'So, this divine creep called the Eye is behind these bad guys called the Arm?' Alex contemplated, resisting the urge to ask Kain about other body parts involved in their organisation. But he barely held back his impulse knowing that it wasn't the right time to provoke him.
"Ah! I see it now! You're the dark hand pulling the strings, controlling everyone! Arm, Hand. Tomato, Tomahto. Same, same!" Unfortunately, the words that escaped his mouth were not any better.
Kain felt as though Alex was mocking him, his eyes narrowing with anger as he fixed his gaze upon him.
"Do you dare to mock us?" Anger finally surfaced on his once-smiling face.
But the next second, his expression transformed like a chameleon changing colours. He resumed his smiling facade.
"It doesn't matter. Your death is certain. I need not waste my breath on you," he casually remarked.
"Coward in the white robe, do you dare to reveal yourself? You've already laid eyes upon my face. You've seen who we are and know our intentions. It's inconsequential now, isn't it?" Kain proclaimed.
He too was eager to uncover the identity of the white-robed man standing before him. The recent actions of this individual had inflicted a substantial blow to their organisation. If Kain could discover his true identity and eliminate him, he was confident it would bolster his standing within the group.
"Why should I show my face and disclose my identity? It's clear what your intentions are. If my true identity were exposed, your organisation would relentlessly hunt me down. That would hardly be favourable for my well-being," Alex countered.
"Only a fool would reveal his identity to his enemy." He added on.
The robotic, mocking tone of Alex was the final trigger that shattered Kain's patience. Alex had audaciously labelled him, one of the most accomplished scientists of the Arm, a fool. This assault on his intelligence dealt a severe blow to his ego. He refused to allow some commoner to question his intellect.
"*Smile*" Kain sneered in response. "I will find out your identity from your lifeless body. Once I ascertain who you are, I won't hesitate to pay a visit to everyone you hold dear and claim their lives." With a sinister smile, he retrieved a pitch-black staff from his back.
"This is the day you die, white-robed man," Kain declared, unleashing an immense burst of mana from his staff.
But to Alex's surprise, nothing happened. Despite the release of mana, no spell materialised, and the immediate surroundings remained unaffected.
Confusion gripped Alex as he scanned his surroundings, searching for any signs of a possible sneak attack from Kain.
"You needn't look around like that. Death is closing in on you faster than you can comprehend," Kain taunted, and in that very moment, indistinct figures materialised within Alex's mana vision.
What he saw was something he had never wanted to witness.
The blurry figures that he saw with his mana vision were three monsters. They appeared behind Kain and stood without moving an inch. All of them were being controlled by Kain.
Each one was smaller when compared to the second-generation mutants he faced. Although they were as big as him, they were still small when you compare them to the monsters he had come across previously.
Despite their transformation, the monsters retained some semblance of humanity, albeit diminished. Their appearances were not as monstrously distorted as the creatures Alex had encountered before.
Their faces remained in a state of half-transformation, exhibiting a grotesque and unsettling visage.
Alex quickly realised that they were children. All of them held the signature worm-like object inside their body.
"These two are my failed experiments." He said while pointing at two monsters in the front.
"They are mutants made by the hands of yours truly. Fight them and prove your strength. Then you can battle against him." He said while slowly patting one of the monsters with a nefarious smile.
Quickly, Alex's vision focused on the face of the monster that was closest to Kain.
It was a familiar face.
It was the same child he wanted to desperately save.
He could feel his mana radiating from the monster's body. There was no more doubt inside his mind. The child had turned into a monster.
With a heavy heart, Alex realised that his promise to the child had been irreparably shattered. He had pledged to save both the child and their father, to provide them with a chance to escape the clutches of the evil organisation.
However, he realised that he had failed.
"The two before you are not up to my standards. They are not smart enough to understand complex instructions. Their low intelligence would result in their mana running rampant and finally death." He said without an ounce of remorse.
The monsters before him were kids not older than ten, just the like the son of the street vendor. However, Kain viewed them as nothing more than experimental subjects.
To Kain, their lives held no worth beyond serving as mere instruments for his intellectual pursuits.
"Before they meet their demise, allow me to witness their full glory," Kain remarked, opting to assume the role of a mere observer in the imminent battle.
However, Alex couldn't hear a single word Kain was saying. The guilt he felt for not being able to save the child had already swallowed him.
He felt his heart break thinking about the pitiful child who trusted him with his life. If he had taken some other action, could he have saved the child? The nagging thought was drilling into his mind every second.
"What are you waiting for? You can eat him," Kain ordered the two monsters in the front to attack Alex.
"SWISH" They leapt forward in the dimly lit room. Accurately hitting Alex.
"BOOOM!" He was sent backwards like a cannonball. The loud noise of crashing into the wall behind reverberated through the underground room.
This woke Alex out of his thoughts.
"BOOM" Before he could respond, another punch from the next monster caved into the wall. A new room was revealed behind Alex.
Punch after punch, one after another rained down on Alex as he defended while strengthening his body with mana.
'The monsters are weaker than I expected. Their strength is similar to tier 3 warriors.' Alex concluded.
Due to him recently breaking through to tier 4, he was not worried about them. Still, he had to dodge physical attacks as much as he can to conserve energy.
Instead of killing them, this time, his brain was trying to find any possible way to save them.
The monsters before him were kids. They didn't willingly turn into a monster like the others he encountered. He wanted to save them if he can.
So, he observed their bodies with mana vision.
The worms within their bodies served as a conduit, providing an immense surge of mana to fuel their physical enhancements. However, this excessive mana was simultaneously wreaking havoc on their frail bodies.
Rather than witnessing signs of joy due to their immense strength, Alex could only observe the grimaces of agony etched upon the faces of these transformed monsters.
He suddenly realised the children's consciousness did not completely erode when they turned into a monster.
'The parasite in their body has yet to completely take over the children's consciousness.'
'Maybe that is the reason why they can be controlled. It was easier to control the children than the monster. It might also be the reason why they are showing expressions, unlike the faceless monsters I saw before.' Alex concluded.
'If they have yet to fully transform, is there a way to reverse the effect of transformation?'
However, Alex's thoughts were quickly stopped by the realisation that the decay rate of the monsters' bodies are increasing by the second.
Painful wails greeted his ears as he bought him time to think.
The two children before him were about to completely turn into mindless monsters. If the battle continued, there would be no way to revert to their original condition even if he could kill the worm inside them.
The situation was getting worse by the second. He was left with only one desperate option.
Suddenly, the mana he filled inside the card that he left on the street vendor's son's body activated. It quickly covered the entire body of the monster in his mana. Before Kain could react, Alex said something under his breath.
'Farm, activate pet function.'
'Assign the organism I selected with mana as a pet.' He declared under his breath. He didn't know if it would work. But that was the only option left for Alex to try.
He didn't know any other way to save the child. If his plan worked, he could save the other kids too.
["Ding"]
The sudden sound of a notification from the interdimensional farm greeted his ear.
["Data shard found."]
["A variant DNA structure of a life form with a life rating above 1 is present in the surrounding. The user is advised to analyse it."]
["Autherising live capture using pet function."]
["Capturing and teleporting the pet into the farm."]
Suddenly, the monster that occupied the place near Kain was transported into the interdimensional farm.
["Elevating user access."]
["Now, the user can transport live entity to and from the farm if the user can completely cover the entity completely in mana. Ten slots unlocked for pets."]
["User privilege increased."]
["All current functions in use."]
["Deploying the second phase of the interdimensional farm."]
A torrent of notifications greeted Alex.
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