Re: Ascension Rebirth – His life’s work
Prologue 4
[Eternum Calendar - Year 990]
“Clear out the labs and rescue the captives!”
A strong and authoritative voice commanded loudly, shortly following the order sounds of heavy metallic clangs from metal greaves hitting against the concrete floors could be heard resounding through the tight hallways. Imperial knights bearing the mark of the West Tetrarchy, clad in expensive full plate metal armor were in the process of raiding an illegal operations lab.
For months now the West Tetrarchy had learnt of disturbing news about entire human and elven settlements disappearing without much of a trace. Almost as though all of the inhabitants were spirited away, but soon they had learnt that illegal experiments were being conducted for an unknown purpose.
They had found many such testing labs with such disturbing imagery inside; mangled and dismembered corpses and vats all over the place. The smell was even more terrible than the grotesque sights. Unfortunately the West Tetrarchy had always been one step late to such parties and by the time the raids took place the labs were usually evacuated in haste.
Hoping that this wasn’t the case this time, Imperial knights of the West charged into an underground laboratory. Adorned in impressive full plate armor that was visibly better than the average imperial knight’s, a female leader with shoulder length white hair kicked the doors in to the inner laboratory.
The leader was Soumee, a Praetorian Knight otherwise known as the highest possible rank for a knight.
After having cleared out most of the outer layers of the place they were unable to find anyone else again. The last place to be checked was the innermost area of the lab. Once the doors were flung off its hinges it flew into the room exposing a noxious gas that was sealed behind.
“Stand back! Make sure you don breathe in the gas, who knows what it is!”
Soumee shouted out the order, though she herself didn’t find the need to cover her mouth or nose from the gas. The knights under her command had assumed it was simply because she had some sort of magic but that wasn’t quite the case. It was a little known fact that the vast majority of people did not know, but the only people who possessed natural white hair was an undead race known as Homunculus.
Because of this she did not mind the noxious gas or its harmful effects on her body and simple walked into a dimly lit inner lab. To her disappointment however there was nothing of note that could be found in the place, aside from a single cylindrical tank in the center. The water inside glowed a menacing green, with a single specimen inside.
The fruit of this laboratory’s labor; a disgusting entity made from the sacrifices of tens of lives, too disgusting to even call it a living thing. It was a werewolf, but not just any kind, an artificial one. Much bulkier than the rest of its kind, it was as though it was heavily injected with growth and muscle development serums.
It was about twice the size of an average man, standing up at about 3.3 meters in height with thick claws that could easily pierce through heavy armor and kill the man inside. Covered in silver hair that acted as a natural coat and shield against the elements and dead eyes of red.
For the most part it appeared to be dead but that wasn’t the case, it was very much alive, Soumee knew this very well as she had encountered this thing many times before when raiding the other labs. However this one was slightly different, a little bigger and more menacing looking.
This was a bad sign as it meant that the experiments were progressing even further, these abominations would become even stronger. As it currently stood it took around 10 ~ 15 imperial knights to take out one of these, but this one in particular perhaps required around 20 ~ 30 knights.
As to not startle the specimen Soumee cautioned the men to slowly enter the room and surround it. The biggest problem with these monstrosities were not its strength or defense but its incredible speed. If this thing got out into the wild it could easily outpace every single solder and escape into the wild, which would be disastrous for various reasons.
As to ensure that wasn’t going to be the case they surrounded it to try and take it out in this small and cramped underground lab. There was no easy way to take these things out as they didn’t have a glaring weakness; their natural defenses were tough, their natural offensive capabilities were even higher. The only problem they suffered was that their attacks were simply melee based, but even that could be mitigated easily as they had an enormous speed advantage against most beings.
Their plan was simple, Soumee was going to initiate the fight by breaking the tank open and stabbing at the werewolf. If it died from that, then it was fine if not they would move on to the next phase which was to fight it. Each knight had a large shield for defenses and a sword, thus they would make a circle around the lab with their shields in front and the swords sticking out.
Since no knight would be able to take it on, they would act as a wall for their leader, Soumee to fight it as she was the only one with enough strength to do so. Soumee waved her hands around to gesture for the knights to get into position and complying with her commands they formed a circle around the tank.
Soumee drew her sword from her hips and placed her shield forward as well. Since everyone was ready to begin Soumee did so without hesitation. She thrust her sword into the tank and stabbed the monster inside, as all of the water inside poured out the monster cried out in pain from the stab and immediately went berserk.
The monster werewolf started to rampage about by tearing up all of the equipment in the lab, giving very little room for Soumee to move around as she was only able to defend from rogue projectile objects that were thrown about. Once the werewolf became aware of his surroundings it eyed Soumee, who was the one behind the stab and immediately went in for the attack.
It had no prior knowledge of combat experience, thus it merely moved through its instincts and started hurling its claws around. Though the claws were extremely tough and thick, it fortunately wasn’t able to penetrate through the metal tower shield that Soumee held.
“Grawww!”
It shouted out as it rapidly threw out sharp and consecutive attacks despite its futility in trying to get past her shield. This wasn’t simply because the materials of the shield were high quality, it was but that wasn’t the main point, Soumee had used various defensive skills.
[Stone Castle] - a skill that increased a user’s innate defensive capability. It increased a user’s defensive stat by 50% for a temporary period of time.
[Iron Defense] - a skill that reinforced the user’s armor’s defensive properties. This skill only reinforced the user’s armor and whatever shield they were carrying. Meaning that if they took off their armor the skill couldn’t be used. For obvious reasons this skill was only able to be used when wearing heavy full plate armor.
[Warrior’s Tenacity] - a skill that prevented large knock backs, meaning that the user was able to stand their ground even if they received an entire body blow. This skill didn’t particularly increase the user’s defensive stats but it did give them a positional advantage when receiving attacks.
All of these skills were high level defensive techniques that only paladin-class warriors were capable of using. There was one more defensive skill that could be used, [fortification] but that skill would convert the user’s attack into defense but right now offense was also important in this fight, thus Soumee avoided using it.
Soumee countered the werewolf’s attack with a [shield bash] which pushed it back but its defensive capabilities were far higher than what she had originally anticipated. This monster was indeed a lot different from the previous iterations, this one was much more capable.
“Tch, this isn’t good.”
Soumee spoke to herself, it wasn’t exactly the current situation that was bad but the fact that this monster was able to be created means that more could also be created. Even if she kills this one, what’s stopping the creator from creating more?
The werewolf stopped its movements, almost as though it was analyzing the situation, as if it showed it had measurable intelligence. All of the other iterations were simply mindless beasts but this one was different, it was clear that it was cunning and dangerous. It looked around since it recognized that it was unable to defeat Soumee thus it turned its sight against one of the knights that formed the circular wall. The monster started to glow a red hue around it.
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Soumee instantly recognized what that meant, it was a skill known as [berserker] a high level warrior skill for that was the exact opposite of [fortification]. It decreased their defenses while increasing their attack and speed stats dramatically.
“Shit!”
Soumee instantly thought and rushed to intercept what the werewolf was about to do. However the werewolf had a much greater speed advantage over her and was able to dash over to a knight much more quickly and instantly pierced through the shield with its thick claws.
It instantly killed the solider and paved a way to the outside. Because of the effects of [berserker] and since Soumee wasn’t as fast due to her heavy armor the werewolf took advantage of this and dashed outside.
“Quickly! After it!”
Soumee issued the command as she ran out. All of the other knights renewed their determination to fight it after seeing their comrade die, because they knew that if this monster made it out to the wild then many more innocent people would die.
…
The werewolf was finally free from its captivity, however it felt no better than before. Its mind was a mangled mess of memories from the subjects used to create it. All it could feel was anger and hatred, it wanted to vent out all of its frustration onto anything that moved.
Destroy. It simply wanted to destroy everything in sight.
Of course it wasn’t dumb either, it didn’t want to fight those that were stronger than it, only those that were weaker. Rampage, it wanted to rampage!
“Graaaahhh!”
It shouted out on top of its lungs, practically giving its position away, because of this the knights that were chasing it was finally able to locate it. However no worries, that didn’t matter at all since it was much faster than the heavily adorned knights. As though glee had caught its emotions it almost wanted to taunt the soldiers for being unable to catch it.
However at the moment when it finally thought it founds its freedom to run rampant a single explosive sound came from far away. A single deafening sound that resounded coldly through the forest that the werewolf was running through… followed by a small tingling sound of metal dropping to the floor.
It was such a foreign sound to the werewolf that it didn’t quite understand what had made it. It tried searching through the memories of the people that were used to make this monster, but to no avail. No such sound was even remotely similar to the one that this had made.
However that wasn’t all, something else had happened. The werewolf found itself grovelling on the floor with its head rubbing against the dirt. ‘Eh?’ it had thought. It was then followed by an intense burst of pain that rushed up from its left leg. It didn’t even understand what was causing it until it had actually taken a look at its left leg.
‘Eh?’ it thought once more. Its left leg was gone! No, it wasn’t gone it was just lying a few meters away from it, detached from the main body. It started to cry out in pain as it tried to crawl away, staying here would only result in the knights finding it and kill it.
However as it tried to, a single shadowy presence was creeping up to it. At first it sounded slow, merely footsteps could be heard but the werewolf noticed that it wasn’t slow at all, the footsteps were headed to him extremely fast. A cold murderous sensation could be felt creeping up at its back, it needed to run, else its life would be in danger.
It desperately tried to crawl away but the footsteps only got closer and closer until it felt a dark and sinister presence directly in front of it. When it looked up, it was a small human child, perhaps around the age of 10. However, it knew from the glare in her red and murderous eyes, that she was no mere 10 year old, it instinctively knew that it was because of her that it had lost its left leg.
“Poor creature. I shall put you out of your misery now. You are an existence that’s not allowed to exist.”
The werewolf recognized the child’s words. She pulled out a small metallic object, in the shape of an L. it didn’t know what this object was but it knew that it was extremely dangerous, but because of its injuries it was no longer able to escape. Memories of its brief life flashed across its mind and shortly after a smaller explosive sound echoed through the forest.
Then the sound of a small metallic object dropping to the floor.
Followed by absolute silence.
…
“Lady Liliana!”
Soumee came rushing forward after having just caught up. Upon arrival she found the corpse of the runaway werewolf and Liliana looming over it with a solemn look. Perhaps she was mourning for the dead werewolf? No, most likely she was mourning for the people that died trying to create this monster.
A small hole pierced through the werewolf’s skull.
“Soumee… I’ve dealt with the situation now. Let’s return.”
“Yes.”
Without any further conversation they had returned to their home, the West Tetrarch’s palace.
…
“Lady Liliana, perhaps it’s time to be thinking of attending school at the grand capital. Lady Lyssa had already gone…”
Soumee had tried for months to persuade Liliana to start attending school but she was always met with the same excuse.
“You know I can’t, not until the criminal who’s doing these vile experiments are found.”
The young lady was extremely talented as an individual, these past few years was a testament to that. She had become infinitely stronger than her own older sister who was said to be a genius upon birth but compared to the younger sister she would be seen as an average person.
Even right now she was tinkering with some sort of metallic device on the work bench. There were two long metallic devices on the table, with multiple parts spread all around. Soumee had asked her once before what they were, to which she revealed their cryptic names.
The longer one was known as a ‘RT -20 AMR’, apparently it was something called an ‘anti-material rifle’. And to the side of the table a smaller object known as a ‘Mark XIX desert eagle’. These two objects while looking harmless, were extremely powerful weapons, as evident by the earlier werewolf hunt.
Liliana was the true genius, such words were echoed through the walls of the castle. Furthermore she had a strong sense of justice, she voiced opinions on helping those less fortunate than her. And currently to Liliana there was nothing more important than catching the heinous criminal who were creating these monstrosities.
Soumee sighed, she pondered if she should give this information in the first place but decided to do so.
“Lady Liliana, it seems that the culprit behind these incidents is also moving the Grand Capital. His projected movements and base locations have indicated so. Thus if you truly wish to catch this criminal it would be more prudent to head to the Grand Capital. We could establish a base of operations at the school Lady Lyssa attends.”
Liliana breathed a sigh.
“I guess there’s really no choice huh… school. I wanted to avoid that place as much as I could but…”
Liliana made a sour face, but ultimately had agreed. The journey would likely take around a year or so factoring in multiple rest stops.
“Is something the matter? Is there are particular reason why you wished to avoid attending school?”
Liliana shook her head and muttered something under her breath.
“I really didn’t want to go back to such a place…”
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I pondered on how to differentiate Liliana's combat style from the standard magical and acrobatic type that most assassins in fantasy fictions have and after much deliberation I realized, 'wait, she's an ASSASSIN! and an ALCHEMIST! and a COMBAT SPECIALIST FROM THE OLD WORLD!' then it hit me like a truck, 'I should've done this from the beginning!'
And thus the guard dog upgraded its arsenal. It no longer has mere teeth and claws, it's packing heat!
P.S. I just want everyone to know, this isn't going to be some simple school arc, no, far from it. I mean, maybe a little... a tiny bit? Well, I'll be sure to add in a lot more interesting things so it's not some slice of life school arc.
P.P.S. I think everyone from the old world are cheaters.