Searching

Seeing Minos looking at her, Lilia sent him a playful wink, the horrific deaths surrounding them of no interest to her, not affecting her mood in the slightest.

Ignoring her, Minos focused back on the stairs, which after hundreds of deaths, had finally come to an end.

Walking down the final steps, Minos and the others arrived at a large chamber, the walls lined with sky-high bookshelves, filled with what seemed to be an endless supply of knowledge.

At the front of the room was a large black screen, immediately reminding Minos of the device he had seen in the secret chamber in the star room.

There were a few more doors on the sides leading to other places, and above each door was some text, likely explaining where the rooms led.

As Minos was taking everything in, the final person had stepped out from the staircase, causing another loud gear turning sound to echo out from the walls.

Before the group could react, the staircase sealed back shut, which in a way was a good thing since it meant the 'acid' was also finally stopped.

However, with the group now seemingly trapped underground, even without any death traps, death from starvation was only a matter of time.

Just as someone was about to speak up, the black screen at the front of the room lit up, immediately catching everyone's attention.

"Yeeh weas iek! Dsjf ufy wakim." The short big-headed figure that had just appeared on the screen spoke.

To the humans listening, his language was complete gibberish, just noises, causing everyone to look around in confusion, not really sure what to do now.

"Effoo!" The big-headed figure said with a loud laugh, making some scratch their heads, wondering what exactly his joke was.

With his laugh, the video also seemed to come to and end, the screen shutting off and returning to black.

"What now?" One person couldn't help but ask.

"Let's split up and search the other rooms, hopefully we can find another path of escape." Potin took the lead in saying.

"Good, then let's split up the groups. You and you… And finally, me and him" Lilia said, pointing towards Minos.

Minos's face went dark as Lilia pointed directly towards him, fortunately there were two people that didn't like that idea.

"I think it's best if me and uhhhh, I just realized, I forgot to ask your name..." Potin said somewhat awkwardly.

"You don't even know Minos's name and want to team up with him?" Lilia laughed mockingly.

"Miss, I also agree with the young man. Besides, you have me, so you don't need a partner." The old man butted in, helping relieve some of Potin's awkwardness.

"What are you worried about? Where could we even go in this place?" Lilia said, though her voice took on a commanding tone.

"Ugh, okay, but if you two don't come back here within the hour, I'll come looking." The old man finally agreed, knowing that he still needed to give Lilia some freedom or else she would soon find a way to replace him.

"Hey, I didn-" Potin was about to argue, but before he could, Minos gave him a  slight shove, shaking his head towards him.

Potin was smart, so seeing Minos's appearance, he realized he probably didn't have the strength to make any demands with these people.

"Alright young man, I guess it's you and me." The old man said, before forcefully pulling Potin towards a room at random.

Potin wanted to struggle a bit, but with the massive strength difference, his struggles were futile, letting him fully understand why Minos stopped him from arguing.

"It's just you and me now." Lilia said with a gentle smile.

"Is there anything I can do that would make you leave me alone." Minos asked, despite knowing he probably wouldn't receive a satisfying answer.

"Sure, marry me!" Lilia giggled.

"Hopeless…" Minos sighed as he palmed his face, ignoring Lilia and heading towards the final room by himself.

Lilia quickly caught up to him, forcefully pulling his arm into hers, despite his struggles making it clear he didn't want such contact.

"Can you please let go of me? This isn't a game, and if we don't find an escape, death is pretty much guaranteed." Minos said, annoyed at her careless attitude.

"What are you so stressed about? Worst case scenario, I can let the old man use his strength to tunnel us out." Lilia replied.

"And what if he isn't strong enough?

"Then I guess we'll just have to start reproducing down here." Lilia laughed.

Realizing it was pointless to talk with her, Minos focused back on the room they had finally entered, looking around to see if he could find anything useful.

The room looked like some sort of laboratory, the white metallic walls filled with a sheen, giving the area a feeling of sterility.

The tables were lined with strange devices, some glass vials on the side still filled with unknown liquids, Minos's curiosity peaking as he looked around.

He'd love to know how these machines worked and give them a go, but he knew that if he couldn't even understand the big-headed peoples language, then attempting to use their technology would just be pointless.

With Lilia gripping onto his arm tightly, his search was massively impeded, but no matter how much he begged her to let go, she refused.

Giving up on her, Minos kept walking, the two soon coming across a large glass-pod at the back of the room that was linked up to another machine filled with buttons.

Minos was intrigued as he looked at the pod, wondering what purpose it served. From size alone, it seemed to perfectly match the average height of a big-headed person, making him wonder if you were meant to go inside.

Lilia was also interested in the strange device, finally taking a second to pull her head away from Minos's chest and focus on the room.

"I wonder what this thing is." She said, though Minos wasn't in the mood to talk to her.

"Let's go inside!" Lilia continued, much to Minos's shock.

"Are you crazy? We have no idea what that thing does, stepping inside may be a death sentence." Minos shouted, trying to pull her back.

"Relax, the thing is clearly turned off, so what could it do?" Lilia said, forcefully pulling Minos into the tight pod.

The pod wasn't meant for humans, not to mention it was clearly only meant to be used by one person at a time, so it was only after an extremely tight squeeze, Lilia forced the two inside.

"Doesn't this feel comfortable." Lilia moaned, as her body was tightly pressed up against Minos, her face blushing.

"Not at all. Can I leave now?" Minos asked, about to walk about, but pulled back in by Lilia.

"Wait a second, we haven't even closed the door yet?" Lilia replied.

"Don't!" Minos said, his instinct telling him that if that door shut, something bad would happen.

Despite his shouts, Lilia ignored him, forcing him to activate his Limit Lock for the first time since he had activated it.

He was willing to take such a pointless risk, so despite wanting to have kept this as a trump card, he was forced to use it early.

"Not enough." Lilia laughed, having clearly felt the strength difference.

Just like she said, even with the Limit Lock activated, Minos was appalled to find out he was still hopeless in front of Lilia.

She clearly wasn't in the First Heaven of Inner Heaven Realm, or else she would have at least struggled against Minos new power.

Lilia seemed unconcerned about where Minos got this sudden strength boost from, just gripping him tightly as she finally shut the pod door closed.

With both fear and anticipation, Minos could only watch as the pod closed, his heart-rate accelerating as he waited for something to happen.

Just like his instinct had warned him, with the pod door closing, the machine linked to the pod immediately activated, lights flashing like crazy as a low humming-sound traveled out from the machine.

At the top of the glass pod, a small opening revealed itself, spraying a pink mist into the tightly enclosed space, immediately inoculating Minos and Lilia.

Minos tried his best to hold his breath, but the pink mist was all encompassing, traveling into his pores if it couldn't enter through his lungs.

"Want to know a secret, Minos?" Lilia suddenly said, breathing in the pink mist with no concerns.

Seeing Minos refusing to respond Lilia didn't mind, instead she just kept talking, knowing that he'd be forced to listen once she spoke.

"I already know what this pod is, in fact, my family actually has a few of them on hand, and while we have yet to recreate the technology, we at least know what this thing does."

"It's called a DNA Extraction Pod, and since you probably don't know what DNA is, let me explain."

"In simple terms, DNA is the code that makes up life, and by extracting it, we can essentially create clones. Of course life is much more complicated than DNA alone, the soul also being essential."