Unlike Maximilian, his monstrous bodyguards didn't show surprise or confusion, or even indecision or hesitation. They simply attacked. They were two metres tall, with narrow heads containing protruding eyes that would give them a wide field of view. They had four arms, each with two joints providing additional flexibility, all covered with a thick exoskeleton. Two were curved and bladed on the insides of the final section, like scythes. The other two were straighter, bladed on both sides, more like swords. Their feet had no claws, and their legs were lithe. At a guess, they were speed and agility specialised melee combatants.

They hadn't made it two steps before I'd finished doing the maths. Two of them, one of me. My main advantage, flight, was neutralised by the rather inconsiderate existence of the ceiling. I had some pretty darn nice claws, but they had swords for arms. In a word: Nope. As much as I wanted to gut that guy, I wasn't going to get myself killed doing so.

By step three, I'd noticed that they were just so... slow.

One of them swung at me with three limbs, but the swings were so pathetic that I almost needed to go and grab a snack while waiting for the attack to arrive. I casually took a back-step, then I made a single swipe with my own claw, and the thing suddenly had three fewer limbs. Apparently my maths failed to account for these guys being complete wimps. A couple more swipes and a kick, and they'd run out of limbs. Also of heads.

During that brief exchange, Maximilian still hadn't moved, staring open-mouthed. Apparently having his wussy bodyguards dispatched with such ease had come as a surprise to him. Then, disturbingly, he smiled. It started with the corners of his mouth twitching upwards, but soon turned into a full faced grin, followed by him bursting out into riotous laughter. That was not quite the reaction I expected, but once again, I was interested in seeing where this was going, so I let him get it out of his system.

"It worked! Ha, it really worked! I knew it was possible! You've successfully ascended, but you haven't fallen to the madness that has taken the others. You still possess the intelligence and cunning of a human. Or maybe a monster. Some of them were far more intelligent than we are, you know."

"What?"

"You can even talk?! Oh, this is just too perfect. Grant can take his bloody witnesses and shove them up his arse. How dare he call you unintelligent... My beautiful, wonderful Lily."

Once again, I found myself questioning the general sanity of humanity. Maybe I wasn't quite as bad off as I thought, at least by comparison to pretty much anyone else I'd met... Not that I'd really met many people, at least not for long enough to get to know them. Maybe fixing that would score me extra sanity points?

"So? Didn't you come here to kill me? What are you waiting for?"

"Oh, sorry, I was too busy despairing about the general state of humanity. I kinda forgot you were there. So what's your deal, anyway? What is there about me that makes you so happy?"

"So you came here for information? Very well, I have nothing to hide from you. Tell me, when did monsters first appear on this planet?"

"Fifteen years ago."

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"Wrong," he said, waggling a finger at me. "It was actually over three hundred."

Three hundred? I didn't need to search far through Lily's memories of history lessons to find the significance of that date. The great collapse, a war so violent that human civilisation had come within a hair's breadth of being utterly annihilated. It would be difficult to claim that they had fully recovered even now.

"So you're saying that monsters caused the great collapse?"

"Exactly! One moment civilisation was ticking over like normal, the next we were the subject of an invasion on a global scale. Fifty percent of humanity wiped out in the first few hours, as they turned our cities into dust. Over the next few days that increased to ninety percent as they dispersed across the countryside. And then, can you believe it, they all just went and died. All on their own. Humanity couldn't do a thing against them, even tank shells just bounced off them, but they just went and keeled over by themselves. Can you imagine just how much of a waste that was?"

"Sorry, you're saying we almost killed you all, but the fact that we failed was a bad thing."

"Of course! Have you never heard of survival of the fittest? Humanity didn't deserve to live. We were weak! So I've made it my life's work to rectify this travesty, to bring back our betters and gift to them the world that they deserve. Kill me, consume me or enslave me, I don't care, I just want to see you on top, where you belong."

Wow, when those cops were telling me just how much of a creep this guy was, they seriously undersold him. He worships monsters. Of everything I was expecting when I came here, this was not something I'd considered. But, since it has happened, how best can I use this guy? I'll still kill him, but no harm in milking him for as much information as possible first.

"So the facility that made me wasn't just populating the forest for the hunt, they were doing research?"

"Of course! The things that were released into the forest weren't even fit to be called monsters. They were the failures! It was Grant's idea to turn it into a sport. He just wanted to spite me, you know. Having humans hunting monsters as prey, even if they were just the failures. It was... irksome, but I couldn't continue my research here on my own. Too many unsuccessful tests, too many dead children, too much attention. He just wanted to use them as weapons, but I knew he'd fail, that he could never control a true monster, and now here you are."

"Then why did you keep using children? Why not take the vagrants, the homeless, people who wouldn't be missed?"

"Don't you think I tried?! Don't you think I would have experimented on myself if I could? It needs to be children. Sixteen to twenty is the sweet spot. Younger, and they die before they can ascend. Older, and..."

The alleged human in front of me rolled up a sleeve, and what was beneath was... not pretty. A mass of flesh, out of which poked fangs and claws, bristles and scales, malformed eyes spinning in ill-fitting sockets, some turning to face me. Maws that led nowhere. All of it was seemingly random; it didn't look like a controlled transformation at all, but a cancer. Only parts of it were coated in any sort of skin, and what was there was shrivelled, as if with old age.

"Cells can only divide a limited number of times, you know. Someone of my age will reach that limit before the glorious ascension can complete. Have you any idea how much trial and error it took to get as far as we have? To get things that even looked like monsters? No, enough talking! Now is the time for action!"

Drat, how did this guy run a corporation when he's as incoherent as this? I still have questions, particularly about the control chips and what separates me from the failures, but how am I supposed to contain this madman without killing him? I needed that chloroform after all...

He pulled some sort of plastic stick out of a pocket and had hit a bunch of buttons on it before I could snatch it off him, along with a part of his hand.

"What did you just do?" I screeched.

"My gift to you," he replied, seemingly not even noticing that I'd just sliced his fingers off, smiling as more of the mantis creatures turned up behind me, and from a couple of hidden doors around the room. "My two last orders. Gather before your new mistress and then disable your control chips."

My eyes opened wide as the half dozen monsters raised a scythe-limb to the backs of their own necks and sliced.