Lord of Annihilation

Chapter 397: Escape from Alca--Tartarus. Part 1

After having learned of their location within the prison facility, the duo headed towards the cafeteria with Prometheus taking the lead. Lucius, who tagged behind him, did not resist his suggestion as eating would allow him to regain his strength.

After following the crowd for almost a dozen minutes, the two men finally arrived at the extensive cafeteria alongside dozens of other Magi guards.

The cafeteria was a massive space, 500m in length and nearly 100m in height. The entire room was reinforced and padded with a metallic alloy of sorts giving the entire room a mirror-y, despondent feel. 

Rows of benches and tables occupied much of its interiors. The northern side of the room contained the serving station which was manned by more Magi wearing a different uniform.

"Wow! This is justdystopian," Prometheus remarked the instant he arrived at the entrance. "They really need to work on the aesthetics of this room. Alter some 'feng-shui' or something, maybe"

Shaking his head, he then turned around and followed a line of guards approaching the serving counter. Lucius had nothing to comment on and simply followed him.

The duo continued to follow the line for another ten minutes before their turn to be served finally arrived. 

Arriving before the serving counter, Prometheus carried a metal tray in his hands and cheerfully greeted the server.

"Hello, senior! Anything special on the menu today?" 

The server, a Magi wearing a dark-blue uniform with green stripes, simply shot him a tired took and quietly mumbled, "Must be new here."

He then reached for the ladle inside the pan before him, scooped up a large serving, and poured it on Prometheus's plate. The sticky, semi-solid food item unappealing plopped onto his plate and unmovingly sat there.

Prometheus stared at this blob of'something' and turned back to stare at the server. The latter simply shot him a quick glance before saying.

"Want some more?" 

Instantly shaking his face, Prometheus immediately moved onto the next counter. He did that for the subsequent six counters, each of which served the same unappealing blob albeit of a different color.

By the time Prometheus had finished receiving his variety of food and found a place to sit, he was both physically and mentally drained. His tanned face had paled a lot with tears appearing in the corner of his eyes.

"Hell! This place is actually hell!!" He cried, putting his face against the table.

Lucius had also arrived near Prometheus' side and sat next to him. His plate contained the same variety of blobs as Prometheus' plate, although of a greater quantity. 

After sniffing at the odorless blobs twice, Lucius used the metal spoons that he had been given and dived into the plate of nourishment. Under his relentless assaults, the small mountain-pile of blobs instantly vanished.

Seeing this scene, Prometheus words a shocked expression and asked, "You can eat that!?"

Turning to face Prometheus' plate, Lucius asked, "Are you going to eat that?"

Receiving a completely unrelated answer, Prometheus remained frozen for a second before hurriedly diving into the plate of food. 

After eating mouthfuls of stale, stinky air for five years, Prometheus was desperate enough to even eat a pile of shit if it was presented to him. (AN: obviously, not literallyI hope.)

Taking Prometheus' answer to be a no, Lucius simply got up from his seat. Carrying the now empty plate in his hands, he rejoined the queue waiting to receive food and got a second, similar-sized serving.

Arriving back at the table, he saw Prometheus wiping the tears from his eyes using his fingers and then putting those fingers inside his mouth.

"What are you doing?" 

Licking his fingers clean, Prometheus forcibly gulped and replied, "Using my tears to wash this down."

"There is water available over there," replied Lucius, pointing towards a water dispenser at the corner.

"I know," replied his companion, before continuing his previous actions.

Unable to comprehend the thoughts flashing through Prometheus' mind, Lucius chose to ignore him and dove into the refilled plate of food. The spoon in his hands flashed at blinding speeds and the small mountain-pile of substance quickly disappeared.

After pushing down the final spoonful inside his mouth, Lucius audibly gulped and spoke, "The food wasn't good."

"Why did you eat it then?" asked Prometheus, rolling his eyes. 

"To replenish my energy," answered Lucius.

He then closed his eyes and dived into his Mental World to take a look at his void energy quantity. 

While the food served in the cafeteria looked unappealing, tasted bland, and odorless as a whole, the satiety and nourishment content of it was unusually high. As such, having only eaten two plate-fulls Lucius had managed to recover almost 10% of his void energy.

'I can't go for another refill since that'll just draw a lot of attention. The server was already looking at me weirdly when I went for the second time.'

'That being said, it's not necessary for me either. With 10% of void energy, I can open [Void Storage] once and recover the contents within.'

Over these last few years, Lucius had made it a habit to always keep his [Void Storage] stocked with copious amounts of corpses to serve as snacks. Having gained 10% of his void power, Lucius estimated that he would be able to use his ability by paying 8%. 

It had to be known that this amount of void energy consumption was ridiculously high compared to normal. However, in order to access his storage within this dimension where his connection with the void was being hindered Lucius had to make do with the high costs.

With him now being able to open his [Void Storage] Lucius had effectively recovered around half his peak strength.

'Still, it's better to avoid confrontation for as long as possible.'

"What's next?" he turned and asked Prometheus.

The latter was scrapping his teeth using the metal fork provided when Lucius asked him the question. Putting down the fork, Prometheus flashed a smile and replied, "Getting out of here, I guess. I've personally had enough of this place."

He then brought his face closer to Lucius and continued, "Now, this is my plan and you're personally welcome to refute it if you wish. Let me explain"

Taking a deep breath, he then suddenly said, "Wow, you smell amazing from this distance. Is this your natural body odor?" 

Prometheus sniffed a couple more times to confirm his hypothesis. For reference, Lucius' disguise does not extend to the smell emitted by his body.

"Stop going on tangents!" Lucius growled, impatiently. 

Shaking his head, Prometheus turned serious and explained his plan.

"Now, the core of my plan is to leave this place unnoticed. Originally, I was planning to leave after four months but because of your arrival, I changed my plans."

"Why is the timing important?"

"Because that's the only time they open the channel to the main dimension on both ends. Do you not know that?" Prometheus asked, confused.

As far as Prometheus was concerned someone who was able to escape from both the 'Power Draining Binds' and the sealed stone exit was someone who had done their homework on this place. 

Plus, seeing the confident manner in which Lucius moved, it was pretty evident that he had some experience with this place.

---To be continued---