Chapter 376: Duskhand’s Secret
Ger and the others remained with Rachel and a few of her other Recruit friends until around 8 pm, after which the Major decided to return to the Inner City.
Naturally, Arthur hitched a ride in through the barrier, and unlike last time, Arthur didn’t jump off and remained in the car.
The vehicle entered into one of the ’blank spots’ of Arthur’s perception, and within, he could sense lots of more Divine Humans, just that most of them were Epic Realm existences.
Legendries were also very common, but the Sovereigns were far and between.
Surprisingly, Arthur detected no Transcendents present, which was weird despite how important Duskhand seemed to be to the Allied Races Army.
Arthur was still studying the Sovereigns when he noticed something different about them.
"Those guys aren’t Divine Humans...they’re gods."
As a Progenitor, it was very easy for Arthur to tell apart genuine gods from divine factor wielders. He also guessed this was the reason why there were no Transcendents Present.
"Make sense since they can just have the gods on the ground supervise everything."
He could sense that all the gods present were Sovereigns, but he could not tell their exact stages unless he got closer, however, that meant he’d be detected so he didn’t do that.
Jumping down from the vehicle, he followed Ger who tossed on his lab coat into the facility, with his hands lighting up a cigarette.
Very quickly, multiple other lab coat-clad individuals whom Arthur assumed were ’Researchers’ crowded Ger whilst asking him different questions while his three friends stuck close to him like guards.
Arthur listened in on their conversation and though they used some terminologies he didn’t understand, he could tell that they were developing some sort of ’Bio Weapon’ to use against the demons.
’Secret Facilities, ’Lab coat-wearing guys and talks about ’Bio-Weapons’...This can’t be good.’
The boy remained silent and followed them towards where the Researcher’s Labs were, and when he arrived—
"...what...in the...Nine Thousand...Circles?"
—saying Arthur was ’Dumbfounded’ was putting it mildly.
Dozens, hundreds, probably even a thousand massive cylindrical tubes with different colours of liquids filling them up, having pipes linked to a greater network connected to them.
"No, no, no, what the genuine fuck is this?!"
Arthur’s reaction was precisely because of his understanding of what he could see.
He left Ger’s group and jumped over to one of the Tubes, placing his hand on the thick glass and studying the liquids flowing through them closely.
’These guys were able to harness Racial Factors from people’s bodies!!’
The boy left that one and moved over to another, and another, and another, noticing that each and every one of them was filled with racial factors!!
He recognized that of the ’Human’ race when just like the ones the soldier he had scanned the day before possessed.
Inside the cylinders with off-white-coloured liquids, he detected ’Divine’ factors!
He traced the tubes connected to them and they led him to another Hall, where he sensed Ger’s presence, but could not pay attention to it because of what he saw there.
"He gained the ’Divine Gene’ but did not develop any special powers."
"There’s also the lack of ability to use Divinity as well."
"Did you check his energy core?"
"Yes. It failed to adapt."
"Then I guess he’s a failure."
"Indeed, he’s one."
The Researchers didn’t notice Arthur standing right in front of them as they studied the vitals of the man who was lying down on the table in front of them.
"Extract the Divine Factors and use them on the next subject."
And then right before Arthur’s very eyes, these men and women proceeded to hook the man up to various computers and magi-tech equipment, with the Legendary Realm ones using the powers of the Universal laws of life and death as they forcibly ripped out the ’Divine’ from the Divine Human on the table, leaving just a normal, soul damaged human.
They casually proceeded to toss the man’s body aside where other hazmat suit-wearing figures who seemed to be ’cleaners’ came and picked him up.
"These ’First Generations’ are so hard to replicate."
"The Second Gens have it easier, all they have to do is just be born from two successful First Gens, and they would not have any of the drawbacks!"
One of the Researchers beside Ger spoke with a sigh, before flipping through his files in his hand and passing them to Ger.
"We had stopped creating these First Generations years ago, but because of the war, we now need more of them.
The Second and Third Generations take too long before they are able to mature enough and gain the power to be ’useful’ against higher levelled demons."
Ger collected the man’s files and looked through the growth charts on them, sighing softly when he saw how far off their outcomes were from the desired outcomes.
"Still, the fact that there are intentions for Second and Third Generations means that there are plans for this war to stretch three Generations..."
"It’s the Demons of Gozon we’re talking about here...if the revelations of the gods are true, then they are a planet that has conquered hundreds of planets in the past.
We can’t expect victory in a day."
"We’re also not the only planet they are after, so they always plan their wars with the intention of drawing them out from the start."
"Still, they seem to be focusing on us a bit too much."
The Researcher lowered his tone before continuing in a voice that could barely be considered a whisper.
"From what I hear, many of their Demon Kings have their eyes on our World. But because of our god Kings, the Demon Kings can’t do anything to us."
Arthur’s eyes narrowed upon the mention of ’Demon Kings’ and ’god Kings’. At first, he thought they referred to the ’Masters of Pantheons’ as they did back in his home Universe’s area, but thinking about it deeply, he realised that could not be the case.
His final conjecture was that ’god King’ was not a title for the Universe’s Master, but a title that multiple beings came to possess after reaching certain levels of power.
’Alvey did say that there were ’Demon Kings’ amongst this universe’s Main Entities...’
This then begged the question of what power level these ’god Kings’ had. What Realm of Existence?—to be more specific.
According to Alvey, the ranks above him—a High Rank—were the Peak Rank, Demon Lord Rank, and Demon King Rank.
’Perhaps...these god Kings might be Mid-tier Deities?’
Hearing Mid-Tier Deities possessing the title of ’King’ felt very strange for Arthur as he was used to High Tiers and Monarchs having such titles.
The difference was just one realm, but that realm difference was enormously vast.
The destructive power that the Realms possessed was enough to tell one how vast it was.
Destroying a single Star System could be done as a Mid-Tier Deity. Destroying over 3000 Star Systems could be done while one was still in the Mid-Tier Deity Realm.
Heck, one could even delete 50% of the celestial bodies existing within a galaxy, with the space between them not being taken into account, and that was still the strength of an ’Average’ Mid-Tier Deity.
High Tiers, on the other hand, had a base destructive capability of an entire galaxy.
In other words, the weakest High Tier Deity you could ever find, had the power to blast the Orithyia Galaxy to bits, even if they were a non-combatant!
To Arthur who grew up around these kinds of beings, it felt ’insulting’ for anyone who didn’t have that kind of power to call themselves a ’Race King’.
"WAAAH!!! WAAAH!!"
Arthur’s thoughts were broken by that sound, one that he picked up with his superior hearing. His expression turned into one of disbelief as he asked no one in particular.
"No way...right?"
He moved towards the place he heard the sound from, past the hundreds of humans and a couple dozen elves and Flugels who were being infused with Divine factors.
When he arrived at the source of the sound, Arthur’s expression fell as he stood in silence, seeing as the Aramisian researchers worked on men, women, children, and even babies.
"I know I don’t have the best moral compass, but this is a bit too fucked up, isn’t it?"
He pressed his fingers to his forehead and sighed softly, before looking up and speaking with a wry smile on his face.
"Oh well, who am I kidding? I’ve had people wipe out billions before..."
Arthur moved closer and inspected what the Researchers were doing, his shock increasing by the moment and with each table he passed.
"This is where they got the Divine Factors..."
