10 "Ahah!! I see you have killed him, now we are even," Beauty said, a disturbing giggle escaping her lips.
"Yes, I did. That should tell you just enough about me," Neo said placidly, attempting to play the formidable and dauntless assassin. He was already on his last legs. It would be unfortunate if she chose that moment to attack, so he had to put some contingencies in place. "You should understand that there's strength in numbers, right? So why did you kill him?" Beauty said, staring daggers at him. Neo tilted his head. Beauty's understanding of "strength in numbers" made him shiver. Her concept of strength in numbers meant wraith baits, most especially the ones that would transport themselves to the point of slaughter. "How sinister." Neo cleared his throat and replied, "He tried to kill us all, so I killed him first." He tried to maintain his elusive behavior. Beauty walked up to the corpse, confirmed its death, and with her usual sinister smile, she replied again. "Now that there's two of us, we wouldn't want to do anything silly, right?" "But of course. That's why you are going to help me with this computer, while I'm going to check the situation outside," Neo replied. "Ohh, I see. Your plan of escape is quite ingenious," Beauty said, maintaining the same sinister smile Neo already started to loathe. "Ohh, I see you are getting me wrong, friend. There's no way I'd be leaving without you. There's strength in numbers, remember?," Neo replied, trying to wear his own facsimile of her devious smile. Neo walked up to the corpse, closed its eyes, and retracted the bone from his heart in one forceful jerk. "I'm sorry, Scholar. I had to do this," Neo thought inwardly. Leaving the room, he walked outside. Neo suddenly frowned. There was something quite different about… everything. First of all, the scratching sound of the wraiths against the barrier in a mindless attempt to phase through them was gone. Secondly, there were huge dents on the barrier, which Neo suspected was the obvious doing of the mutated monster. Thankfully, the barrier held the onslaught of the rabid monster. It was beyond Neo's imagination to think of what would have happened if it didn't hold. That thought alone made him shudder. As if reminding Neo of the third abnormality, a drop of rain fell on his nose, making him look straight up. The cloud of rain rose from all sides as if trying to rebel against the moon. A lightning bolt illuminated the world, followed by a thunderous rumble, announcing the coming of the rain. Without the light of the full moon, they'd be technically blind. He had to report to his untrustworthy counterpart immediately. Walking inside the dimly lit room, Neo spared a glance at the corpse, sighed, and said, almost simultaneously with Beauty, "There's bad news." Neo could have sworn he sensed worry from her voice. "You go first," Neo replied, trying to mask his own worry to no avail. "The technology this guy's using is called Complatech. I can only do so much on it, so I'm happy to tell you that I can't switch off this nuclear decontamination thing, and that the gate is opened for only hundred seconds. After that, the nuclear decontamination will activate, making this place go up in flames." Neo's eyes narrowed as he snapped, "You mean the gate is open now?" "Yes." "Then what are we doing here? Let's get the hell out of here!." "Alright, but not before you tell me your bad news," Beauty said, pursing her lips. Neo's eyes twitched violently as he replied between gritted teeth. "You creepy bastard! You will see it for yourself once we get outside!." "Ohh, who am I kidding?" Neo added, running out of the room with the little strength he had. Once outside, drops of rain washed away his clouded thoughts as he quickly made out the shape of the barrier door with the help of the moon's light seeping through the clouds. Once in front of the door, Neo suddenly paused. He just couldn't help but think that the monster was waiting silently for them on the other end of the door. As Beauty approached him from behind, he felt quite relieved. At least, if the monster was truly there, it would only take one of them, leaving him with a fifty percent chance at survival. Well, if the monster practiced gender equality, that is. But nevertheless, a fifty percent chance of survival at that moment was a generous offer, so he was more than willing to embrace it. Talk about strength in numbers. If only Scholar was there, then the stakes would have been higher. Beauty caught up with Neo, and both of them slowly pushed the door open. To Neo's greatest relief, nothing lunged at them, but what he saw made him shudder. There were wraith corpses as far as the eye could see, but the culprit was nowhere to be found. This meant that the monster could be anywhere. If the monster had destroyed all the wraiths, then they were next because they also had the virus, but it used to be suppressed... used to. A seen enemy is much easier to defeat than an unseen one. The feeling of uncertainty was driving Neo crazy. Neo didn't have the time to think about anything else at the moment. He felt that there was a noose around his neck, closing in every second. He quickly searched around frantically, trying to make out the open gate's figure in the darkness. At that moment, he didn't even care about eliminating any threat anymore. His primal will to survive had taken over his thoughts. Let the threat go to hell for all he cared!! He just had to escape. He just had to live. A wave of relief washed over him as he found the gate not too far away. "Ahah!! Salvation!!" Neo almost yelled aloud. Whoosh!! He carried his broken self and raced towards the gate. Beauty was running right beside him, but he had already forgotten she existed. There was also a third figure racing in the darkness, but Neo didn't care. Wait!! He did care. The speed of the figure was almost ten times theirs. Suddenly, the mutant monster stopped in front of the escaping duo. A loud roar rolled out of its maw, annihilating the sound of falling rain for a moment. The mutant monster had a face that said, "Haha!! Where do you think you are going, dessert?"11 A monster stood gallantly, its back turned to an open gate a few meters away. It looked like it was playing "eeny meeny miny moe" to decide which of the two humans before it would taste better. One of the humans, Neo actually, was struck by an epiphany in the middle of impending danger.-How timely- He had finally realized the reason for their weakness and lethargy. Since the vaccine's effect was waning, the virus was trying to take over their consciousness. He already had quite a similar experience during his test for allegiance trial so he was quite sure of the feeling. But it was of no use anyway; they were a few seconds away from being monster dessert. Speaking of vaccines, Neo had one of them stashed away in his pocket at the moment. At that moment, Neo suddenly had a crazy idea. What if he took it to suppress the virus, making Beauty—the most virus-infected—between them? The caution only said he might die; it didn't say it wouldn't work, so it was a fifty percent chance,
12 "You are on your way to the afterlife." Neo grinned, as the cloud of darkness receded gradually, the faint light of dawn piercing his eyes. He was in a cave; there were crystal cones protruding from the roof and the floor. Neo knew they were called stalactites and stalagmites, but he didn't know which was which, not that it mattered anyway. His happiness had been quenched by the sight in front of him. One look was all it took for him to know that he was not in a human settlement; in fact, he was far from it. The entrance to the cave was in sight, the visage of a glowing white sun towered above the world. "Where is this place?" Neo mused, walking towards the entrance of the cave. He felt something thin press against his pale skin. Neo looked down to check what it was, before he could recover from the shock that he was stark naked; an arrow pierced through the air with insane speed and lodged itself firmly into his shoulder. The force sent him reeling to the ground. Al
13 Neo checked out the skin and phantoms, and they were unsurprisingly empty. They were supposed to be extremely scarce anyway, so he didn't bother himself too much about them. As far as being cool went, skins and phantoms were also considered top-notch, albeit not as cool as specters, but in Neo's own opinion, they were as cool as specters, even much more so. The usage of skins and phantoms was rather simple. A skin will provide the wielder the ability to transform into a creature for a specific period of time. The usage time and cool-down period is dependent on the level of the creature. Phantoms work in an almost similar manner except for the fact that the wielder summons the creature whole without having to transform into the said creature. As for the perks and quirks, Neo already had a probable explanation for that. "[Bone of contention]," "[ten lives per second]," and Neo's second ability "[soul stinger]" were all Reaper's gifts, and they all had perks and quirks, so that pr
14 Neo was trying to fight himself free from the creature that was hell-bent on snuffing out what was left of his life. What's worse, Neo was bleeding from multiple places as blood cascaded down his naked body like a crimson stream. Speaking of blood, upon closer inspection, one would notice that Neo's blood wasn't touching the ground at all. Once close to the ground, it would suddenly turn into a spark of red lightning and dance out of existence. Neo's body also seemed to be undergoing the same transformation. His veins were slowly being replaced by red bolts of lightning as they flickered, and red sparks erupted from and around his body. Then the bolts of lightning made their way around his body, dancing and flickering. Neo's eyes shone a deep red hue as his strength exploded in leaps and bounds. He moved with inconceivable speed, grabbed the Herknidae, and pummeled it with his fists. A huge chunk of flesh vaporized out of existence, revealing the blood-soaked innards of the cre
15 "So uhm, a mutant beast would give me a beast soul, berserk two, and Amok three. The same logic should work for the monsters, devils, and the others I guess." Neo thought, finally alighting from his train of thoughts. Then he moved on. Innate ability— Crimson nebulae Remarks: You wield a tremendous power; its prowess can only be limited by your mortal body. Neo suddenly paused. The memory of him wreathed in crimson red lightning and the backlash to his body that followed flashed through his mind. "Now it all makes sense." Neo nodded weakly in understanding. He then continued. Reaper's gifts— soul stinger Reaper's remark: Energy is the foundation of all things. Perks: You gain great affinity to souls of the living. You can repair or destroy it. Quirks: During each attack, your souls become exposed. Progress— 2 Specter— Ten lives per second (soul tied), bone of contention (soul tied), cave mantle Skin-? Phantom-? Neo stared at "[soul stinger]" for a
16 It was a mural. There were three people, and two heads were missing. Neo stared at it in bewilderment, straining his eyes to make out its shape under the light bioluminescent insect lantern placed in the center of the room. After studying it for a while, Neo discovered the mural was only quite familiar with the portrait in Neo's house, but it was definitely not the same. Neo and his elder brother's head was intact in the portrait, but their parent's head was faceless, for a reason Neo would kill to find out. And strangely enough, as far as Neo knew, that was the only portrait that survived the fire. But the mural in front of Neo contained only three figures: two headless tall people, and a relatively short person with his/her head intact. It was just a bogus cave wall painting made with makeshift colors after all. So Neo couldn't quite figure out the gender or the facial features of the short person. Neo studied the mural for a while, but he couldn't figure out anything s
17 Come night, Neo's bizarre host was back, with a scary creature that looked like an ape from head to torso, and then had the lower limb of a walrus. Neo was… definitely not going to eat that."Dinner here," he said, dropping the carcass with a loud thud. "Nice mantle by the way," he added, his voice as husky as ever.Neo nodded in reply. He then swallowed and summoned up courage. "So what can I call you?" Neo asked grinning."Seeker… call me Seeker," he replied, walking towards his boulder. Seeker shifted the boulder with one hand, making Neo's eyes widen in surprise. As he was about to enter, he suddenly halted. Throwing investigating glances around the room. Neo's blood froze.But his fears didn't come through. Seeker entered, oblivious to Neo's infiltrations. Neo breathed a sigh of relief.*The next morning, Seeker went out to hunt and Neo decided to tag along. He wanted to get familiar with the environment in case he needed to beat a hasty retreat. Walking along with him, Ne
18 "Welcome, kid, to the valley of endless battle," Seeker said to the still discombobulated Neo. Neo was still reeling in shock when he suddenly felt a strong push from behind, and he lost his footing, falling from the cliff. His voice echoed, accompanied by a series of loud curses, but his voice was quickly drowned by the sound of battles below. He really wanted to arrange his thoughts, but the sight of the ground that kept growing bigger and bigger made his eyes twitch violently."What to do... What to do..." Neo thought as he tried to swim in the air. He only ended up looking stupid.Suddenly, a large arm grabbed his waist and glided over the battle below to a relatively safe place. It turned out it was Seeker after all. His feather mantle wasn't for show; it was actually a makeshift wing suit. "Never gets old," Seeker said, putting Neo down after the landing, almost laughing out loud. Neo, still exasperated, walked up to Seeker's towering figure. His voice was stifled amids