Part 3

CHAPTER 10

Tired, bloody and filthy with all manner of gore and debris, I quickly bring up my Status.

[Status]

* [Level Up!] x7

* [Character Status]

* Name: Callen Byleth-Ipos

* Class: Noble

* Title: None

* Level: 12

* XP: 300/3200

* HP: 97/170 (5/minute)

* Mana: 50/250 (10/minute)

* Strength: 15

* Vitality: 12

* Agility: 12

* Intelligence: 20

* Wisdom: 20

* Stat Points: 24

* [New Legacy Skill Unlocked]

* Echoes of the Ancients:

○ Observe: Assess beings at a glance. Threat levels and information are recorded.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

That skill is a game-changer. Information is the most vital part of war, or so the books I have read have told me. The House of Nebiros, the one running this facility, will answer to their crimes, preferably at the tip of a blade. I must experiment with my system once I get as far away as Devilishly possible from this place, lest He shows up.

The fact that I could have died here does not escape me. Nothing is ever guaranteed in this world. I am weak. If I am to ever get what I need, power is a must. That starts now. I focus on each attribute to bring up their descriptions.

As the adrenaline of the intense battle left my body, I realised that this damned facility must hold more ‘experiments’ than just me and quickly doubled back towards the rooms labelled ‘containment’ on my map.

The state of the corridors warrants an inspection from whatever bastard designed this place, making my life just that little bit harder. Cracks crisscross the floors, walls and ceiling. Concrete chunks lie around the darkened corridors. As I come across the blast door to the room, I ignore my body's protests, summon my blade and make quick work of it.

Inside was a sight that I will never forget. Broken incubation pods litter the lab, each containing a ‘subject’ younger than the other. Children, some of whom could be generously labelled as toddlers, were the sorry souls who once occupied this room. They came in all shapes, sizes, genders and species: devils, Fallen Angles, Yokai and even a few humans. Their little bodies were subject to unspeakable horrors, bruises and injections marring their skin. At what I estimate is sixteen, I was an adult in all but name in Devil society. And I thought that the Nebiros could not have stooped any lower.

The realisation hit my tired mind like a freight train. They were all dead. They should be alive. Until some bastard decided to gallivant around the facility, swinging his big stick and dropping a fucking Singularity on the base. The fact that their life support was not tied to the auxiliary power did not escape me, but it does not make the reality of me being a mass fucking murderer any easier. I killed them.

‘Actions have consequences, Callen’. [SB2] The pained voice of my mother sounded. A phrase I was intimately aware of yet has been buried in the depths of my memories echoed like a gong in my mind.

I could not hold it any longer. I threw up what little I had in my stomach. And ran.