Maximilian's mind raced as he tried to figure out what approached. At first he thought it was some sort of bug but the closer it got the more he could hear and that wasn't it. He formed a mine field of electricity in front of him and then hopped back several feet just in case. If possible he wanted to conserve as much spiritual energy as possible. With his preparations completed he braced himself for whatever approached. He wasn't kept waiting for very long. A creature as tall as the cave came around the corner. It was a worm like creature with sharp bone appendages surrounding its mouth. A mouth filled with sharp bone white teeth. He wasn't sure if the creature could see or if it had some other sense nor did it matter. Maximilian launched a dozen bursts of electricity followed by several blades of wind. The onslaught lasted less than a second before the beast was torn apart. Maximilian stared at the spot where the creature had been. He wasn't sure what it was but something stopped him. Instead, he blasted the walls, ceiling and ground with jets of water. It wasn't until all traces of the creature had been washed away that he relaxed.

  "What was that?" He asked as a burst of energy flooded into his dantian. Had the creature not died? Or was he just paranoid. He wasn't the biggest fan of worms but he doubted that was enough to make him that nervous. He pushed his worry to the back of his mind and went after the voice. He had to search for another five minutes before he located the missing kid. He looked terrible. From what he could tell the child was around age seven or so with short dirty blonde hair. His right leg was broken and Maximilian didn't understand how the kid had survived. Not with that kind of creature down here. "Hey little one." He summoned a pill bottle into his hand and placed into the boy's mouth. "Swallow that for me. I am going to get you out of here." The child was either too weak or too afraid to respond. Maximilian's heart broke when the boy bone snapped into place. The boy let out a whimper which prompted Maximilian to brace him against his chest. He gave the kid a moment and then lifted him into his arms.

  "I need you to help me out. I need to know if there were any one else without you when you came down."

  "Y-yes, we got lost. I-I tried to find them."

  Maximilian nodded and patted the boy on his head. "No need to worry. I'll find them. I am going to take you back up." His original plan was long sense forgotten. He wrapped the pair of them in a bubble of howling wind. The boy's grip tightened and Maximilian regretted his inability to quiet it down. "Its okay. The roars will keep anything from finding us. It will protect us." He said as he raced back. He was moving faster than any human had a right to move and it still felt too long. His mind raced with possibilities. Every sound felt like the nail in the coffin of a child he would be too slow to save. When he found himself back in the warehouse he practically exploded out of the ground. He didn't have time to waste so he placed the boy down. "Wait here. Someone will come and find you." He raised a hand and unleashed a blast of electricity followed by one of water and finally wind. He hadn't bothered to come up with a signal for them to come here so he decided to go with something they couldn't ignore. He wanted to wait for them but he knew he couldn't. He doubted all the kids would get that lucky. "How many of you were down there?" The boy held up five fingers and Maximilian's heart dropped. He reached down and carved a quick message into the stone. It wasn't enough but his mother should put it together. He glanced at the body and then leaped back into the hole. He wasn't sure where the children were but he doubted they could go far. The real danger were the monsters and they were something he could deal with. He dumped out several spirit stones and shattered them. The tunnel's energy saturation almost tripled. He then released his dao fields. Now that he had fought one of the creatures he had a rough idea of their strength. He calibrated his power so that he would appear weak enough that they would bite.

  It took him almost ten minutes to get the ratio just right but when he saw the fruits of his labor he couldn't blame himself too much. Several beasts crawled up out of the depths only to die by his attacks. He wasn't sure if the Network had created these ugly things or if they were insects in the depths of the world. He found the second child less than half an hour later hiding in a crack in the wall. The crack was just large enough for the boy to fit. Fortunately the stone was thicker here which should've kept him safe. Maximilian had to coax out of the spot before he could check him for injuries. Fortunately the boy was mostly unharmed. He looked a bit dehydrated which was understandable. Maximilian made a mental note to keep basic necessities in his bag for the future. He knelt down and let the boy climb on to his shoulders. He considered sending an electrical current through the child's hands to make sure he couldn't fall off but he had no confidence it would work. Not only was he not willing to test it on a child but he wasn't sure he could control it to that degree while moving and fighting. "So little man mind telling me your name?" He asked as he wrapped the two of them in a bubble of air.

  "Jackson but my friends call me Jack."

  Maximilian reached back and pat the boy on his back. "Jackson's a good name. Did you see which way your friends might've—" He had moved into a dead sprint before his brain had processed what he had heard. When his brain had caught up pure panic shot through him. A scream. Someone had screamed. He ran through the labyrinthine tunnels for what felt like an eternity until he found what he was looking for. A girl who couldn't have been older than twelve hid inside a crack in the stone. A creature that looked like a stone shark with legs crashed into it trying to eat her. Maximilian condensed several blades of air and shot them at the creature. The wind lacerated the beast in three places. One of which almost tore one of its legs off. Dark brown blood poured out of the wounds. Maximilian's gaze hardened as the beast turned toward him. Before it could charge it was blasted with a jet of water and then a electricity one seconds after the other. The combined attack was more than enough to kill it but that did nothing to quench his fury. He blasted what remained of the corpse away from the trapped child before he knelt down and flashed her the best smile he could manage.

  "Hey there. I've gotten rid of the monster would you mind coming out?" When the girl didn't move he had to fight back the urge to sigh. He couldn't tell if it was shock or if she was just afraid of him but they couldn't stay here forever. He was just about to try and break through the stone when Jackson started talking. The boy's voice was so quiet that a stiff breeze could've silenced him, but it was enough. The preteen slowly crawled out. Maximilian looked her over and then gave her a healing pill. Her injuries likely weren't life threatening but he didn't want to take the risk. He decided to pick the girl up instead of letting her walk. It wasn't that she couldn't do it, but it would take too long, and time was the enemy right now. Once they were both secure, he made his way back. It took him almost twenty minutes to get which was reasonable but still felt like it was too long. The group emerged into the fresh air of the surface world. Maximilian was relieved to see his mother and Joshua waiting for him. He handed over the children and was about to head back down when he was stopped.

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  "We've closed off the settlement to outsiders for the time being." His mother began. "We are taking an accounting of how many people we have, and it appears we will need to form an orphanage."

  Maximilian nodded. The untold part of her statement placed a weight on his shoulders. He knew that between the monsters and the human monsters a lot of people would've passed away. He could now see the proof that. It made the weight on his shoulders feel ten times heavier. "Take them away. I believe there are two more kids but I can't be sure. Once I find them I will bring them up." He wanted to say more but he couldn't find the words. He couldn't even promise that they would be safe. Or that he would find them. Or any number of things. Instead he turned and leaped back beneath the ground. Once again he turned himself into bait and charged through the caves. He unleashed arcs of electricity to mark the paths he had taken. At least that was what he told himself. After what felt like an eternity he found a body laying on the ground. His heart stopped. The world felt like it was closing in with every step. He was just about to pick up the body when he saw something. His eyes widened as he knelt down and placed his head next to the child's chest. He listened for a heart beat hoping against hope that he was right.

  When he finally heard the sweet sound he couldn't help but smile. He took another second to compose himself before he focused on the task at hand. From what he could tell the child, a boy who couldn't be older then ten had been bitten by something small. The bite was two needle like puncture wounds. He couldn't tell how long the child had been here which meant he had to assume the worse. He gingerly reached down and wrapped the wound in a bubble of water. He had thought he had a good hold on his daos but this felt different it. He knew what to do but he couldn't help but worry about what would happen if he failed. He formed two thin streams of water and was about to send them into the child's body when he froze. He was too tense. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He silenced the thoughts that threatened to drag him down into the abyss of what-if. He couldn't do anything about what had happened. He couldn't change the situation they only thing he could control is what happens next. He opened his eyes and looked down at the child. He wouldn't fail. He formed two threads of water and tried to bring the purifying aspect of water to the surface. He wasn't sure if that would help him now.The dao seemed solid already or rather his understanding of it did but it made him feel better. He closed his eyes so he could better visualize the flow of water. If the bite injected a poison, he would need to be careful and wash it out without impeding the flow of blood.

  Seconds felt like hours as he searched the child's body. He found several injuries, injuries that he tried to wrap in water with varying levels of success. He did what he could to improve the recovery process but he had pills for that. When he finally found what he was looking for his head ached. As if his head had become the battleground for two armies. Armies that were determined to blow each other up with dynamite. Still, now that he had found it he found new strength. The situation was both better and worse than he had thought. There was no ball or spot of poison inside the child. It had already started attacking his heart. Fortunately he was pretty sure he could heal it the same way it hurt him. He just had to do it carefully. He gently but firmly wrapped a bubble of water around the organ and pushed it into the heart. The child let out a sickening groan but didn't wake up. He tightened the bubble around the heart until he began to extract the poison. When he was certain he had gotten it all he began the extraction process. The water flowed backwards through the vessels, arteries and every other part he had come across. When he withdrew his dao he threw the now dirty water against a back wall and picked up the child. He wasn't in the mood for a fight so he opted for speed.

  He glanced at the unknown child every chance he got. He had wanted to give him a healing pill but there was no way the child could swallow it. The last thing he wanted was to hurt him after he had gone through so much. He released his Dao field to help but he couldn't tell how effective it was. Doing so also did nothing for the pain in his head. By the time he emerged from the subterranean world his dao field had become irregular. He had given up on manifesting it properly instead he concentrated on the area around the child. He was just about to place the boy down when two people he didn't recognized stepped out of the darkness. He almost struck out at them in confusion when the rational part of his mind caught up. He doubted anyone was able to sneak in here after everything had happened. They should be is people.

  "I uh we've" The woman who looked to be around eighteen or so began. "We've been asked to help you by um your mom?" The inflection caused a wave of irrational irritation to rise in his chest. Either she had sent them or she hadn't. What was the question? He just managed to stop himself from saying that when he handed the boy over to them.

  "Take him to my mother or whoever is still awake." He summoned a healing pill from his bag and handed it over. "Give that to him when he wakes up and is able to swallow." The woman looked like she wanted to say something but took another look at Maximilian. Whatever she saw must've made her think better of it because she just nodded and then turned to her companion. The two then disappeared into the darkness. Maximilian turned back toward the hole and wanted to jump in but he knew better. He was out of gas. Or to be more specific his mental energy was down. He didn't need it to fight but he did need it to clear up his mind. Which meant he needed to recover. He summoned two mental energy crystals. Part of him wanted to rip the energy from the stones but he doubted that would be good. It was hard to say for sure since there were no analogs on Earth for this but he knew taking medicine faster didn't help. Especially not medicine that had to enter your bloodstream. He assumed that would work the same. For the first time since this chaos started he watched the energy with trepidation. When the crystals were exhausted he launched back into the depths. Now that he had found almost all the children he no longer bothered with discretion. If anything he hoped the display would draw out the child or scare everything away. His eyes flashed when something leaped out of the dark at him. The creature had just appeared when it was torn apart by all three of his daos. Maximilian once he was sure it was dead he pushed it out of his mind.

  He was about to give up when he heard crying. It was soft almost too soft even for his improved hearing, but it was crying. He stopped moving and just listened. It was coming from behind a wall to his right. He braced the palm of hand against a spot to the left of the sound. He then moved over fifteen feet. He wasn't sure how strong the wall would be but he wasn't willing to risk crushing the child. After that he pulled his hand back and formed a ball of water and then wrapped it in a disc of electricity. Next, he added another of wind. Maintaining all three daos like this was incredibly difficult. He attempted to increase its size but as soon as he added more energy the ball became unstable. At first, he thought the issue was one of control but that wasn't it. The issue was his dao. Specifically, the dao of squall. It wasn't strong enough to compare to the others. He hadn't considered that to be a problem but now that he thought it about it he couldn't find fault. It wasn't a problem for now though. He pressed the ball into the stone. Stone that lasted less than a second before it was obliterated. As soon as the wall was destroyed he stepped through. He found himself in a chamber. Something made out of the black stone from before only this was much more powerful. It was also clearly worked. His attention was drawn the spot where he had heard the voice and the child huddled against the wall.