A vein pulsated on his forehead as he pressured the burly dragoon with his aura alone, making him freeze right in front of him. He then used the woman that got out from his shadow as a hammer and slammed the upcoming wolf-man, sending them both flying into more rubles. Afterward, he cut down with one arm behind him and a shockwave cut the fast-like-a-bullet spear into two, the shockwave stopping right in front of the tiger-woman, having her fall on her behind as she observed the trees, the boulders, and the thick branches, all of them cut vertically by the ridiculous shockwave. Because the shockwave was still sharp as it advanced, the woman still suffered from its power, but having only her clothes cut in two, her body being protected by her own resilient aura.
Oho~? That’s an unforeseen bonus for me. → Shen
Shen felt like whistling at the beautiful view, but then a disturbance in mana made him turn around, looking behind the stiff and still dragoon as a powerful amount of energy was now going out of control in the dragoon woman’s hands.
“Hey, you! Get out of the way! I can’t hold this much longer!”
The dragoon woman that focused her power to unleash a powerful beam was now trying to hold it still while sweat fell down her forehead. She shouted out toward the burly dragoon but he was unable to move even a muscle, Shen’s aura holding him still and petrified.
“Can’t you just cancel it?” → Shen
Shen asked confused, thinking that a teammate’s life is more precious than some wasted mana. Hearing his words, the woman tried to do just that, but even more energy shot out from between her fingers, destroying everything around and releasing destructive beams of light like a disco-ball of doom.
“Seriously, keep it together!” → Shen
“Woah?”
With incredible speed, Shen disappeared and reappeared in front of the dragoon woman that was already losing control.
“Upwards!” → Shen
He slapped her hands upwards and the ridiculous energy suddenly exploded in the air, making for the taller trees to have their tips explode and burn from the ridiculous wild energy. The entire sky was now filled with blue undulations as if a boreal aurora was happening but in broad daylight.
The dragoon woman looked mesmerized at the beautiful phenomena she created unknowingly while Shen, at first wishing to scold her, he simply sighed out tired after seeing her expression, not feeling like breaking this one rare peaceful moment for her. She wasn’t the only one as almost everyone, be them hidden or on the floor, staring at the sky with swirling emotions, unable to feel like continue fighting anymore.
As the sky slowly turned back to normal, Shen then clapped twice to attract the attention and shouted out.
“Alright! Everyone, please come here and for the love of all, stop attacking me, will you?! I am no enemy! I just wish to hear you all out after you learn what happened.” → Shen
“And when will that be?”
“Damn!”
Another voice resounded from through the boulders and the remaining 14 people appeared, their guards up. From the group, a young human appeared behind Shen and punched out with a fist covered in mana.
Shen turned around and blocked just in time, but the fist instantly exploded and sent him flying for a few meters, sliding on the ground and making deep dents. Now his top was completely uncovered, showing the irregular scars and chain-tattoo from all over his body.
“Kekeke~ how do you like it? You didn’t see that one coming, did you?”
“Calm down. Let me talk.”
The young boy smiled with a crazed face and a tall bear-man stepped forward, placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder. He then stared sharply at Shen’s scarred and tattooed body then asked.
“Are you like us?”
The others’ eyes opened wide then looked at Shen more intently. Feeling some kind of eerie aura from his tattoos and observe the irregular scars which seemed healed in some parts but then continued in others, made them question his origins as well.
Shen answered indifferently while patting his arms and shoulders off of dust.
“I’m nothing like you former puppets.” → Shen
“What?!”
The young human roared angrily but the bear-man stopped him again then asked.
“Then what is that tattoo? Isn’t it a seal?”
“You got good eyes there. But it’s a seal I’m trying my best to keep rather than break. It’s something that once broken, not just you guys, but everything in this entire region will get wiped out in a flash.” → Shen
“…By what?”
“By one ugly son of a bitch.” → Shen
They stared dumbfounded at Shen unable to believe his words, then Shen turned around and showed them toward his left.
“Listen. If you wish for all your questions to be heard, just go straight that way. You will meet more people like you who are being explained to the news as we speak.” → Shen
“Like us?”
“You know, experiments. However, of lower rank. I thought that I’ll start releasing everyone starting with the lower ranks and go higher.” → Shen
Their eyes shone in shock and surprise, then the young man’s sharp voice resounded and made them wake up from their dazed state.
“And how can we believe you?!”
““…””
The others immediately frowned and thought the same thing, waiting for Shen’s answer. However, he simply shrugged his shoulders and answered back.
“Well, you don’t really have to. However, you don’t need to think that I’m preparing a trap for you either. If I ever wished to kill you, I would have done so for a while now. While if I wished to control you, I would’ve never taken off those rings.” → Shen
The S ranked captives thought for a while then looked at one another. The bear-man then looked firmly at Shen and asked.
“You told us to go that way and we will meet more of our own. Right? What are you going to do with us?”
“We will let you choose.” → Shen
“Choose?”
“That’s all I can say. From here own, you need to hear everything from my friend on the other side of the barrier.” → Shen
“…Understood.”
Without saying any more words, the group left toward the other side of the barrier, with the exception of the young man from before who still stared irritated at Shen. Feeling his menacing gaze, Shen asked annoyed.
“What?” → Shen
“I don’t trust you.”
“Like I give a f***.” → Shen
“You bastard!”
The young man became more annoyed and focused his energy in his fists, ready to shot out at Shen again.
“You liked my fist from before? I’ll be sure to make you eat my punches until you’re full!”
“Pfft~. With that weak-ass strikes of yours? Boy~, you better not fall tired cuz’ I have quite the appetite.” → Shen
Shen smiled mockingly while giving the signal to come with one hand, disregarding the young boy even more.
“I’ll kill ya! Ya f*****!”
The boy focused mana at his legs and with a strong explosion, he shot out right in front of Shen then punched out the same kind of explosive fist.
-BOOM!-
The upper part of Shen’s body was now covered in dust from the explosion. The young man smiled confidently after feeling his fist landing in full, asking in high spirit.
“Heh! How’s that?!”
“I’d say so-so. You barely scraped the skin of my palm.” → Shen
“What?!”
After the smoke settled, the young man observed how his fist only struck Shen’s palm and there was no sign of any injury.
“Damn it!”
Not even retreating, but on the contrary advancing, the young boy focused more energy on his fists and punched out in a fury of punches, creating devastating shockwaves that destroyed the ground around and making for a wild and violent gust of wind to threaten the trees in the vicinity with collapsing.
“AAAARRRGHHH~!!!”
The young man shouted as he punched out, feeling his fists being blocked all the time.
“I’ll beat you to a pulp aarrghh!!”
“Stop talking. You’ll exhaust yourself faster by chatting.” → Shen
“Shut up, shut up, shut up!”
“God, how persistent.” → Shen
Shen continued to block his explosive fists, at some points feeling annoyed by the wind-pressure caused by the explosions and simply deviating them on the sides, such making the young man waste even more energy as he had to equilibrate his position again.
After around 20 more minutes, the young man’s fury of fists stopped having mana envelop them, now striking out only with raw power.
“Heh. Already tired?” → Shen
Shen asked amused as he nonchalantly slapped the incoming fists away from his face, chest, or stomach, making him miss him all the time.
“Haah~, haah~, haah~ I’ll get you…! Haah~, haah~ just wait…!”
“Yes, yes. At this point, I don’t even need to deviate them.” → Shen
Shen relaxed even more and simply let the punches hit him, not feeling any pain at all. Seeing this, the young man’s eyes suddenly reignited and his upcoming fist flashed with a strong shine, now enveloped with even more mana than ever before.
“I got you now!”
“As if.” → Shen
Shen saw this one coming and immediately prepared to deviate the fist, however:
-Trips-
“Ugh…”
“Eh?”
Because of the consumed mana, the young man’s legs gave in and he tripped while his fist continued forward. Shen’s palm also missed to deviate the fist and, as the young man fell, the landing point of the fist lowered more and more on Shen’s body, until it reached as the final point to his most dangerous and devastating point. Seeing this, Shen’s face paled as he was unable to react in time and he instinctively inhaled deeply, begging to the gods and the devils alike for this to be just an illusion.
-BOOM!-
…
“Ugh…”
The young boy weakly opened his eyes while on the ground, then he tried to look in front to see what happened. The dust was still in the air and even Shen was now on one knee, a new pair of pants on him.
“Huh?”
Seeing Shen on one knee while breathing heavily, the young man felt more confident and hastily got up, ignoring his dizzy state.
“Hah! How is it, brat?! Not so tough anymore, eh? What is this? Are you trembling from pain? How cute~.”
Shen then breathed out once again and a rattling sound resounded from him.
“Huh? What is this sound?”
The young man turned around, trying to pinpoint the noise as if chains were hitting each other, unaware of the furious red-eyed devil getting up from behind him.
Back inside the first nest, Ryu continued to explain once again about what happened with the laboratories and what the victims can do from now on. The 19 new characters were also listening intently from further away, leaving the ones with a worse hearing ability stay in front. They all listened with great interest, all that Ryu told them being news and things they never ever thought of. After a bit, they suddenly felt a strong aura approaching, staring toward a side with a frown.
Afterward, the ones from A also turned around. Then from B, C, and so on until Shen appeared in front of everyone with a passed-out young man in his arm, carried like a sack of potatoes.
The bear-man from the S ranked group stepped in forward and Ryu also got closer.
“Shen? What happened?” → Ryu
“I suppose he did something to anger you?”
Ryu asked confused while the bear-man massaged his temples, already aware of how uncontrollable the young man was.
“Oh, you bet he did. Oy Ryu, I leave this f***** with you. Don’t let him get closer to me or I’ll seriously beat the s*** out of him next time. I’m leaving.” → Shen
He dropped the young man whose face was made to resemble that of a pig, on the floor like a log, then Shen turned around and left. Completely confused, Ryu still asked in a hurry.
“W-wait. Why are you so mad?… And why are you walking like a cowboy? Are those new pants uncomfortable?” → Ryu
“The pants are fine, thank you very much!” → Shen
Shen answered back annoyed then left completely, his walking style showing just how disturbed he was with something about his groins area.
Seriously, just what happened…? → Ryu
Ryu scratched his head confused but simply returned to explaining the future plans for the newcomers. His mouth already numb from all that talking and story-telling, he felt like making Shen pay for a good time at a bar with him.
God, how much I’d give for some good beer. That damn Shen better be loaded, I’ll make him buy me the best stuff from the nearest village. → Ryu
As Ryu was already dreaming of a good time inside a bar, Shen returned to the second nest, his eyebrows furrowing now and then from the pain of moving around.
“Fuuuck~…” → Shen
While sighing out curses and bending forward, Shen sat down on a boulder and took out 3 cards with a G written on them.
G, eh? The S ranked had the power of Saints and that Bear-man with some others that stood behind reached even Great Saint. Now I’m really curious if these G ones reached even Semi-God power-rank. If they are past that and into the Spiritual stage, then that would really prove to be troublesome. And Hell no I won’t let another m*********** bash my balls like that brat just now. I’ll be sure to use all I have to pin them down. → Shen
Shen’s wrath ignited for a moment as he massaged his groins. Although he was already healed, the pain was still there and strongly felt up to his stomach.
Sighing once to cool down his mind, Shen then activates all three cards at the same time, and to his shock, what appears are one baby, one little girl of not even 4 years old, and one young boy of barely 7 years old. The baby was now still sleeping with a golden ring on his head, the young girl was chained from neck to the ankles with chains that had blue veins on them through which something like dark-blue energy was circulating and also a golden ring on her head. And the last one, the boy had on his forehead a ring, but this one was made of diamond, keeping him from even opening his eyes, standing still like a statue with his head lowered and his eyes closed. They all had white hair and skin, and from all of them, the baby seemed to be the most unrestrained as he was laying down on an undamaged portion of grassy earth, sleeping soundly and in a carefree manner. Now, what truly shocked Shen was that the girl seemed to be a demon, the boy a high elf, while only the baby was of a rather more normal race: a human.
“… Just what the hell is this view?” → Shen
Shen stared with a confused and even disgusted expression on his face, unable to understand just how far those laboratories have gone with their experiments and results.
These brats… → Shen
Shen then took out more scrolls tied together and on the rope that was tying them, a little wooden plank showed the writings: [Top Secret: New World Project]. He then cut the rope and took one scroll after the other. The first scroll he placed his hands on showed a title that made him freeze in place.
“God Eaters…” → Shen
Seeing the title of a chapter inside a journal, Shen continued to read more intently, trying to understand just what was with that name.
[….After years of researching, we finally understood that a specimen from the animal reign does not prove to have enough God-genes to be able to evolve and reach the pinnacle of the carnal existence: A Godly creature. Although there are such Heavenly Beasts like Nidhoggur or Hraesvelgr, our conclusion is that; without a strong ego and consciousness, a beast will never be able to reach higher levels on its path of evolution, no matter how much or how many essences we feed them. The god-genes show just how much potential a living being has. The more such genes inside their bodies, the smarter, stronger, wise, and perfect a being is. Now seeing how the beasts are rather useless for our researches, we will try from now on only to get specimens of a rather higher power-rank, or with still unawakened latent power. With the energy we found inside the dimensional lair: ABYSS, we can turn any such magnificent beings into a devourer of energy, creating such a monster which could devour even the power of a God: A God Eater….]
Shen continued to read with great interest, almost forgetting his initial goal. He then woke up from his trance-like moment of reading and threw the scroll beside the others then took another one.
“They then found some more beasts, and got down to work, then found out that the people of the races are actually residents of a great number of God-genes, yadda yadda, etc. Come on, I need to focus on these kids now. Keep it together.” → Shen
Shen then shook his head violently and tried to keep himself from continuing reading, although that all he found was actually extremely fascinating for him.
God damn. If they could give more worth to life and not be so negligent with it, I would have joined them in their researches! And “God-genes”? By how they describe it here, it sounds like a helix of DNA. However, this one is a triple, a triple helix! It says here that the more you have, the more of a perfect being you’ll be! Just how lit is that?! They found the triple helix and now searched for a being with as many of them as possible. Ugh… When I’m done here, I’m so going to lock myself in the room to research this. → Shen
With quite the heavy heart, Shen placed back the scrolls that had nothing to do with the G ranked children then continued on to the next scroll. Around 10 minutes later while the children were standing still in front of him and still restricted by their respective bindings, Shen finally reached to the last scroll that had as a title: [New Generation: God Rank]
So G really comes from “God”. → Shen
Shen continued to read and what he found left him completely baffled. The scroll, just like the other ones, was written like a journal and gave out more details, but Shen just read the main ideas and what the researchers tried to do.
[…if there is no such being with enough god-genes to accommodate the power of the ABYSS, then we will create it ourselves. We will try to force the normal genes to evolve and mutate into God-genes. We only need to stimulate them with corrosive energy from inside the ABYSS. For this experiment, we will begin with any kind of specimen…]
Seeing how he was nowhere near the subject of the children in front of him, Shen moved lower and searched down the scroll for more information. He then found another paragraph and read once again.
[…We were wrong. It seems that not just any specimen can withstand the corrosion. The number of deaths is in tens of thousands, while the beasts are almost reaching a million. What a waste of resources.]
Just get to the point, old fart. → Shen
Shen felt a vein throb on his forehead as he fast-read the respective chapter until he actually reached a more informative part.
[At most we could reach the S ranked specimens. Although this is good enough for some foot soldiers, they are nowhere close enough to a Godly being. We must find another way…]
Here Shen reaches a new chapter of the journal but it only continued with more failed ideas of a great experiment, until he finally reads about a success.
[We reached the conclusion that it would be the best idea to infuse and help a specimen evolve while they are not yet born. By modifying the genetic structure of a specimen inside the womb, the God-genes might be created even faster. What’s more, with how we are now able to absorb and preserve the God-genes from other specimens, all it takes now is to insert such genes inside the unborn child then wait and observe what will happen. To be sure that our project is functional and we won’t waste too many S ranked specimens, we’ll first experiment on the lower-ranked ones. To be sure we get more God-genes, the other experiments will continue for future data gathering…]
What continued next was how most of the monsters were created by the laboratories. Although some of them were made by the side effects of the corroding energy inside the mysterious space called ABYSS, most of them were children which had their very DNA toyed with by the researchers of the laboratories. It was also written how most of them started melting inside the womb, sometimes affecting the mother as well and killing both in the process.
“Sigh~…” → Shen
Shen sighed out and a wave of guilt just washed over him, making him shake his head in self-mockery.
I regret all I thought of just now. Join these sick people? I’d rather just kill myself and jump into Hell on my own accord without waiting to be condemned. I’m really wondering just how overwhelmed by inner demons must you be to reach such levels of madness? And I’m asking that as a half-devil myself. → Shen
He couldn’t help feeling ridiculous as he thought of how sick can a human’s mind get at one point in life.
The facilities are destroyed while the murderers are dead. All I can do for now is just search for clues that would bring me to other such facilities. But for now, no need to cry over spilled milk. → Shen
Afterward, he continued reading, until he found an entire chapter about the oldest from the three, the high-elf boy.
