Their ship, when arriving, landed at the Nerifit side of the massive lake on a snow-filled clearing where a military checkpoint was established centuries before. When they were nearing it, they could see multiple mages getting ready at once, and their ship's warning system also came to life, beeping at them.

"What was that?" Keily asked, and Rinzen answered while Ceiline was starting the descent.

"Their mages locked onto us with long-range spells. They would have shot us down if our mana signatures had been unidentified or unregistered. This is a military base; they don't ask questions."

"Well… I am glad we are not coming uninvited." Raufon joked a little, wiping his forehead.

When they disembarked from the ship, Lia laughed loudly as two familiar faces were waiting for them, namely Sion and Simbad.

"Long time no see!" Sion smiled as the rest welcomed him warmly. Even after only a few months apart, he looked much more mature, and he sported a fresh scar around his left eyebrow. "We were told to come and accompany you with this mission!"

"What happened?" Aurora asked, watching his scar, touching it unceremoniously, "Oh…." She signed with her free hand, already comprehending.

"Yep." He nodded while the others were watching the two, and Lia was pulling on the winter clothes of Koa, who was simply grinning. "It was an Undead. An Intelligent variant. But it is dead now."

"Why is it that it is only me who has been kept back from facing one?" Aurora asked now, furrowing her brows and looking around.

"It was unexpected." Simbad interjected calmly, "It evolved while we were hunting down a group under the Major's supervision." He shrugged, nodding and greeting the rest.

"..."

"Well," A new voice clapped while coming to greet them. He was towering above all of them as he was almost a two-and-a-half-meter-tall man with curly, long red hair and blazing orange eyes. He wore leather armor with black scales woven into it, decorated with the emblem of the Nerifits, an image of a coiling dragon. "Welcome!" He cupped his hands, greeting mainly Ceiline, Rinzen, and Lia. "My name is Forlan, and the leader of this base; we were expecting you!"

"Hi-hi!" Lia jumped forward, grinning, "I am Lia Amarin," She said, surprising him as he was expecting Rinzen to take the lead… as part of the Six. "These are my friends; we are the Misfits here on Institute business!"

“Er… yes… I have been told." Forlan replied, trying to remain nonchalant. He knew who Lia was, but still… being the daughter of Reyra was not like being part of the same circle as her. No matter how hard he tried to gain anything from Rinzen, she looked on calmly, only standing beside Lia, watching him with a steady gaze and no visible emotions.

"How far are we from Azurat?" Lia asked, walking forward, putting on the air of a leader, and the rest filed after her, acting as one group, now joined up by Sion and Simbad.

"Well," Forlan cleared his throat, walking next to Lia, realizing she was really the leader and making him think they were truly living up to the name of Misfits. "From here, you need to take a boat and travel around a kilometer in. There you will find a platform where two guards are always stationed as a lookout. From there, they will assist you in descending to the bottom of the lake, where the entrance of the Sub-realm is located. There are diving bells ready-"

"Which we won't use." Lia cut in swiftly.

"We won't?" Keily asked, crestfallen because, for a moment there, he was relieved to hear it. But then her Boss shot it down.

"We are here to train! So no, we won't! We are doing it by ourselves!"

"But it is really deep down!" Folran said, also surprised. Youngsters and inexperienced mages would be crushed by the pressure and frozen by the icy water. Especially now, in the middle of winter.

"We will deal with that!" Lia nodded, watching the rest, "Those who can't do it will not be able to come with me after graduation!" Nobody argued after that, and Lia looked back at Folran, expecting him to continue the explanation.

"When at the bottom," He said, glancing at the rest briefly, "You will find an archway. It is carved out from ancient rocks as if the whole thing was up on the surface once and then sunk into the lake's depths. You will need this." He handed over a triangle-looking bronze medallion. After touching it, Lia immediately recognized what it was as it gave out the same feeling as her stamp for Somia's telescope.

"Oh, this is the key?" She nodded, putting it away, "Anything we should be aware of?"

"Nothing much." Folran shook his head, "A portal will appear inside the arch; you can enter through it. It remains open for around ten seconds before closing, so you better hurry! It needs fifteen minutes of recharging before it can be opened again."

"What about the insides?" Lia asked as they arrived at the bank of the lake, where a small boat was already prepared for them.

"You will come straight out in another outpost; our men should meet you there. The sub-realm of Azurat is pretty big, around 200 square kilometers, and most of it is a ruin of a huge and ancient city. There are three territories inside; Outer, Inner, and Core Region. Our base is in the Outer one. Most of that place is flat and easily surveyable, and there are only a few places for ambush. The second layer is the Inner Region, which has hundreds of buildings ranging between one and five-story in height. The real deal is the Core Region, where there are truly towering buildings made out of such a sturdy material none of our spells under the 5th Tier managed to damage them. They completely dominate the horizon and the landscape of Azurat."

"How tall are they?" Koadriana asked, listening in curiously.

"The tallest is around 900 meters. They are not reminiscent of any known cultures." Folran continued, "They have a metallic luster, made out of some kind of alloy. They are designed to be sharp and pointy. Or blocky. The ones in the Outer and Inner Region are more fragile; many have already collapsed in previous battles. You will also receive an up-to-date map from my second-in-command down there! They already planned out your patrol route and waiting for your arrival!"

"Any sightings of Undead?" This time, it was Rinzen who asked, and Folran respectfully nodded.

"Yes. Five, all normal variants. We had a run-in with them two days ago in the Inner Region. We dispatched them quickly, but some may already be nesting in the Core Region."

"So we are here to look into that?" Koa asked, but Folran shook his head this time.

"We will do that. It needs an expeditionary force to penetrate into the Core Region. We are in the middle of collecting up subordinate forces to do just that. That is too dangerous for one group only, so don't even think about it! You will simply skirt around it to see if there are any stragglers and report back afterward!"

"Okay." Lia nodded, preventing anyone else from speaking up. "We understood our part and will follow our assignment." She smiled and boarded their ship, heading towards the floating outpost a minute later.

"Are we? Really?" Koa asked after they were off, watching Lia with a smile, but she nodded thoughtfully, glancing at Simbad for a brief second.

"Yes. We do our part, and that is it!" She raised her voice, watching each and every one of their faces. "If we are told to take a stroll only at the edges, we will do that! We do not deviate from our assignment! Got it?"

"Yes!" They answered in unison, making Lia nod with a satisfied smile, "Good! I want our first expedition to go extremely well!"

None of them expected that it would be anything but a routine patrolling mission.

…
….
……

The descent into the cold waters was uncomfortable for most of them. Still, even Keily managed to resist it by circulating his mana at maximum, heating himself up so strongly he looked like a living torch as they were swimming downwards. Amongst the group, it seemed that Koa was at home, easily swimming circles around them, leading their group while Sion and Simbad were using light magic to illuminate their surroundings.

After only a few dozen meters, they were plunged into complete darkness, and without the two acting as lighthouses, they would surely be lost. It was hard to tell which way was up or down by the time they were halfway down, and if not for Koa's perfect senses, they may have started to drift off-course.

"We are getting close!" Koa transmitted over, her voice traveling forth without obstruction. For her, it was as if they were up on the surface, breathing and speaking normally.

"I start to believe you are not an Amarin but a fish." Aurora signed with her hand.

"Yeah, yeah." She rolled her eyes, already learning enough signs so she could not speak about her behind her back.

It did not take long for them to spot the archway, which was a bit slanted to the right, stuck in the black sludge covering the lake bed. When Lia got close and raised the key, it immediately lit up, shaking a little, resonating with the archway, opening up a simmering gateway. Without any second thoughts, she swam forward, entering it before Aurora hurried after her, followed by the rest of the Misfits.

"What happened here?" Sion asked, his voice shocked and serious. Simbad was already looking everywhere, rushing to one of the crooked towers before them to have a look around from a higher vantage point.

"This is not good!" Celine gasped as what greeted them was a dried-up land and the burning remains of a camp.

Behind them stood a similar archway, this time completely intact but gone silent after Rinzen stepped through as the last member of their group. The earth under their feet was black, cracked, and extremely hard. Only ten meters away from them, there were a dozen buildings made out of wood, stone, and some kind of metal, destroyed, some of them still letting out thick, black smoke towards the splintered, grim-looking black sky. The walls of the encampment were destroyed at multiple points, and they could see limbs sticking out from under the rubbles everywhere. Worse, there were corpses left behind, unburned, wearing the uniforms of the Nerifits, numbering in the dozens.

"I sense no living beings around the encampment!" Simbad shouted down from his vantage point, standing atop a crooked lookout tower that was creaking under his weight, just about to collapse.

"Me neither," Rinzen confirmed, looking around and gently biting her lower lip.

"Gather up the corpses!" Lia said, regaining her thoughts, glancing at Ceiline, who shook her head before nodding. "Don't tally!" She shouted, shaking Rafuon and Keily back to reality. They were gawking at the destroyed camp, knowing they just walked into something horrible. “Simbad, Sion, Aurora! Keep a lookout for Undead! Koa!" She threw the medallion to her, "The gate needs fifteen minutes to recharge! Stay back and guard it! We will leave at once!"

"Here!" Ceiline waved her hand, and two peashooters appeared next to Koa, acting as extra guards.

Everyone got to work without arguing. They gathered the dead, dragged them out from under the rubble, and burned them into ashes. The simple fact that they were left behind, without disposing of their bodies, was sure telling sign that it was the work of the Undead.

"They have residue of Miasma on them…." Rinzen said, walking up to Lia as she watched one of the newest piles of bodies, just set ablaze by Keily.

"Yeah… this was no ordinary work of an Undead."

"This was…" Rinzen whispered, watching the holes in the wall, the destroyed buildings, and the shattered armors, weapons, and magical formations littering the ground. Sometimes they still tried to activate, flashing in a red light. "This looks really bad."

"Mhm?" Lia looked at her, noticing how nervous she got. It was not showing on her face, but she could see it in her eyes.

"This has the marks of a Weapon-grade Undead… everything points to that! Normal ones couldn't overwhelm an outpost like this, and stragglers would be left behind even if they did! Or corpses that are not part of the soldiers."

"What if it was Intelligent variants?" Lia asked, but Rinzen shook her head.

"No. They would have taken the bodies away… they always turned them into Undead… Look at the destruction and the mangled corpses… this was done by a beast! An Undead beast…."

"Then we have to leave. Soon!"

After more than half an hour of trying out any and all ideas, Lia had to look at them, trying to remain as calm as possible. When the time came to open the archway, it remained closed no matter what they tried. They were trapped.

"It seems our door is only open from the outside…." She said, gulping down her fears, "We were supposed to be here for five days… if we do not report back in time, they will surely come and look for us to see what happened. Until then… let us do our best!"

"Well..." Sion shrugged, glancing at Aurora, "I think you will fight with your own Intelligent Undead soon enough..."