First Light of a New Age

Chapter 163: They Need Our Aid And By The Gods, They Shall Have It!

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Third Civilization Zone, Austronesia People's Empire, Imperial Tanah Melayu, Secret Research Facility.

4th Year of God, Wednesday, 3rd Week, 9th Month of Solomon.

The sky above Imperial Tanah Melayu was gray and heavy, casting a muted light over the dense forest below.

In the far distance, ancient mountains stood like sleeping giants, shrouded in mist and resting hiddenly between these peaks, guarded by automated defense towers, high-altitude drone patrols, and mana-disruption fields, was the Imperial Tanah Melayu Research Facility, a fortress of Austrosteel, reinforced with magic-resistant alloys and surrounded by nearly invisible magical barriers.

A black V-45 Peacemaker VTOL transport landed with a mechanical hiss onto the upper landing pad with its engines whining softly as it settled. Hydraulic systems released pressure with a sharp exhale, and the rear ramp lowered.

Captain Riley stepped out first, striking the metal with purpose under his boots while close behind him followed Price, Mason, Woods, Tibbles, and Belinski, each of them alert, silent, and grim.

This facility was one of the most secure locations in the entire Austronesian Empire. It is remote, fortified, and classified, it specialized in studying high-risk magical anomalies that could not be safely handled elsewhere.

As the squad moved through the landing bay, armed guards briskly saluted them in an instant. No words were exchanged as the atmosphere was too tense with every step forward heavy with unspoken urgency.

Inside, the facility was sterile and cold with walls humming softly with layered magical containment fields. Floating screens flickered with raw mana readings and transparent panels were etched with glowing equations and magical runes, shifting as if alive.

They even sensed the faint scent of sterilizer mixed with ozone in here.

A young researcher greeted them and quickly led the team down a corridor of reinforced glass and mana-dampening wards to Lab 7, where Dr. Chloris Vardalos was already deep in waiting inside, working with local researchers.

In a deep-cut lab coat, Chloris stood beside a holographic display showing waves of pulsing unstable energy. The Dryad hybrid's red vine tendrils growing from her back twitched gently and moved like muscle memory, an unconscious extension of her dryad hybrid biology.

As they arrived, her sharp gaze met theirs briefly, fatigued but focused.

“Ah, you’re late,” she muttered as she looked at Belinski and waved at him with a delighted smile at the sight of her brother.

Belinski waved back with a smile, but Riley stepped forward, unphased.

“How bad is it?”

Chloris' delight face return to a serious frown and motioned to the hovering display. “He’s stable for now.”

Tavish was alive.

Down the hall, sealed behind reinforced glass, Tavish lay in an advanced observation chamber designed for volatile magical entities. He was strapped to a heavily padded bed, unmoving but not unconscious, but his amber eyes were wide open, haunted and unblinking.

Mana stabilizer pylons hummed at each corner of the room, and surveillance drones hovered in absolute silence above him. Tubes fed into his arms, delivering controlled injections of null-mana to prevent further psychic surges.