Chapter 377: Arthur and Ger I
"This is where they got the Divine Factors..."
He could tell that each one of the babies here was born with their divine factors; Natural Divine Humans, so to speak.
However, these researchers were extracting these divine factors from these babies that hadn’t yet properly developed a sense of self and infusing them into fully grown adults or children in their late teens.
This way, they were able to give these people the power to wield Divinity.
"With one baby’s worth of divine factors, they could create an average of three ’Fake Divine Humans’..."
Arthur looked through some of the statistics on the files beside some of the neonatal intensive care units where the babies were inside, and then at the baby in that particular NCIU.
It was then that he noticed that besides that last cry he heard, he hadn’t heard any other cries.
For a place filled with babies, it was far too quiet.
"But they’re all awake, aren’t they? I can tell that much from their breathing patterns and heartbeats."
He looked around for the particular baby who had cried—the cry that had attracted his attention in the first place and moved over in that general direction.
"Ah, damn it. The sight shocked me so I lost track of the location..."
Arthur tilted his body to the side to avoid hitting three researchers who passed by him, noticing that they were carrying some trays with some tools on them.
He looked at the table where they came from and upon getting closer, he saw one of them using a device that released some gamma rays and was hovering it over the baby’s head.
"Oy! Wait up!"
Arthur summoned the energy of the law of life, even forgetting to use his concealment as he scanned the baby’s body and noticed the reason why the cries had stopped.
Not just for that one baby, but for all the other ones present.
"All of them...they’re...brain dead."
The reason why the babies were all silent, was because their brains simply didn’t have any functions. Their NCIUs were the life supports that kept them alive all through, hence the reason why they were even still ’alive’.
It was because of this that the universal law of death had not considered them ’dead’ and claimed their souls already.
At this point, Arthur had seen enough.
He walked out of the Hall and looked into other nearby Halls, but he didn’t see anything different than what he had already seen.
Divine Factors being extracted from brain-dead babies and young pre-teen children, before being infused into the bodies of late teens and adult soldiers.
If the adults did not show any signs of manifesting divinity after some period of time, the divine factors were then extracted from them once more and put into someone else.
However, it seemed that multiple extractions reduced the ’density’ of the factors, reducing the possibility of them being able to mutate their new host’s energy core and grant them the ability to wield divinity.
Arthur moved through the facility’s hallways, ignoring everything going on around him and heading forward with no particular direction.
"So, this is why the demons always showed displeased reactions when ’Duskhand Bastille’ was mentioned, huh?
They knew about all of this."
He left the first facility and moved to the second via the connecting bridge between them, all while expecting to be met with more atrocities.
Surprisingly, this place was a lot tamer, no brain-dead children whose racial factors were being harnessed or anything of the like.
It didn’t take him long to discover the reason why.
"These are their private quarters..."
Arthur wandered around aimlessly, heading up their stairs towards the highest floor of the building.
When he got there, he noticed a familiar aura and turned to see a door that had a lot of Ger’s aura lingering around it.
He remained in front of it in silence for a moment, thinking about all he saw in the previous building.
’From the way they treated him, this Ger guy has quite a high rank amongst those Researchers..."
With that thought, Arthur walked towards the door and grabbed the handle.
◇ ◇ ◇
It was 3 am, and Ger was dead tired.
Not physically, but mentally tired, as his work required so much precision that his mental energy consumption was very great.
The man ordered the other Researchers to shut down the labs for the night, after making sure that everything was in optimal condition.
The newly created ’Divine Humans’ were moved towards the observation chambers and the subjects for divine factor extraction were all ’prepared’ for the endeavour.
By prepared, he naturally meant that they were all completely brain-dead.
Weary and tired, Ger lit his cigarette and smoked while on the roof of the Research Facility, overlooking the city of Duskhand from there.
When he looked in the direction of where the New Recruit dorms were, a small smile appeared on his face.
He had never expected to reunite with the little girl who always followed him around when he was younger and always hid behind him whenever she met with strangers.
Ger knew that Rachel had been adopted by the Cassowar Family, and due to his position in the army, he was able to discover Rachel’s real roots and find out who her biological parents were.
Two Lieutenant Generals of the Allied Races Army who had perished during the beginning stages of the war.
Truth be told, if it wasn’t for the fact that the person who had killed them was confronted in battle by the man whom the Bastille was named after—General Duskhand—then he would not have discovered this.
From the reports he received, the person who was responsible for their deaths suddenly vanished after he fought General Duskhand to a standstill.
It was later revealed that this particular Demon General had left their solar system in its entirety and went to another.
He had only been present due to the Commander in Chief of the Demon’s forces on Aramis calling him over as a wild card to take out two of the planet’s strongest combatants.
After finishing his task of killing Rachel’s parents, he returned to his own post where he conquered a High-Level World within the next few years.
"And she watched all this happen...that explains why she was acting that way when she first came to the Orphanage..."
Ger could not imagine how the girl must have felt when she saw that Demon General kill her parents.
The man tossed his cigarette off the roof, saying his prayers for the unlucky fellow it was going to fall on as he walked back into the building.
"But Rachel joining the army now...I can’t help but think it’s in response to his return to Aramis."
The person who killed her parents was resummoned to Aramis by the demons, and when he returned, he was now a High-Rank demon.
He then proceeded to display said power, by having a rematch with General Duskhand...and defeating the General.
It was the reason why the man wasn’t present in the Bastille named after him; he was still recovering from the injuries dealt to him by that demon.
"The ’Demon of Light’..."
He muttered those words under his breath as he unlocked the door to his private quarters and entered inside, tossing the card key onto the table beside it and removing his bloodstained lab coat.
’Need another one of those...’
The man tossed the lab coat into a nearby basket with many other dirty or bloodstained clothes, yawning as he spoke to no one in particular.
"You know what, Imma just go to bed."
"Unfortunately, I need to have a word with you so—"
Ger turned around and channelled magic power into his arm, condensing it in front of his palm so fast that by the time he had made a full 180-degree revolution, it was already a beam of light shooting through the air.
"—I can’t have you going to sleep now."
"?!"
Ger’s eyes widened in disbelief as he saw that his beam attack, the space between the beam and the target, as well as his arm which had fired the beam had all turned monochrome.
Everything was stopped, even the papers falling to the ground after being hit by the wind pressure of the beam.
’Time...stopped?’
