After the city of Sanctuary had been relocated to another place thanks to the powers of the siren Lilith, the four Seekers of the Vault — Maya, Axton, Zer0, and Salvador — remained standing near the stone bridge that had once led directly to the city. Inside, each of them was boiling with anger: the girl named Angel, whom they had trusted, had turned out to be a traitor.

Through their link, they could hear her explanations. Angel justified herself, claiming she had no choice and was merely following Jack’s orders. Suppressing their irritation, the Seekers listened as she named the place they needed to reach to find their friends. The path led through The Fridge — the only passage to the Highlands, where Lilith had teleported Sanctuary.

When her voice faded, leaving only silence behind, the four friends exchanged glances at the edge of the enormous hole that now yawned where the city had been.

“So what do we do? Follow Angel’s advice or not?” Maya was the first to speak.

“To hell with that woman,” Salvador barked, folding his arms across his chest. “I didn’t trust her from the start. I told you — it’s way too suspicious that she showed up right when our train exploded and we ended up in an icy wasteland.”

“The mask is silent,/ Trust — a phantom of the night,/ Vanishes in an instant,” Zer0 calmly recited a haiku.

“Zer0, enough with your poetry,” Axton grimaced. “We’re in enough trouble already. We lost contact with Lilith, and we don’t even know exactly where the city was moved. Our choice isn’t big: either we take the risk and follow Angel’s lead, or we wander blindly, hoping luck is on our side.”

A smile lit up Zer0’s mask: “:O”.

“So that’s the deal,” Maya summed up. “Two paths: follow Angel or stumble in the unknown.”

“Shitty plan,” Salvador muttered, but smirked. “Fine, I’m in. But if that woman tries to betray us again, I’ll shoot her in the face with a rocket.”

“Alright… there’s no other way,” Maya started, but a sharp scream cut her off.

“WHAT THE FUUUUUUUCK?!” came from the sky, immediately plummeting downward.

The four of them turned just in time to see a figure, cursing loudly, crash straight into the giant hole. Then a thud echoed — too powerful, as if not a person, but a massive object had fallen. Google seaʀᴄh novel[f]ire.net

Intrigued, the Seekers approached the edge and peered inside, but could make out nothing. At that very moment, something flew past and landed behind them.

Reacting instantly, Maya activated her siren tattoos, Axton raised his rifle, Salvador drew his shotguns, and Zer0 gripped his blade.

Maya was the first to recognize the stranger. Before them stood Alex — covered in dust, but intact and unharmed. He was brushing off his coat as if he had just stepped out of some amusing adventure, rather than having fallen from a dizzying height.

Hearing the click of weapon safeties behind him, Alex turned his head. His gaze lingered on Maya — another siren, and her siren powers clearly caught his interest.

“Oh, look who we have here,” he drawled lazily, gesturing with his fingers. “I thought you moved along with the city: ‘shu-shu-shu’ — and bam, in a different place. But here you are. Interesting.”

“You’re the father of Nyaruko, Jinx, and Anya,” Maya said cautiously, extinguishing the glow of her tattoos. “But why did you end up over the chasm?”

“Ah, that,” Alex smirked. “You see, my dear siren, I thought the city was still here. So… I moved. Who knew that instead of the city, only a damn hole would remain?”

“You’re a tough guy if you survived a fall like that,” Axton noted, extending a hand. “I’m Axton, this is Maya, Salvador, and Zer0. We got stuck here because we weren’t in the city when Lilith relocated it.”

“I know you,” Alex grinned. “You — the greedy uncle who won’t share his turret. This one — Uncle Not-Gnome Salvador. The kind older sister Maya. And the strange masked uncle who talks in poems or emojis — Zer0.”

“Not-Gnome?!” Salvador bristled, waving his shotgun. “I’ve already told these little brats: I didn’t grow because of steroids, not because I’m a dwarf! And why is Maya immediately the kind older sister, and I’m ‘Not-Gnome’?! I’m, by the way, the coolest uncle! Ready to blow up anything for the crew! But instead, I get dumb nicknames and attempts to steal my shotgun!”

Hearing Alex call him a greedy uncle, Axton just shook his head with a tired smile. Anya, Nyaruko, Jinx, and Tina had tried more than once to snatch his favorite turret, so the nickname even seemed a little amusing. Salvador’s reaction, however, was predictable: the moment the words “Not-Gnome” were said, he started furiously swinging his shotgun, cursing in all directions.

Meanwhile, Zer0’s mask lit up with a cheerful smile: “XD.”

Maya, however, just watched Alex silently. She could clearly feel her siren tattoos reacting to his presence, almost reaching toward him. That sensation made her understand why Lilith often lingered her gaze on him.

Alex smirked, watching Salvador’s reaction, and lazily lit a cigarette.

“So, do you even know where Lilith moved Sanctuary? Or were you just standing here with your mouths open while the city disappeared before your eyes?”

“Angel said Sanctuary is now in the Highlands,” Maya replied. “But we still don’t know if that’s true or just another lie.”

“I don’t trust that woman anyway,” Salvador muttered, finally lowering his shotgun. “If it’s a trap, I’ll just kill everyone who gets in my way.”

Alex blew a ring of smoke into the sky.

“For starters — she wasn’t lying. Sanctuary really is in the Highlands.”

“How do you know?” Maya frowned. “She’s on Jack’s side. She admitted it herself.”

“She’s just a puppet,” Alex said calmly. “Jack keeps her on a short leash. She has no choice but to follow his orders.”

While the Seekers of the Vault were processing what they had just heard, Alex pulled a massive armored jeep out of his inventory. A machine gun was mounted on the roof, a steel ram on the front. The vehicle appeared right before them, as if from nowhere.

Alex jumped into the driver’s seat and started the engine. He could have teleported to Sanctuary, of course, but that would have been boring.

“So, how long are you going to stand there? Hop in. I’ll drop you off at the right spot. Otherwise, you’ll probably get lost again without me.”

The four exchanged glances: no station nearby, no garage — and suddenly, this vehicle. But they didn’t refuse.

Salvador immediately took his place at the machine gun, eager to start shooting. Maya sat next to Alex, while Axton and Zer0 settled in the back.

“How do you know so much about Angel and her situation?” Maya finally asked, looking at him intently. The others waited for his answer as well.

Alex just smirked, put the jeep in motion, and said, “Hmm… I’ll tell you on the way.”

Driving along the planned route, Alex calmly began recounting Angel’s story. He mentioned that he learned about her after hacking into the Hyperion system while completing Lilith’s task to stop a cargo train. Lilith had claimed there was new experimental weaponry on board, but instead, there were four extremely dangerous Skaga.

Alex started from the very beginning — from the moment Angel wasn’t yet on the leash Jack had put on her. The Seekers listened silently, without interrupting. But their expressions revealed that they hadn’t expected Angel to turn out to be a siren. Alex explained that it was precisely because of her powers that she could communicate with them, using Maya as a conduit. Having received this answer, the group fell silent and continued listening.

The jeep entered a long tunnel leading directly to Three Horns – Valley, from where they could reach The Fridge. As soon as they emerged into the valley, Maya’s ECHO module emitted an irritating voice. The moment Alex heard Jack, he snatched the module from the girl’s hands.

“Hey, Jack. Shut up,” Alex threw, lighting a cigarette.

“And who are you? The newbie in the losers’ team?” Jack drawled mockingly.

“I’m a street magician, and I like showing tricks. Want to see one?” Alex replied cheerfully, beginning to hack the ECHO module.

“Haha, another psycho. Go ahead, impress me. Although I won’t see anything anyway, since I’m far away and you’re just pathetic…” Jack laughed, enjoying his mockery.

Alex just smirked, finished the hack, and pressed a button. The connection immediately cut off. Maya didn’t even have time to realize what had happened, and meanwhile, Jack, sitting in his office on the Helios, clicked his tongue irritably. But before he could curse, all the electronics in the room went haywire. Monitors sparked, speakers exploded, panels flew apart. A shockwave knocked him off his chair, and the artificial face attached to his head flew sideways.

“Nice trick… I like tricks too,” Jack hissed through clenched teeth, lying on the floor amid the smoking wreckage.

A second later, Hyperion soldiers burst into Jack’s office, stopped, and froze at the sight of the chaos. But seeing their boss’s grim, rage-twisted face, no one dared to speak. Jack rose silently and, without wasting time, gave orders: find Alex at any cost and place a huge bounty on his head.

Meanwhile, Alex drove the jeep calmly, as if nothing had happened.

“What did you do to my ECHO?” Maya asked, staring at him in surprise.

“Nothing special,” Alex said with a shrug and a smile. “Just hacked the Hyperion system through your ECHO and blew up Jack’s office. He didn’t die, of course… but now we’ve got a little time while he’s busy cleaning up.”

“Hahaha! I’d love to see that bastard’s face! Bet he shat himself when everything went boom!” Salvador cackled, almost falling off the turret from laughter.

“I don’t want to know how you did it,” Maya shook her head, but a smile appeared on her lips. “But I like tricks like that.”

Axton smirked in agreement, and Zer0’s mask immediately displayed “XD.” Laughing along with the others, they drove through the valley and soon stopped at a rise.

Alex got out of the jeep and immediately stored the vehicle back into his inventory. Climbing up, they expected to encounter bandits, but the path was clear. At the very top, a dark cave awaited them. The deeper they went, the colder it became, until massive iron doors appeared before them, covered with a thick layer of ice — as if they had been locked there for decades.

“The doors are frozen… What do we do?” Maya asked, touching the icy surface.

“Maybe we blow the ice? I happen to have a couple of grenades lying around,” Salvador suggested enthusiastically, pulling out a grenade launcher.

“No need to blow anything. It’ll collapse the whole cave,” a familiar voice of Angel suddenly spoke inside the Seekers’ minds. “I’ll help you open the doors.”

Suddenly, there was a dull thud. Everyone turned at once and saw Alex lowering his leg after a powerful kick. The thick layer of ice and the massive iron door had been smashed inward, as if they had never existed.

“Or you could just do it like this — kick the doors down,” Angel remarked mockingly, realizing her help was no longer needed.

“Stop chatting with Angel in your heads. I’m too lazy to wait for you to figure out how to open the door,” Alex said calmly, stepping inside.

The Seekers of the Vault exchanged glances. Yes, Alex’s help was definitely welcome. But what really stunned them was how effortlessly he had kicked down such a heavy iron door, as if it were made of cardboard.

Entering the room, Alex quickly surveyed it, checking against the map. Determining the route, he moved forward and stopped at another iron door. Nearby, a frozen valve jutted out, covered in ice. Without hesitation, Alex kicked the door again — and it came crashing off its hinges, flying forward. Behind it were bandits, who were slammed against the ice by the door, leaving long crimson streaks in their wake.

No sooner had Alex taken another step than a hail of bullets rained down toward him. The local gang — the so-called “Rats,” victims of Hyperion’s failed experiments — fired from their cover. They had turned this cold labyrinth of tunnels into their lair, scuttling through it like real rats.

The four Seekers of the Vault instantly took cover behind debris, but Alex remained standing in the middle of the firefight. Every bullet flying at him froze in midair and then fell lifelessly onto the ice. He lit a cigarette, took a calm drag, and snapped his fingers. In that instant, the Rats exploded into a bloody mist, staining the walls.

Maya, Axton, Zer0, and Salvador lowered their weapons, staring at Alex in shock.

“How the hell did you do that?!” Salvador goggled.

“Do what?” Alex asked nonchalantly, turning to face them.

“Turn those psychos into a bloody fireworks display!” Maya clarified, stepping closer and examining him from head to toe.

“I just altered their molecular structure and turned them into a firework. Nothing complicated if you know how it works. You can do it too, Maya. You just don’t know how yet. Now — let’s move on.”

“Uh-huh, very simple,” Maya said sarcastically. “Snap my fingers — and nothing happens.”

“If you could do that, we’d have ten times fewer problems. Although… better not learn. It’d get boring if we could kill everyone with a single snap,” Salvador smirked, then shook his head, dismissing the thought.

Alex moved forward, taking out more bandits with a snap of his fingers. Salvador fumed — he wanted to crush someone with his own hands, and Alex was denying him that pleasure. Maya stayed close, asking about his powers.

Instead of direct answers, Alex offered her advice on improving control over her siren abilities. According to him, Maya was using them too conservatively, merely controlling her target instead of turning her power into a weapon.

To demonstrate, Alex mimicked her technique. He caught one of the Rats in a quantum grip and slowly closed his hand. The sphere shrank along with the bandit until he burst like a soap bubble, splattering blood everywhere.

“Now it’s your turn. Don’t expand the field, compress it. Imagine squeezing juice from a fruit,” Alex said, pointing to a group of bandits with rusty pickaxes running straight at them.

Axton, Salvador, and Zer0 even lowered their weapons, deciding to watch how Maya would handle it. She focused, lifted a dozen bandits into the air with her grip, and began compressing the space around them. It was slower than Alex, but the sphere did shrink.

Alex nodded in satisfaction. He knew the years Maya had spent in the Athena temple had not been wasted. Though the priests used her as a tool to intimidate the locals, imposing the image of a “goddess,” Maya had survived, gained power, and eventually escaped. She then went to Pandora and became a Seeker of the Vault.

Maya’s mind was entirely focused on maintaining the quantum grip. She had to restrain ten people at once and compress ten quantum spheres simultaneously. Resistance increased, her strength began to waver, but fully absorbed in the process, she didn’t notice her control slipping. Only at the moment when the spheres were about to collapse did she realize — the balance was lost. The explosion was inevitable.

“Take cover!” Alex shouted, addressing Axton, Salvador, and Zer0.

The Seekers didn’t ask any questions: by the look on Alex’s face, they knew things had gotten serious. All three instantly dove behind the nearest barricades. In that same moment, the quantum spheres completely destabilized and exploded, merging into one monstrous surge of energy.

Alex managed to pull Maya into his arms, shielding her with his body. For him, such an explosion was nothing — at most, a light gust on his back. Maya barely had time to register that she was in his arms before the world was bathed in blinding light and shook with a deafening roar.

When the flash faded, a massive crater yawned where the battle had taken place. Everything around — icy structures, machinery, barricades — had vanished without a trace, evaporated by the uncontrolled release of her power.

Axton, Salvador, and Zer0 cautiously peeked out from cover. Their eyes swept from the horrifying aftermath to Alex, calmly holding Maya as if nothing had happened.

“Damn… I didn’t realize Maya was that strong,” Salvador whistled.

“I’m more concerned about what would’ve happened if we hadn’t taken cover,” Axton muttered, shaking his head. “There wouldn’t have even been shadows of us left.”

Zer0 nodded silently, watching the destruction.

Maya was still in Alex’s arms. She fully understood: this had been her mistake. Her heart pounded, and her gaze couldn’t leave the crater she herself had caused.

“You okay?” Alex asked softly, looking into her eyes. “Not tired? Head spinning?”

“I’m fine…” she exhaled, then, slightly embarrassed, added, “But I think it’s better to hold off on the new technique. I might accidentally level the entire continent.”

Alex rolled his eyes irritably and smacked Maya on the forehead for overestimating her power. Partly, he was also at fault for not stopping her attempt to use quantum compression on so many targets.

“Hey! What was that for?!” Maya protested, shielding her forehead with her hand.

“For stupidity,” Alex cut her off coldly. “I said one target. Not multiple. You decided to go for a mass target grab? Or imagine yourself a new goddess? Maybe on Pandora, the ice melts, but brains… well, you seem to be an exception.”

He scolded her like a strict father — with biting irony, but care beneath it. Maya wanted to snap back: she was an adult, twenty-five, she could handle herself. But one look from Alex was enough to make the words stick in her throat.

Axton, Salvador, and Zer0 didn’t even try to intervene — they looked like accidental witnesses to a parental lecture. From the outside, it really did resemble a father reprimanding a stubborn daughter.

Meanwhile, the girls watching the transmission were already doubled over with laughter. Some of them had their own stories of Alex’s “lessons,” and now they felt a strange but sincere kinship with Maya.

Alex, however, had no intention of stopping. His monologue on the “proper use of siren powers” continued until they left the frozen Fridge location. Even Angel, communicating with the Seekers from a distance, didn’t dare interrupt, fearing she might end up at the center of the next lecture.

Eventually, Alex not only scolded Maya but also carefully broke down the entire process for her — with explanations and a hands-on demonstration.

Exiting the long tunnel, Alex, Maya, Axton, Salvador, and Zer0 found themselves on rocky terrain. More precisely — atop a high mountain plateau, offering a harsh view of Pandora’s desert-like landscape.

Alex, finally done instructing Maya, pulled out his phone and quickly checked the map to see where the tunnel had led them. At that moment, a strange hum cut through the air. All five of them looked up simultaneously and saw the city — the Sanctuary — hovering in the distance.

“Well, at least now we know where to go,” Alex said, shrugging. “Let’s move, team.”

“I see the teleportation station,” Axton noted, pointing to a nearby Hyperion installation. “We could use it to get to the Sanctuary.”

“Not going to happen,” Alex cut in, thoughtfully scratching his chin. “The Sanctuary has disconnected from the main network. The only options now are either wings or a new beacon.”

“Of course,” Salvador smirked, picking up a couple of rocks and sticks from the ground. “We’ll build a beacon right here. Rock, stick — done.”

Alex struggled to restrain himself from kicking Salvador. Sometimes it seemed to him that this mercenary would fit perfectly in a dwarven kingdom: reckless, foul-mouthed, and mortally offended when called a dwarf.

Instead of commenting, Alex reached for Maya’s belt, removed her ECHO module, and quickly summoned Lilith. A plan was already forming in his mind, but he couldn’t pull it off alone.

Within seconds, a hologram flared in the air. Everyone gasped — Lilith looked different. Her hair was literally ablaze, flowing like living fire, and her entire body seemed enveloped in a fiery aura.

“Hey, uh… Lilith. What’s going on with you?” Alex couldn’t help but ask, studying her in surprise.

“I wish I knew!” she snapped irritably. “After absorbing too much Eridium, my hair won’t stop burning.”

“Not just your hair!” Brick’s voice rang from behind her. “It’s hotter than the desert! Any more of this and I’ll start melting!”

“Shut up, Brick,” Lilith muttered wearily. “I see you’ve arrived. That’s good. But moving to the Sanctuary won’t work — the station is toast.”

“I have an idea to fix it,” Alex said, lighting a cigarette. “But I’ll need help.”

“What exactly?” Lilith squinted and crossed her arms.

Alex turned to the void and called out loudly:

“Jynx, darling, you there?”

“Of course, daddy!” Jynx suddenly appeared from a corner of the projection, her insanely pink eyes shining. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need your help, little princess,” Alex said with a soft smile. “Open the guild app, go to the library, and find the blueprint for a spatial beacon. I designed it once… out of boredom. If you can’t find it, ask Reginleif, she knows. Then you’ll need to dismantle the old Hyperion station in the Sanctuary and rebuild a new one according to the blueprint. Just a local beacon, understand? We don’t need a connection to other planets.”

Jynx clicked her heels and saluted, like a soldier on parade.

“Got it, daddy! I’ll do it perfectly!”

Alex smiled and nodded. Jynx immediately grabbed Anya, Nyaruko, and Tina — and they rushed off in all directions to assemble the new beacon. Lilith raised an eyebrow as she watched: entrusting the construction of a spatial beacon to children seemed downright reckless. But what intrigued her even more was that Alex had actually dismantled the prototype beacon and spoke of the guild and the library — the places where the necessary blueprints and knowledge were stored. She decided not to ask any unnecessary questions for now and said her goodbyes: she needed to keep an eye on the three girls and Tina to make sure they didn’t start taking apart things they shouldn’t.

Meanwhile, Alex was thinking about how to get the components without relying on magic. He needed a beacon calibrated for the frequencies and conditions of Pandora; building it “from scratch” would mean days of extra work and delicate fine-tuning. It was better to find a ready-made component and assemble it locally.

“What parts do you need?” Axton asked, patting Alex on the shoulder. “We’re not planning to sit around either.”

“A beacon tuned specifically for the atmosphere and fields of Pandora. If there’s one in the Sanctuary — great, but the station there is offline. It’s only good for spare parts. Without the core, I can’t assemble a fully functional beacon,” Alex replied, pointing to the dormant teleportation block.

“Angel says there’s an Eridium processing plant nearby. It might have what we need,” Maya added, glancing at the map.

“Perfect. The plan’s simple: break into the plant, grab the beacon, take out anyone who gets in the way, then find the nearest route to the Sanctuary. I’ll assemble the new beacon while my daughters build another one in the Sanctuary. Any objections?” Alex asked lazily, looking at the four Vault Seekers.

“Quiet, this isn’t about Salvador,” Axton smirked. “Agreed: we break in and steal the beacon.”

“Haha! I like that. Shooting Hyperion goons? I’m always in,” Salvador muttered with a wild grin.

Alex nodded, and together with Maya, Axton, Salvador, and Zer0, he headed toward the Eridium processing plant. He hoped for only one thing: that no giant sandworm decided to swallow the needed component. And it wouldn’t hurt to sabotage the plant a bit — steal the refined Eridium and cut down the corporation’s production capacity.

On the way to the facility, the group ran into a checkpoint guarding the road — loader robots and automated stationary turrets. Quickly and decisively dealing with them, Alex and his companions cleared the path to the coveted building.

The plant was impressive: kilometers of corridors, rows of containers, vaulted workshops, and an entire army of workers and machines. Finding the beacon in this massive complex was a big question — which meant another, far from peaceful, adventure awaited them.

To be continued…

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep