centre of the room, their eyes widened, and they both cursed.
""What the hell?!?""
"That thing’s a bomb!" Laurene called out in alarm, and Abigail, her expression darkening, muttered, "A cosmic energy bomb."
The mention of ’cosmic energy’ immediately made Evan turn his eyes toward Abigail, while the Demonic Hand member he was holding laughed even louder.
Evan silently threw him toward the corner of the room, where he slammed into the wall before sliding down unconscious.
Ignoring that, Evan closed the distance to Abigail and asked, "Are you sure that thing is a cosmic energy bomb?"
"Of course I’m sure!" Abigail responded instantly. "I can see the cosmic energy it’s gathering. The heat in this room is coming from that thing. It’s already a mass of highly condensed cosmic energy, and it’s gathering even more."
"She’s right," Laurene muttered. "Something I can’t properly perceive is causing the temperature of the core in the centre of that thing to rise. And that core... it feels like some kind of temperature-sensitive material."
Laurene frowned, her eyes starting to hurt as she stared at the Thermal Accumulation Bomb. "It’s the same kind of distortion I saw when I first looked at Abigail, except this is worse. It’s like there are several layers of dirty glass between me and it."
She stepped closer, then looked at the LED display showing the rising percentage and a countdown with about 16 minutes remaining.
"It’s a heat bomb!"
Turning towards the others, she quickly explained what she had gleaned with her Mystic Eyes.
"This thing is a heat bomb. It’s gathering heat to raise its temperature, and once it reaches a certain threshold, it’ll detonate and release all of the energy gathered and condensed within it.
The timer on it isn’t fixed, but dynamic. The hotter its core gets by absorbing heat, the lower the timer and the closer it gets to detonation..."
Laurene’s voice trailed off as she looked right at Evan alone, and her expression turned grim. "This really was a trap set specifically for you, Evan."
"What?" Evan said, frowning, and Laurene quickly explained her conclusion.
"Think about it, Evan. Your main attribute is fire. Your multi-coloured flames are hotter than normal flames. When you fight, the area naturally heats up. The ambient temperature rises. If you came here with just me, Abigail, and a few others, you would’ve had to fight, and the temperature would’ve climbed.
We wouldn’t be seeing 16 minutes on that timer. We’d probably be seeing 1 or 2.
Even worse, this thing might’ve already gone off while we were still fighting, and with the amount of energy inside it..."
Laurene paused, looked toward Evan and Zaos, then shook her head as if she couldn’t fully put the thought into words.
Abigail, however, knew the exact words Laurene was hesitating to say and had none of her hesitation.