Chapter 6
Rest in Peace
In the barren lands I stood on the hill again, holding the little girl’s hand. The army of human giants were still kneeling and the bugs are nowhere to be found. I tried to open my mouth to speak, but as I was expecting, only empty air came out.
In the army’s front line stood seven of the giants. Each of them held what it seemed like… a swaddled baby?
The man who spoke to me last time, the one who seemed like the army leader came up to me, holding a worn-out piece of paper. Looking closely, I found out it was a world map.
He didn’t speak right away this time, only used a finger to pinpoint a certain place on the map.
Germany? What does he want me to do there? I thought, looking at the strange smiling leader. He then took a few steps back, allowing one of the seven baby carriers to come forward. This one had a much bigger swaddle than the rest of the baby-holding giants.
The giant stopped a few breaths away from me, headgear sliding up, which revealed the face of a female with a motherly smile on her face. She slowly unwrapped the baby and handed it to me, startling me in the process.
I took the baby and held it as careful as I can be, nervously looking at it in amazement.
Isn’t that Mah-
“Asura” the leader instantly interrupted my train of thought, informing me of the baby’s name.
“Primus, take care of it” he continued while smiling warmly at us.
Shifting my eyes back to the baby, I found out it was gray with a round head and green eyes and countless arms sprouting from all over his torso, Giving him an unearthly look that creeped me out a little.
Honestly, I was going to hand it back to the lady that just gave it to me, but the baby looked at me and smiled and started making some baby noise. It warmed my heart so much I refrained from giving it back.
I started playing with it, nuzzling my nose into its belly, the baby started giggling and flailing its hands in all directions in the weirdest yet most adorable manner.
Knowing that I was in some kind of a lucid dream, I took my time playing with the baby while thinking about why the leader wanted me to go do in Germany.
After I finished playing with the multi-armed baby, I tried to go and check the rest of the babies, but the girl grabbed me from the back of my shirt, holding my hand again, and telling me that my time here is up.
“Wake up Adam, until we meet again my dear” her giggly voice echoed cheerfully like it always did.
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I woke up to Mahaar munching breakfast with the golden arm sitting on his lap and his usual toothy grin on his face.
“Adam, come eat! I’ve ordered sixteen extra sets of breakfast” Mahaar asked, his table full of all kinds of colored food, most of which I could not identify. Multiple trolleys full of food were parked next to the table.
“Just a min Mahaar, let me go wash up first,” I said while pushing myself in the direction of one of the bathrooms.
“Adam, wait! this bat- “
I just waved him off and headed to the bathroom groggily, not noticing that it was occupied, the door opened nonetheless.
Automatically heading to the toilet, a practice I did every day for more days than I could count in my past life, I pulled down my pants and sat down.
“Adam? what are you doing?” a voice I recognized rang in my brain, the voice of my AI.
“Oh! morning Cor-”
*Hissss*
I stopped for a second, not a trace of sleep can be found in my eyes anymore, my eyes wide open and my jaw slack, looking at the naked woman standing in front of the mirror looking at me, and the weapon beside her emitting the black miasma like mad while ... Vibrating?
She had a beautiful silky black hair, stretched in a long wheat-like braid that extended to her lower back, but her hair was not the most intriguing thing. Something even more exquisite caught my eyes.
Almost all of her body was covered in cool black vines-like tattoos that looked like a dead tree, spreading from her bellybutton to the rest of her body. Her choice is really weird giving her personality, but I’m not the one to judge. Plus, the artist that did it is very talented, the tattoo looked really impressive.
The woman didn’t even turn her head, just looking at me with her usual uncaring gaze from the mirror. She was not embarrassed one bit.
However, the weapon was a different story, I felt that it would move on its own and shoot my brains out.
“Oh! Hi here, nice tattoo you got, hehe” an awkward smile found itself across my face. As much as this woman looked beautiful and intriguing with the tattoo and everything I wanted to dash out from the bathroom, run away and bury my embarrassment somewhere.
However, what Cordi said next stopped everything I was thinking about.
“Adam, this is not a tattoo. this is the D0 variation of the V0x2 poison, a notorious and extremely rare poison that even the most advanced technology is not able to cure, only delay to some point.
“And judging from the spread rate, her condition is terminal. I would give this Laireen three to six weeks before all her vital organs fail, leading to her death.”
I looked back at Ryola with unbelieving eyes while the AI kept explaining about the black veins covering the woman from neck to toe.
“The poison starts from the victim’s core, spreading across the body over time, destroying organs along the way. But what gave this poison its notoriety is the excruciating pain that accompanies it. It directly attacks the center of the nervous system, making even blinking an agonizing exercise.”
I got up from the toilet and headed to the bathrooms door, turning my head to address the woman.
“I am sorry Ryola for barging in like that, it was not intentional. I also apologize for calling your illness a tattoo. I truly did not know about its nature before the AI informed me, I beg your forgiveness. Excuse me” I apologized sternly before leaving the bathroom, Ryola just turned her head back to the mirror as nothing happened after giving me a slight nod, informing me that she didn’t even care about my intrusion. The weapon strangely stopped hissing and vibrating, as if my words calmed it somehow.
The door closed after I got out, with a red circle in the middle of it, indicating that the bathroom is occupied.
“Cordi, did you hack the door on our way in?” I asked her, it was the only logical explanation that I could come up with. The door had opened while the room was occupied.
“Yes Adam, I needed to observe what that woman was doing, since there is a high possibility that she is here to end your life. Apologies for putting you in that awkward situation.”
“Tell me, can she be cured?” the words just came out, addressing the AI. I don’t know why I wanted to help her. I was almost certain she was an enemy, but something inside me I couldn’t really explain, wanted me to save her.
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*** Bertini Dolciano’s POV***
“I thank you again General for allowing me to partake in this mission,” I told the man one more time. “I hope we could catch that man today without any problems like last time”.
“Oh! Hell, even if it’s the last thing I do in my life, that son of a bitch will know agony from each cell in his body. That’s why I allowed your existence here, Dolciano” replied the grieving brother while still ordering his troops.
General Vega just wants me to torture the man for the longest period until he dies, but I was planning on … Studying it. Painful or not, I didn’t really care.
His regeneration abilities are far beyond anything I’ve even seen, let alone his strange limbs. This man overpowered a Grokati dominator who even used a freakin’ surge orb … In a goddamn fistfight, which is nearly impossible.
I didn’t care if this thing had almost killed me before, I didn’t care that it wiped all the data in my facility or the fact that it stole my membrane. Well, it was technically his, but I got my hands on it and he was … dead.
All I wanted to do now is to put him on a table and cut him open, unlocking the secrets of that weird body of his.
Actually, it was good fortune that it killed Galavie yesterday, or at least that’s what Vega thought. I never liked that muscle head anyway. I already feel that the world is a better place now. Unfortunately, now I have to keep the act that I cared so much about him in front of his brother.
Now I’m standing here with a whole freakin army of bounty hunters at the hotel where the biosignature said the man would be. They brought armored vehicles and hovercrafts, they even brought some goddamn heavy artillery to take this man down when they discovered he has a Grokati overlord accompanying him. They also erected two gigantic mobile psycho suppressors in the middle of the army camp.
Around nineteen hundred soldiers surrounded the hotel, evacuating everyone out except the man and his companion. Some rumors flew around the army that he was also accompanied by another person per orders given by the Noran lord backing him up.
After evacuating the hotel, the soldiers circled the premises, more of them pouring into the building in order to flush the man out.
Moments later, with loud crashing sounds, bodies started falling like ragdolls from where the man’s suite supposed to be. Some of them were missing body parts. The soldiers near me were starting to tense from the sight, charging their swords and rifles in anticipation.
After a few minutes, everything stopped. I couldn’t even hear my own breath. Everyone stared at general Vega, awaiting instructions. However, one by one, heads started turning towards the building entrance with a silhouette of a tall man emerging from it, followed by something even bigger than him.
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The man came out, wearing some hipster clothes. Behind him was the Grokati I recognized from the Colosseum event, with only one arm on his body shaking hands with another golden Grokati arm, holding it like a club.
I-Is this an O-Octamanus a-arm? how did he even…?
I looked at the stressed Vega, who instantly started shouting orders.
“ALL UNITS, REMEMBER TO HOLD ON INTO YOUR PSYCHIC SHIELDS AT ALL TIMES, IGNORE ALL ORDERS OF CAPTURING THE TARGET ALIVE, ATTACK!”
Weapons started to charge, bootheels started to flare. Everyone was ready to assault the man while he just stood there in the middle of the army, his Grokati taking a battle stance, ready to crush whoever was brave enough to get within his reach.
After a couple of seconds, my monocle’s interface turned off, along with every single electronic device in the area. The machinery stopped moving; the hovercrafts started losing balance and bracing for a crash. Weapons lit off and shields vanished. Everybody stood there in a state of disarray and utter confusion.
“WHAT DID YOU DO, FIEND?” Roared Vega, staring daggers at the man.
The man started moving towards him in steady steps. Those mysterious eyes on his expressionless face moving frantically in every direction like a detectobot.
“MEN, SWITCH TO BLADED WEAPONS, SEPARATE HIM FROM THE GROKATI”
The soldiers reached out to the daggers on their thighs and charged the one armed giant. However, their bodies were met with the golden arm teaching them to fly, or at least parts of them were.
However, after a while, they started to overwhelm him, and battle cries started coming out of the soldiers reaching the Grokati. They were making what they saw as wounds on his body, but I knew that these were but mere scratches.
I’ve done research on Grokati before. Their skin is so thick, most energy weapons won’t even penetrate the first layer. I wonder how did they manage to catch him in the first place?
I thought with enough manpower, we might be able to at least wear him down. The human-like creature is not even paying attention to the brawl behind him, and is still walking up to Vega like he’s in a park or something.
As I was thinking about how much time left until the Grokati wears out, all hell broke loose.
Out of nowhere, the sky started hailing red bullets, directly hitting the soldiers vital organs. Every shot was aimed to kill with insane accuracy.
By the love of gods, he has an army of snipers hidden behind him somewhere nearby.
Soldiers started dropping like leaves on a windy morning. I fell on my behind, trying to crawl my way out of the battlefield, praying that those snipers won’t see me as a threat and put me down.
Glancing at the man, who was already few meters away from where the shaking Vega is, barely having the strength to stand up, his knees trying its best not to break his form.
I saw him reaching out to the back of his armor and taking out an ancient weapon I knew so well. Several years back, I was the owner of that piece of antiquity; before he bought it for an insane amount of credits in the annual Relic Hunters Auction.
The MAGNUM! I recalled the weapon’s name in my head, it was a truly magnificent piece of art.
“S-STAY BACK, THIS WEAPON CANNOT BE AFFECTED BY THE EMP YOU PRODUCED, ONE BULLET IS ENOUGH TO BLOW YOUR BRAINS OUT” Threatened the shaking Vega. And to my surprise, the man stopped, hints of wonderment appearing on his face.
The Spettro leader took it as a chance and hurled more orders at the man.
“ORDER YOUR SNIPERS TO STOP THEIR ATTACK, NOW”
“Why should I?” replied the man with a sarcastic smile, not minding tens of soldiers dying every second around him, either from the bullet hell or the giant clubbing.
“B-BECAUSE IF YOU DON’T, I WILL BLOW OFF YOUR FUCKING HEAD, THAT’S WHY!”
“Well Vega, I seriously doubt that you will. First off, you and your men tried to kill before when I first trod this land, electrocuting me and burning my flesh. After this, you imprisoned me and threw me like a dog in a pit, where everything tried to kill me for your entertainment.
This isn’t even the best part. Your brother comes after me with his soldiers, trying to kill me yet again, calling me a freak. Now you’re standing here with your soldiers and tanks and whatever the fuck was floating over there, trying to take my life once more. And you want me to stop? Just like that?”
“Tell me … General Vega Atifo, Where the fuck did you learn logic from? … Anime?”
*Bang*
Vega shot him in the face. The man’s head tilted back from the impact without exploding like I was expecting. I was waiting for him to fall, but to my shock, he didn’t. His head shot back up, and a horrifying sight appeared before my eyes.
Did he just catch the bullet with his fucking teeth?
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The man just stood there like nothing happened, holding the bullet between his razor-sharp teeth like candy. He clenched his jaws, splitting the bullet in two before spitting it out.
Suddenly his mouth shot wide open, and a long tongue-like thing barrelled out from it faster than the bullet he just caught. It twirled around the gun and pulled out of Vega’s hand in an instant, heading back into the man’s mouth. he just grinned and crushed the piece of metal under his teeth like a biscuit.
It finally hit me, this man is not human, he’s something more. He is an ancient being treading earth after eons of slumber, and I am the one to blame for all that. I am the one who disturbed his sleep in the bottom of the ocean. May the gods have mercy on our souls.
I wasn’t sure of my hypothesis until he mentioned the word dog, a prehistoric ancient species of a hound-like animal that spread across the earth thousands of years ago. I don’t know what an anime is; probably some stupid creature that lived in his time, and Vega was definitely acting like one.
The man approached the crumbling leader and put his big hand on his shoulder. Strangely Vega didn’t react. It was like he was under some sort of hypnotizing technique or mind control.
“Now tell me, Vega, why should I let you live?” the man said quietly with a smirk.
“....”
Vega just kept staring at him. He wasn’t shaking anymore. In fact, he wasn’t even trying to breathe anymore, as if someone took out his batteries. He didn’t speak or move, just stared back at the man with dead eyes of a man who knew he would face death in a few moments.
“Requescat en pace” The man spoke with the ancient tongue while grinning, I couldn’t believe what I just heard, and Vega was the same, his eyes shot open for an instant. But the man didn’t give him the chance to even be surprised, thrusting his claws in Vega’s armor in search for his heart.
After a few seconds, Vega stopped convulsing, hitting the ground with milky eyes staring at the blue sky. but it didn’t matter to me, I was solely focusing on the man above his corpse, a grin of madness forming on his face.
“I’ve always wanted to say that, … So fucking cool” that man said excitedly as he retracted his claws. He seemed happy with what he just did. I took it as a signal and closed my eyes, praying to every god I know of that my soul finds its way into heaven, but I shot them open again, hearing the man looking back at the building and shouting.
“RYOLA, BRWO’KA!”
The bullet hell instantly stopped. It didn’t matter anymore, most of the soldiers were either dead or ran away saving their lives. I didn’t understand what he just said. The electromagnetic pulse seems to have damaged the UTDs too. But I knew who he was speaking to.
It was the real name of the phantom of the dark sector. The right hand of the mind killer. The Laireen that took out entire armies on her own. That explains the red bullets, not many saw it and lived to tell about it. The sacred living weapon of the Laireen that metamorphs at will to other countless types of weapons. Shooting a certain type of energy that even the most brilliant of minds failed to replicate it.
I subconsciously snorted at the thought that the man was backed up by a sniper battalion. And it seems that I also grabbed his attention in the process. he started moving in my direction with slow steps, raising where his eyebrow should be.
He knows me! I never met this man face to face before, at least when he was ... Alive. but now it seems that he recognized me somehow, and came to do me what I was going to do to him. Maybe he can read my mind?
“Is something funny, Bertini?” the man, now squatting near my shaking body calmly said.
“N-N-NO ancient one, I was just thinking h-h-how we thought that y-you were b-backed up by a s-sniper battalion, b-but all y-you had was j-just one w-woman. H-hehe” I replied, trying to collect myself as much as I can and failing miserably.
“You know Bertini, are you the reason for all this shit that happened? It started the day you put that bounty on my head, you couldn't just let it go.”
Fuck! He knows everything.
“I-I’m S-So S-S-Sorry, P-Please D-Don-”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to kill you, you’re a man of science and knowledge, unlike that retard over there. I just want you to do a little something for me” ordered the man while pointing at Vega’s corpse.
“As soon as you go back to your office back at the guild, I want you to send me every single report about your guild’s findings near Ger- … Kaiserstien city, just collect the data, pack them up and send it anywhere, it will … magically find its way to me” he continued explaining, making weird gestures with his hands.
“Is this a simple enough request from uncle ancient one? “Continued the man with his hand patting my cheek with his black hand. Clear sarcastic tones can be found in his last sentence.
I just replied with a series of frantic nods, my heart pounding like an autohammer. His hand was almost covering my whole face with its long fingers lingering behind my head.
“Good boy, here’s something to remember me with.”
*Slap*
Everything went dark after that.
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*** Adam POV***
“Cordi, Did I slap him too hard?”
“He’s alive Adam, and you only broke three teeth, two molars and made a five millimeters wide cut on his cheek. No major nerve damage, although he will lose sensation in that area for quite some time. Jaws are fine too, with only a slight crack” Reported the AI, assuring me that didn’t kill the man, only broke half of his face.
“I can see that already Cordi. As long as his brain is working, I don’t care. He’ll live. And hopefully the shit I’m facing every day where everyone seeking my head will decrease a bit” I was so sick of watching people die gruesomely. I didn’t want to kill anybody, but I also didn’t want to die.
I knew the nerdy looking man lying there with a blue cheek the size of a football wanted to take me alive and dissect the hell out of me. But he didn’t need to die. I’ve always valued life, so it's not easy for me to snuff it out like that. but if I ever see him again seeking to hurt me or any of my friends, I’ll do more than just dissecting to him.
I turned back and started walking to where Mahaar is. He was just sitting there on a mountain of corpses, cleaning his father’s arm with his new jacket.
“Why don’t you try attaching that arm Mahaar, it’s your father’s after all?”
“I was going to speak with you about it yesterday. You were tired, so I decided to tell you today, but this battle just took place and I couldn’t find the time. I already tried, Adam, it rejected me” replied the giant with a sad tone and droopy eyes.
“Well, we’ll have time to figure something out about that later. But for now, there is a place we need to go” I gave the giant the warmest smile I could find, I felt bad for him not being able to attach the arm he treasured so much.
He looked back at me with hopeful eyes like a child.
“Really?”
“Yes Mahaar, I promise you that I will do my best to help you attach the arm” I stated to him while extending my fist, still wearing my warm smile.
“Thank you, Adam,” as soon as the giant’s fist met mine, his mood switched back to its normal, cheerful dementor.
I looked at the building behind us and put my hands around my mouth to amplify the outcoming shout.
“RYOLA, GET DOWN HERE, WE NEE-”
Before I could finish my sentence, The Laireen sharpshooter just appeared out of thin air, the four horizontal red dots still glowing on her covered face.
“Whoa! Where the hell did you come from?” I pointed at her, startled.
Did she teleport or something? Maybe she was trying to scare me because I saw her naked this morning?
“Cordi?”
“I don’t know Adam, it’s probably that black armor of hers.”
I shrugged and started explaining to both of them that we need to leave this city. And that we are going to a city known as Kaiserstien, the home city of the King of earth and where the royal palace lies.
My companions didn’t show displeasure of my request, so I asked Cordi about how we will get there and after a few minutes, a yellow flying car with black stripes landed near where we sat.
As soon as we got into the vehicle we were greeted by the same monotone voice I heard at the clothes shop.
“Welcome to the United Taxi Service travelers, please state your destination.”
“Cordi, show me a map of the old world,” I asked the AI, trying to pinpoint the area that the leader of the giant human army was pointing at. and strangely, I easily found it.
“Hamburg” I answered the voice with the place we needed to reach.
“Invalid location … Did you mean Neo York?” stated the voice, trying to correct the location I gave it with the most retarded suggestion system ever since the one I had on my old phone.
“Cordi, display the current world map next to it” I wanted to know what changed over the past one and a half thousand years, and to my shock, nothing was the same.
“What in the fucking….” I subconsciously blurted, making everyone present turn their heads at me. So, I just raised my arm, telling them it was nothing.
Everything changed. The topography itself wasn’t the same, some countries changed to weird names while some completely disappeared. The place where Hamburg should be didn’t even exist. It was just water.
“Cordi, I can’t find Hamburg. Also, where the hell is Japan? I wanted to see if they call it Neo Tokyo or not, but I can’t even see it on the map”
“Hamburg is now a sunken city Adam, why would you even want to go there for? And Japan is no longer on this planet. The nation just took over 65% of planet Saturn four hundred years ago, and named it planet Kyoto.”
“Ok Cordi, that’s all I need for now.”
I now had a lead on where I should go. I knew it would be a daunting task, but at least something that could lead me to an understanding of my weird lucid dreams.
“Take us to Kaiserstien.”
“Destination: Kaiserstien. Distance: 1874 Kilometers. ETA: 6 Minutes, 44 Seconds. Fare: 00.00 Credits. Enjoy your Trip MR. Locke, and thank you for using United Taxi Service”
“Oh! I sure will” I said with a grin, looking at the beautiful pink doll face staring at the horizon from the taxi’s window across me.
“Now Cordi, let's continue from where we left off. About that cure you mentioned.”