"Kick my ass? It's a little premature to be planning that when you might not even survive this, don't you think?" Hal asked with a sneer.

He knew why Wade was now starting to show hostility which was that what Lucile had said at the party hall and what Hal had said to it had finally sunk into his thick skull.

Hal had no interest in playing dumb.

"I might not survive this? What, you think because you were able to take care of some almost powerless guards, you can actually outlive me during this attack?" Wade asked with a sneer of his own.

Hal's expression remained the same,

"Of course I do. You see, the one Gavin is actually after is you. If I trade you to him in exchange for both I and Lucile's safe exit, I am sure he would accept.

Granted, he could very well change his mind and stab us in the back eventually but at least you would be long dead and unable to gloat by then. Am I right Lucy?" Hal asked. Once again, showing off his tendency to shorten names.

Lucile tried not to let show how much she liked it and answered in a clear voice and with a shrug,

"Of course you are."

Wade gaped,

"You are taking his side?"

Hal looked incredulous,

"It's like you haven't even been paying attention. She did not go against Gavin for you, she did it for me. Also, are you really that stupid or just in denial. You rejected her proposal of investment and you still want to act like everything is okay.

Come on man, that's not the way to a woman's heart. At the very least, you should have agreed to the investment. Used it as a building block. But you lack all the subtleties of a player."

Lucile cleared her throat,

"You do know I'm right here, right?"

Hal smiled at her,

"Of course I did. By player, I obviously meant 'incredible lover'"

Lucile rolled her eyes and looked to Wade,

"I was really upset by your decision not to assist me and I could very well have found ways to force you, especially since it would have been easy to get you alone. But I refrained because it was your choice.

Even without your help, I am confident my business will thrive. Now can we finally get a move on? I'm tired of this."

Wade gulped at the intensity of her gaze and sighed as he turned around and continued leading the way.

Hal waited a few minutes and then asked the question that had been on his mind for a while,

"Hey, Wade, exactly why do you believe this temple to be our safest bet?"

Wade was quiet for a while before he finally decided to speak,

"The temple is a sort of monument to the black lake that used to be in this area. Because of its unusual color, it was believed to be sacred. Drinking from it would result in instant death. It's nonsense if you ask me. The water was probably just poisoned.

Anyway, a pool was built in the temple and was filled with water from the Black lake.

However, something strange happened after... The lake dried up in a matter of days. Because of this, the belief that the lake was sacred was given even more credence and that it had dried up because of the tampering of men.

Personally, I believe the dry-up was the work of someone who wanted the lake to be believed as sacred.

It was kind of pointless anyway since not many even believe or care about the legend anymore.

To cut the long story short, the temple was embedded with defensive Arrays that were to be activated in times of distress so that pool of 'sacred' water will remain undisturbed.

As for the fitting of the teleportation circle, I can only guess it was meant to be for emergencies such as this.

The only reason my and Gavin's ambush of the former Sheik worked was because we did not allow him the opportunity to use the temple as a strongroom of sorts or even to escape"

"Wait, Black lake? Why then is this place called Black lagoon?" Hal asked with a confused expression.

Wade adopted an expression that suggested the answer to that question should have been obvious.

"Because Black lagoon sounds so much cooler." He said.

Hal raised an eyebrow mockingly,

"Are you sure about that?"

The walk continued and soon they were climbing up a ladder or actually, Wade climbed up the ladder and opened the hatch, exited the underground passage while Hal and Lucile simply leaped out of the passage only to see that there were some people who had gotten to the temple before them.

"Damn it!" Hal swore as he quickly noticed what it was the guards were doing which was damaging the embedded Arrays.

Thanks to their 'hard work', he could clearly see where the teleportation circle was and the damage to it was so far the most extensive.

The moment the guards heard him, they turned around and their eyes widened to see their arrival before they ran right out of the temple.

However, angry as she was, Lucile was not about to let them escape.

Without taking a single step, she sent cosmic Auroras at them all, and before the guards could even think of making an escape...

*Bang!!!*

They were blasted away from their positions and dead before their bodies even touched the ground.

Hal did not really witness this impressive display as he was already dashing towards the damaged areas of the Arrays to survey the damage and see if there could be a fix.

For one thing, he was completely incapable of fixing the Teleportation circle which required more knowledge of space and void than a quick crash course could guarantee.

They were trapped here now.

The defensive Arrays though, were still patchable. However, they were old and complicated and his Astral sense was probably not enough to have an in-depth knowledge of them.

And it did not help that Wade was now close to him and breathing down his neck.

"Could you please back off" Hal snapped at him and Wade actually did so with an embarrassed expression.

The truth was that he felt a tad bit guilty for the damaged arrays. He felt that had he not let his jealousy get the better of him and just kept leading them through the passage, this would not have happened.

That said, he also felt it was Hal's fault for indulging him and would have actually said so, if it had not been that Hal was the only runemaster present and the only one who had a chance at fixing the damage to the arrays.

Hal told them he was powerless against the teleportation circle not only because it was way above his rank but because he was also not particularly adept in the use of space manipulating runes and that was essential. But could probably still mend the defensive Arrays as best as he could.

Lucile sighed and then became resolute,

"Screw it. Now we just do what I feel we should have done at the party hall. We wait for Gavin here and we kill him. I am absolutely sure I can take him." She said.

Her words were mostly directed at Hal, most likely looking for his input but Hal remained silent and his attention was completely on the Arrays.

Or at least, that was how it looked to them.

In actuality, Hal was in his mind space and looking through all Rune books he had which could give him an insight into this complicated assortment of arrays.

"This is really annoying" He said in front of the holographic screen in his mind space. He found what he needed, it was just very difficult to assimilate and he was getting really frustrated really fast.

"Maybe Lucile has the right idea. I mean, even if you have managed to fix the array, it will only be temporary and only be able to buy you a few minutes at most." Grimoire said.

"Those minutes are important. If we don't even hold Gavin off for a few minutes we would no better than sitting ducks.

I need those minutes for my exaggerated plan to bring out backup." Hal retorted and by backup, he obviously meant his forces both in the harem space and the Beast habitat.

He quickly got to learning all he needed to learn about the array.

After about a minute of bombarding his brain with the required knowledge, Hal opened his eyes and got to work patching up the arrays.

Then, knowing how draining the arrays and formation would be and having no intentions of powering it and weakening himself in the process, he slotted in Blue gems to keep it running.

*Schuaa* *Whuumm*

The sound of the activation of the Arrays marked his success much to the wide-eyed surprise of the other two.

Not to mention that it was just in time too...

... because Gavin just arrived with his mutated men.