Empire Building With Infinite Warehouse-Chapter 107: Split-Second Decision

Julien felt his body turn cold.

The armed guards were dragging the chained prisoner right past him, kicking up dust on the road.

He was covered in dark purple bruises, his clothes were torn to shreds, and he was barely keeping his feet moving under the weight of the steel chains wrapped around his wrists and ankles.

But Julien knew exactly who he was looking at.

He had never actually met the guy face to face, but the photo Isabella showed him and Alice’s description matched his.

It was definitely Aiden.

Julien had to make a split-second decision right there on the dirt path.

If he shouted the guy’s name or even looked the tiniest bit shocked, those elite guards would instantly know they were connected.

They would not even ask questions before acting and would just grab Julien by the collar, drag him back inside that garage, and throw him into a dark cell right next to the prisoner.

Julien completely buried his panic deep down and forced his face into the most boring, blank expression he could manage and took a casual step back to give the patrol plenty of room to pass.

He just looked like a simple travelling merchant who was slightly annoyed by the heavy foot traffic.

Aiden did not even look up.

The poor guy had absolutely no idea who Julien was anyway, so he just kept his head down and dragged his chained feet across the concrete, focusing entirely on surviving the short walk to whatever torture chamber they were taking him to next.

"Move out of the way, civilian," the lead guard barked loudly, shoving past Julien with a rough push to his shoulder.

"Sorry about that, officer," Julien replied easily, putting his hands up in a harmless gesture and keeping his voice totally flat.

"Just heading back to my shop now."

The guards did not give him a second glance.

They just kept dragging Aiden straight toward the giant garage where Lena and the Green Gate were waiting.

Julien turned around and started walking back toward Camp Five.

He kept his walking pace completely normal and steady, but his brain was running at a million miles an hour.

’This is a total disaster,’ Julien thought to himself, keeping his eyes locked straight ahead so nobody could see the absolute panic setting in.

’Lena is completely insane. She wants to start a war with another universe, she needs me to brew a magical potion that probably does not even exist, and now she is dragging Alice’s brother right toward a portal that literally rips people apart.’

He knew how these military cult scientists operated since he watched them blow a kid up just two days ago to see if a healing factor would work.

If Lena needed to test the spatial pressure of the Green Gate before sending her elite soldiers through, she was definitely going to use a prisoner like Aiden as a disposable test subject.

The ticking clock was officially counting down, and the walk back to the commercial sector felt like it took ten years.

By the time Julien finally saw the colourful banners of Camp Five and his own wooden stall, his hands were actually shaking a little bit.

Kyle was still standing in front of the shop, looking big and intimidating with his arms crossed over his chest.

The mercenary took one look at Julien’s pale face and immediately knew something was horribly wrong.

"Pack it all up," Julien muttered quietly as he stepped behind the wooden counter and started throwing his leftover glass vials into the canvas bag.

"We are closing the shop early today. Help me move the heavy boxes to the back tent."

Kyle did not ask any stupid questions.

He just grabbed the heavy supply crates with his hands and hauled them into the small, private canvas tent they rented right behind the stall.

Julien zipped the tent flap shut, making sure nobody was lingering outside to listen in.

He took a deep breath and sat down on a wooden crate.

"So there is a problem," Julien started, rubbing his hands over his tired face.

"I just saw Aiden. Alice’s brother is definitely here, and he looks like he got hit by a truck."

Kyle frowned deeply, resting his hand on the hilt of his massive black sword.

"Where is he? Did you talk to him?"

"No, I could not say a single word because he was surrounded by elite guards," Julien explained quickly, waving his hands to emphasise the crazy situation.

"He does not know me anyway, so he just walked right past me. But they were dragging him toward Camp Three. And Kyle, you are not going to believe what Commander Lena has hiding inside that restricted bunker."

Julien spent the next five minutes explaining the madness he had just witnessed.

He told Kyle about the swirling Green Gate, the crazy multiverse competition, the plan to raid another Earth, and the impossible ten-minute stabilisation potions Lena demanded by next week.

Kyle just stood there listening to the whole thing, his expression getting darker and darker by the second.

"These people are completely out of their minds," Kyle grunted, shaking his head.

"They cannot just march an army into another dimension. They do not even know what is on the other side."

"That is exactly why they are going to use Aiden," Julien pointed out, feeling a heavy knot twist in his stomach.

"They need test subjects to see how bad the portal tunnel really is. If I do not get those potions ready, or if Lena gets impatient, she is going to tie a rope around him and throw him right into that anomaly just to see what happens. We have to get him out of there right now."

"Fine by me," Kyle said simply, cracking his heavy knuckles with a loud pop.

"We know he is in Camp Three right now. We wait until it gets dark and sneak past the main patrols, and I just smash through the bunker doors. I can carry him out while you cover our backs."

"We cannot just smash our way through the most heavily guarded sector in the entire military base," Julien argued, shaking his head at the terrible plan.

"There are literal machine gun nests and dozens of elite soldiers watching that garage. If we just run in swinging, we are going to die before we even reach the front doors."

"Well, do you have a better idea?" Kyle asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I need to check the system shop first," Julien muttered, closing his eyes and opening his mental interface.

He quickly scrolled through his inventory screen, looking for anything that could help them pull off a stealth rescue.

He needed something big enough to pull the elite guards away from Camp Three without tracing the chaos back to the humble merchant stall in Camp Five.

’There has to be something in here that can cause a massive panic without actually killing the civilian merchants,’ Julien thought, reading through the long item descriptions.

He paused on a small, expensive item sitting right near the bottom of the list. It cost a ridiculous amount of accumulated system points, but it was exactly what they needed to level the playing field against an entire army.

Then something caught his eyes.

[Blood Arts]