The Author's POV Chapter 345

[00H : 02M : 23S]

'Angelica, get ready.'

Taking my eyes away from the watch, I reminded Angelica inside of my mind.

[I got it, no need to tell me.]

Angelica coldly replied inside of my head.

'Just making sure.'

I replied back, unbothered by her attitude.

At this point, I was already used to her attitude. Even if she was cold to me, at the end of the day, she did whatever I asked her to do. So, I had nothing to complain about.

Taking a good look at the surroundings and making sure that no one was paying attention to me, I kept a close look on my watch.

'…Almost.'

Very soon, total chaos would descend on this place, both internally and externally.

The external threat would be from Douglas attacking the outside of the facility with all the warriors gathered, and the internal one would be from Waylan and the others infiltrating through the portal I had set up in the room I operated in.

Since the dampening system was turned off in that one specific room, setting up a portal was not a problem.

Which was exactly what I did. Having completely gained the trust of the duergars after removing the second beacon, they no longer suspected me of having ulterior motives, and just let me do whatever I wanted.

Unfortunately for them, this had been a set-up from the very beginning.

Soon, when the timer on my watch hits zero, Waylan alongside his small group would appear inside of the building. Douglas, on the other hand, would start attacking the place from the outside.

Timing was essential for this operation.

Once Douglas started attacking outside the headquarters, most of the attention of the higher-ups would get focused there. This meant that less attention would be put on Waylan and the others who would enter the headquarters through the portal.

But of course, I couldn't guarantee that no one would take note of their appearance. The fluctuations they would release couldn't go unnoticed by the elders of Inferno.

Hence why, after a bit of thinking, I came up with another idea and headed towards this room.

My plan was simple; create chaos inside of this facility a little bit before Waylan and his group stepped into the headquarters.

The goal was to divert attention away from them and have it focus on me. But I couldn't guarantee whether it would work. Yet, it was worth a try.

Also, because this place was made of Rhimestone, I wasn't worried about my safety.

It would take at least a couple of ranks to enter this place forcefully, and with what was happening outside, I'm sure the elders would suddenly suffer a massive headache with all the trouble going on at the same time.

The more the internal chaos, the higher the chances that the operation would succeed.

Since this was all happening at the same time, the elders would have little to no time to think before they would be forced to act.

And because of this, the higher the chances of mistakes happening.

[00H : 01M : 09S]

'Angelica, let's start.'

Checking my watch one last time, I decided to act.

Crash—

Lifting my head, I threw a small object and destroyed the surveillance system in one go.

The sound that came from the destruction of the surveillance system was minimal.

In fact, it didn't matter whether I was loud or not. Since the sounds that came from the artifacts being tested were way louder, no one inside of the facility was able to tell what I just did.

'That's one down.'

Once I destroyed the surveillance system, lifting my head slightly, I spotted Angelica in the distance.

Because she barely had any demonic energy in her body, and everyone was focused on their experiments, no one noticed her presence.

On another note, the mana in the air was so thick that even if she did release her power, one of the Duergars could've easily mistaken her as someone testing a new artifact.

Still, it actually didn't really matter whether she was spotted or not. I had already briefed her on what to do if such a situation occurred.

Bending over, Angelica picked up the foiled paper I'd thrown before. Unraveling it, a black fruit appeared in front of her.

Before consuming the fruit, Angelica raised her delicate hand and touched the surveillance system. Like pressing onto a bug, the surveillance system broke instantly at Angelica's touch.

She was a lot more subtle than me when destroying the surveillance system. But what could I say, she was also a lot stronger than me.

'Alright, it's my turn now.'

The moment she destroyed the surveillance cameras and prepared to eat the fruit, I knew that it was time for me to act.

Calmly walking out of my position, I walked towards the nearest of duergars.

Before coming into this place, I had obviously checked the ranks of everyone present.

It wasn't hard to tell, as everyone had their aura out for all to see.

Since they were testing artifacts, they had to use their mana.

'One rank, two ranks, one rank and three ranks. That was the total composition of the group."

~~I was quite surprised by how highly ranked the duergars present in the room were, but after realizing that even ~~ranked artifacts were being tested here, it all made sense.~~~~

~~~~Either way, whatever rank they were, duergar or dwarf, unless prepared, they were quite weak.~~~~

~~~~Since all the duergars here came for experiments, none of them seemed to be equipped for combat.~~~~

~~~~Which was exactly the situation I was looking for.~~~~