Chapter 357. A Legacy From The Depths (6)

-Kwaddududuk!-

Hansoo frowned at the armor that kept constricting his body.

It wasn’t simply squeezing his body.

-Pushuk!-

He could clearly see it inserting its spines throughout his body.

Showing that it was going to have the upper hand in this relationship.

As Hansoo frowned at the sensation of the armor crazily sucking his energy out.

-Ooooong!-

The Ark-Roa’s crystal in his possession started to vibrate.

Then-

-Shsst!-

The marble exploded as a black liquid shot out from inside it.

It was similar to when the Ark-Roa had been alive in the past.

“… They’re both going crazy, huh?”

The armor which was trying to devour him from the outside, and the Ark-Roa’s crystal which had exploded inside him to take over the armor.

Hansoo mumbled as he looked at this scene.

***

-Tata! Tataatak!-

“Ugh… Is this really fine?”

Kiriel mumbled quietly as she looked at Hansoo, who was surrounded by a crystalline material.

It didn’t seem like she could help and this made her even more worried.

And in her arms, an unconscious woman lay.

Of course, Kiriel knew this woman.

She was like a superstar in the lower zones 1, 2 and 3.

‘Enbi Arin.’

The girl who ruled over the giant Cross clan in the old Orange Zone.

But currently, she was in a very pitiful state.

‘… She’ll die at this rate.’

Although she’d managed to escape from that evil armor, she had lost too much of her vital energy.

Well, if it was just that, then she might have been able to survive.

Since she was a transcendent after all.

The regenerative ability of a transcendent would heal the owner, even if the owner were on the brink of death.

The thing killing her wasn’t her injuries, but rather herself.

Her Trait: <Tainted Emotion>.

She didn’t know what had activated this trait, but one thing was clear to her:

It gave the user strength in return for their life force.

And this woman was paying the price of using such strength with her entire body.

And her body had already been injured.

-Chiiiik!-

‘She’ll really die at this rate; the heals aren’t working either.’

Kiriel bit her lower lip as she continued to use her healing skill.

It was like pouring water into a container with a hole at the bottom.

Enbi Arin was paying back her debt right now.

Of course, such a meager amount of heals wouldn’t work.

The only thing keeping Enbi Arin alive right now was her original strength and Melchizedek’s modified body.

‘… Ugh, I should do this first.’

Kiriel clenched her teeth and used her Psychometry.

Soon… The memories hidden within Enbi Arin’s body flew into Kiriel.

At that moment…

“Ahh…”

… Kiriel’s gaze, which had already looked at Enbi Arin with pity, deepened.

Pain, pain, and more pain.

Ripped apart alive.

Disassembled alive.

Her body taken apart, and her insides forcibly turned into a machine.

As the Nanomachines seeped into her body, it forcibly modified her beautiful figure.

They had embedded thousands of chipsets into her head to control her actions, even controlling her emotions.

-Sss-

Kiriel couldn’t bear it anymore, and she stopped her Psychometry.

It was painful to watch.

-Pakakakang!-

Kiriel carefully used her skill to destroy the chipsets inside Enbi Arin’s head, and then looked at her with a sad expression.

Although she wouldn’t be controlled by Melchizedek anymore, those memories would remain.

‘… Maybe you might not even want to live anymore.’

Kiriel’s expression turned heavy as she stared at the dying Enbi Arin.

Kiriel realized that the reason why Enbi Arin wasn’t waking up was because she might not want to come out again.

Her healing skills weren’t working anyway.

‘I should bring him back.’

-Whooosh!-

Kiriel remembered R-Korun Nell and flew towards the front of the research center.

***

“… Huh?”

‘He got up already?’

Kiriel thought to herself as she brought back R-Korun Nell.

She had expected it to take a while, but it had already finished.

‘… Where did it all go?’

Kiriel was shocked.

The crystalline armor had disappeared.

‘That’s not an amount that could disappear in an instant.’

-Thud!-

“Argh!”

Kiriel threw R-Korun Nell to the side and stared at him with eyes filled with annoyance.

She then turned to talk to Hansoo but then stopped.

“…”

Hansoo stared at Enbi Arin laid out on the ground with a heavy expression and then turned to Kiriel.

“Thank you. You’ve done well while I was gone.”

“It’s nothing. I did what I had to.”

These were her honest thoughts.

Thinking of what Enbi Arin had done, it was thanks to her that they’d had such an easy time going through the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Zones.

Hansoo glanced at Enbi Arin again and said:

“I will save this girl.”

“… How?”

Kiriel’s eyes widened.

Of course, saving her was the right thing to do.

But there weren’t any methods she could think of, and there wasn’t enough time left.

‘One week.’

Kiriel thought to herself.

She had meticulously checked Enbi Arin’s body.

At most, she had one week to live.

And this was only because of her transcendent vitality.

If any outside forces disturbed her, that might even shorten her time.

Hansoo said,

“We just need to turn her to into a 3-Star. That will heal most of her injuries.”

“Ah.”

Kiriel realized.

He was right.

If Enbi Arin rose up a rank, everything would be solved.

But Kiriel soon shook her head.

“No, we’ll need a titanic amount of crystals.”

1-Star transcendents were common, but the amount of crystals one needed to make a 3-Star transcendent was on a different league of its own.

Even if they could earn more and better crystals than the lower floors, acquiring that many crystals in that short of a time was impossible.

There wasn’t enough time.

‘And weirdly, there are no beings from the Abyssal race on this floor.’

Even the floor below hadn’t been this bare.

Hansoo shook his head.

“The Abyssal beings are attracted to where there are humans; there are almost no humans around, so they aren’t here.”

Predators would only gather around their prey.

It was common logic.

It wasn’t that Melchizedek had killed off every Abyssal being on the 1st floor.

They simply hadn’t come to a place without prey.

“… Meaning that the humans are all gathered somewhere else.”

Melchizedek said that he’d captured and taken away all the humans so she’d thought the humans would’ve been in the research center, but she realized something while she fought.

That there weren’t any humans here.

She knew that a few humans would be used to create artificial transcendents, but they’d taken too many away for it to be merely for that purpose.

‘Why?’

But Kiriel soon came to a realization.

“… These guys also have a Nursery.”

Hansoo nodded.

If that weren’t the case, how else could they explain the sheer number of transcendents?

Feed the humans to the Abyssal beings to raise their numbers, turn them into crystals to create transcendents and modify them to create artificial transcendents.

“He’s really efficient, isn’t he…”

Kiriel mumbled, her expression cold.

Melchizedek was using the humans in a very clean and efficient manner.

“I’ll try to find where it is. It should be easy to find using Psychometry.”

It wouldn’t separate such a large number of humans.

For it to be really efficient, it would have gathered them all into one place.

She just needed to find that place.

‘It’s probably on a different floor.’

Hansoo thought to himself as he looked at Kiriel running off.

‘Melchizedek… How did you become like this?’

The Melchizedek he knew wasn’t this evil.

Hansoo’s expression hardened.

‘Finish the preparations on the upper floors.’

He needed to become a 3-Star before he reached the top floor anyway.

If the Abyssal race had gathered in one place, he could resolve it all in one go.

‘It’s a bit dangerous, but I even acquired this… there are a lot of things different in this life.’

Legacy.

And while Hansoo focused…

-Chrrrrrk!-

… Something hidden beneath his skin quickly shot through to form a gauntlet around his hand, and then quickly disappeared.

‘… Damn. Every single member of this race is a monster. Seriously.’

R-Korun Nell stared at this scene in horror, but then thought of the Kalkuroun Fleet.

Although the Fusion Reactor’s explosion would’ve swept them away, it wouldn’t be enough to destroy the entire fleet.

Their strength wasn’t that low.

‘I wonder what happened… Damn. Well, I guess I’m not in a position to worry about that.’

R-Korun Nell looked at the sky and remembered his current situation.

***

-Rumble!-

“Haa… Haaa.”

“…”

The flagship of the Kalkuroun Fleet, <Koronaita>, was silent.

Because of R-Koronaita Nell’s anger.

“… How long until arrival?”

“We’re almost there. But… there’s something at the place where we’re supposed to arrive.”

“Huh?”

N-Akuon flinched, he already knew R-Koronaita Nell was pissed, as he beamed an image in the air.

And through that screen, they could see the scene above Nelkipa.

“… The hell are those things?”

— Ahhhh!

Hundreds of thousands of alien beings, trapped within a strange facility.

And the strange monsters that were devouring the aliens and raising their numbers.

‘… Melchizedek, you insane can. What the hell is going on in your head?’

R-Koronaita frowned as he looked at the grotesque scene before his eyes.