[Third Person Pov]
Annabeth gestured for them to stop advancing, causing both siblings to look at her in confusion.
"What are you waiting for?" Bianca asked cautiously while scanning the area. She slipped her bow off her shoulders and held it at the ready.
Annabeth didn't answer right away. She simply stood there calmly, her gaze fixed ahead as the silence stretched for nearly a full minute. Then the shadows nearby rippled unnaturally before a hellhound emerged from them, silent and imposing. Clamped carefully within its jaws was a golden bracer.
Annabeth immediately smiled. She leaned down without hesitation and scratched beneath the creature's chin affectionately. "Good boy~" she purred while taking the bracer from its mouth.
The hellhound's tail gave a faint wag before it stepped back into the darkness.
"From this spoil of war, Lucian should be able to gain a powerful new shadow," Annabeth said with obvious satisfaction. She tossed the golden bracer lightly into the air, caught it cleanly, and tucked it into her pouch.
The other hellhounds soon melted back into their respective shadows after the Djinn had been reduced to drifting golden dust carried away by the wind.
Bianca let out a quiet sigh and started lifting her bow back over her shoulder, but before she could, Annabeth suddenly shot a hand out and grabbed her forearm.
"What?" Bianca asked sharply.
"Don't," Annabeth replied. "You're going to need it in a bit."
The statement immediately put both Bianca and Nico on edge.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Nico demanded as he instinctively shifted into a defensive stance, one hand gripping his saber while the other rested near his gun.
Annabeth simply shifted her lollipop in her mouth as she answered, "You'll see soon enough."
Without elaborating further, she started walking again toward the massive sealed gate ahead of them. Two enormous hooded statues stood guard on either side of the entrance, each gripping a long spear. Their stone forms appeared ancient and weathered, yet strangely intact.
As they drew closer, Bianca suddenly felt a prickling sensation crawl across her skin. Every instinct in her body screamed at her that something was wrong. Her grip tightened on her bow as tension flooded her muscles.
"We're being watched…" she muttered.
"Took you long enough to notice," Annabeth said with a playful scoff. "So here's the deal, your task is going to be keeping them distracted while I work on the seal covering the door."
"Them? Who's them?!" Nico asked while quickly looking around in alarm.
"You're looking at them," Annabeth replied casually while glancing down at the ground. She stepped across an invisible line etched into the floor.
The moment she did, the two towering statues abruptly moved. Their spears crossed together with tremendous force, blocking the passage forward. Annabeth pulled the lollipop from her mouth and tilted her head slightly. "Is there any chance you'll let me pass freely?" she asked almost politely.
A moment later, ancient voices echoed directly inside their minds. "Turn back. You are not welcome here."
"Guess that answers that question," Annabeth said with a shrug before putting the lollipop back into her mouth. "Can't blame a girl for trying."
Then she casually started walking forward anyway. The Guardians didn't bother giving another warning. In the blink of an eye, they vanished from their original positions and reappeared beside her with their spears already descending toward her.
Annabeth didn't even flinch.
Before the attacks could reach her, everyone else moved at once. Chains of shadows erupted upward while chains of light burst into existence beside them, each set wrapping around one of the towering figures to halt their attacks. Annabeth continued walking toward the sealed gate without slowing down in the slightest.
"Careful, you guys," she called out lazily. "They're more than just statues. They're actually angels. So keep them busy for me, will you?"
"Angels?!" Nico and Bianca shouted simultaneously in disbelief while facing their respective opponents.
"Yup," Annabeth replied simply, never once turning around.
Behind her, thunderous explosions immediately began echoing throughout the chamber. Dust and small chunks of stone rained down from the ceiling as the battle intensified almost instantly.
Annabeth ignored all of it and focused entirely on the massive sealed door before her. Activating her [Mystic Insight], she examined the intricate layers of magic embedded throughout the entrance. Ancient symbols, hidden pathways of energy, and overlapping wards all became visible to her at once.
A wide grin spread across her face. She suddenly started clapping her hands excitedly. "Yay! A puzzle! I love puzzles!"
Behind her, the battle against the angelic guardians raged on. Piercing shadow chains erupted from the ground at Nox's command in an attempt to bind one of the angels in place. Aerarius was struck hard enough to be launched across the chamber before crashing violently into a wall. Lucerna retaliated by unleashing a barrage of radiant beams of light, only for one of the statues to suddenly appear behind her and slam her into the ground. Bianca continuously fired arrow after arrow with almost machine-like precision, each shot aimed at weak points whenever openings appeared.
Meanwhile, Annabeth tuned everything out completely. She tapped her foot thoughtfully while staring at the glowing seal spread across the door. "Now let's see here…"
Annabeth stared at the massive seal covering the door while the sounds of destruction erupted behind her nonstop.
The ward was enormous, layered with rotating rings of ancient symbols that constantly shifted positions. Golden lines pulsed through the stone like veins while entire sections rearranged themselves every few seconds in an attempt to confuse anyone trying to decipher it.
Most people would have seen complete nonsense. Annabeth, of course, saw a puzzle.
"Oh this is disgusting…" she muttered excitedly while crouching down closer to inspect the lowest layer of symbols. "Whoever made this was definitely a sadistic freak."
Her [Mystic Insight] traced the flow of energy moving throughout the seal while her [Ancient Language Comprehension] instantly translated the forgotten script covering the gate.
"Cycle of divinity… authority of judgment… sequence locking… triple sacrifice…" she mumbled while rapidly reading thousands of symbols at once. "Oh wow, this thing is trapped, warded, cursed and spiritually anchored. Somebody was really paranoid."
Behind her, Bianca was sent skidding violently across the floor after blocking a spear strike with her bow. Blood dripped down her forehead as she hissed through clenched teeth.
"Could you maybe do this faster?!" she shouted.
"I am doing it fast," Annabeth replied casually. "I'm clearly doing a speedrun if you haven't noticed."
A deafening explosion echoed through the chamber as Nico unleashed a wave of darkness from his blade. One of the angelic statues staggered backward before immediately trying to rush past him toward Annabeth.
"Oh no you don't!" Nico snapped.
Chains of darkness burst upward and wrapped around the statue's legs, only for the angel to grab him and drag him along the ground with terrifying force. Nico barely managed to dig his sword into the floor to stop himself.
At the same time, another statue abruptly vanished from Bianca's sight entirely.
"Behind—!" Bianca started.
Before the angel could reach Annabeth, reality around it suddenly twisted. The floor shifted sideways unnaturally while entire sections of the battlefield rotated like puzzle pieces. Nebula stood nearby with glowing eyes and both hands raised as magic distorted the chamber itself.
The charging angel abruptly found itself redirected straight into a collapsing stone pillar instead.
"Wrong direction," Nebula said smugly, "Don't be so hard headed… hehe, get it? Cause you're made of stone"
The statue exploded through the debris anyway.
"WHY ARE THEY SO HARD TO KILL?!" Aerarius screamed while flying through the air after getting punched directly through a wall.
"THEY'RE ANGELS!" Nico shouted back while narrowly ducking a spear thrust. "WHAT WERE YOU EXPECTING?!"
"I don't know! Something more benevolent and with a lot more grace!!"
Annabeth without looking back asked, "Can you guys not shout I'm trying to concentrate"
The others stared at her in disbelief.
"You could at least pretend to care?!" Bianca shouted while blocking another strike with her bow.
"I care deeply," Annabeth replied while still focused on the puzzle. "You guys are doing amazing."
Lucerna barely managed to catch Nox with a construct of light before another spear nearly pierced through both of them.
Meanwhile Annabeth remained completely focused on the door.
Blueprint Projection activated around her as dozens of glowing architectural models appeared in the air. Transparent diagrams layered themselves over the gate while countless calculations rapidly rearranged themselves around her.
"Okay… so the outer ring is fake…" she muttered. "The middle layer is intentionally misaligned… and the actual lock mechanism is buried underneath a causality loop. That's annoying."
She reached out and tapped several symbols. Instantly the entire seal changed. New symbols emerged while dozens of glowing pathways shifted positions again.
Annabeth gasped dramatically. "Ooooh! It adapts! That's adorable! But so I can bitch!"
A spear suddenly flew toward the back of her head.
CLANG!
Nox intercepted it with a massive wall of shadows before growling toward the others. "Would someone stop letting them get this close?!"
"We're trying!" Bianca shouted while firing three arrows in rapid succession directly into an angel's face.
The arrows exploded on impact, forcing the construct backward several steps.
Blood dripped from Bianca's arm while Nico looked even worse beside her. His clothes were torn apart in several places and one of his shoulders hung unnaturally low after taking a direct hit earlier.
Meanwhile Annabeth casually sat cross-legged in front of the gate.
"Let's see…" she hummed while tapping her chin with her lollipop. "Ancient warding mixed with ritual architecture and spiritual locking mechanisms…"
Her eyes suddenly lit up. "Oh you sneaky little thing."
Using Architect's Eyes, she immediately perceived the hidden structural weakness buried deep within the seal. The entire mechanism wasn't meant to be brute forced. It was designed around symbolic completion.
The lock itself was incomplete.
"That's why one section keeps resetting…" she realized aloud. "It's missing an anchor."
The symbols shifted again before a hollow section appeared briefly near the center of the gate. Annabeth grinned. "There you are."
She immediately began moving. Her fingers traced symbols through the air while Arcane Warding spread across the door in glowing blue lines. Instead of attacking the seal, she reinforced parts of it temporarily to prevent the shifting mechanisms from resetting again.
Another explosion erupted behind her.
Nebula suddenly screamed as one of the angels broke through her magical barrier and slammed her into the ground hard enough to crater the stone beneath her.
"NEBULA!" Lucerna shouted.
The angel immediately tried rushing Annabeth again.
Without even looking back, Annabeth snapped her fingers. The floor beneath the angel instantly transformed into thick binding chains through alchemical transmutation. The construct stumbled for half a second before Aerarius tackled it sideways with enough force to send both of them rolling across the battlefield.
Annabeth's attention remained entirely on the hollow section in the center of the seal. Finally, only one piece remained missing—a central keystone node that required a physical anchor of equivalent spiritual density. Annabeth pulled the lollipop from her mouth, stared at it for half a second, then bit down hard, crunching the candy. She held the stick in her palm.
"[Equivalent Exchange]," she said quietly.
Understanding the candy's simple composition—sugar, flavoring, a tiny bit of her own saliva and lingering life energy—she transmuted it on the spot. The materials dissolved and reformed into a perfectly shaped crystalline rune, glowing with soft golden light that matched the seal's frequency. She pressed it into the final indentation.
Annabeth flicked the newly created piece upward before catching it. "Perfect."
She immediately slammed it into the hollow section. The entire chamber froze. Every symbol across the gate suddenly illuminated at once. Then the enormous seal began rotating loudly as ancient mechanisms buried deep within the structure activated for the first time in centuries.
Everyone paused fighting for a moment as the massive doors slowly started opening inward. Annabeth jumped to her feet excitedly while raising both fists into the air. "Yes! I'm a genius!"
Behind her, everyone looked absolutely terrible.
Nico was covered in cuts and bruises while breathing heavily. Bianca had blood running down the side of her face and several tears across her clothes. Nebula remained half collapsed against a wall trying to steady her breathing. Aerarius looked like he had been repeatedly thrown through a building. Lucerna's light constructs flickered unstably around her.
Even the angelic statues looked damaged now. Cracks ran down the middle of both constructs while pieces of stone continuously fell from their bodies.
Annabeth finally turned around fully and blinked at everyone's condition.
"…Wow," she said honestly. "You guys look rough."
"ROUGH?!" Nico barked incredulously. "We almost died like twelve times!"
Bianca pointed furiously at one of the statues. "That thing stabbed me!"
"And?" Annabeth asked. "Did you die?"
"…No?!"
"Then you're fine."
Before anyone could continue arguing, a low cracking sound echoed throughout the chamber. Everyone slowly turned toward the damaged angelic statues.
Golden light started leaking from the massive cracks running down their bodies.
Annabeth's cheerful expression immediately returned. "Oh right," she said casually. "Don't lose focus yet. Second phase is about to begin."
Everyone froze.
"…Second phase?" Nico repeated weakly.
"SECOND PHASE?!" everyone shouted together.
As if on cue, the golden light pouring from the cracked statues intensified. The broken forms dissolved completely, the energy rising and swirling before coalescing into two new, far more imposing figures. These were true angel warriors—tall, armored in shining plates, with large white wings spread wide and golden helmets covering their faces. Each held a long, crackling spear that radiated divine power.
"…You have got to be kidding me," Bianca whispered.
"Oh come on!" Nico groaned.
Nebula looked ready to pass out. "I hate this place…"
Meanwhile Annabeth casually started walking through the now opened doorway.
"You guys keep them entertained while I grab what we came for," she said while waving one hand dismissively without bothering to look back.
Nico stared at her in disbelief. "WAIT WHAT?!"
"Try not to die!" Annabeth called out helpfully as she disappeared deeper into the tomb.
The angelic warriors immediately lowered their spears toward the exhausted group.
"…I'm going to strangle her," Bianca muttered while raising her bow again.
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