Kilella flew back down and rejoined us, as the humanoid creatures watched us cautiously. We were outnumbered, but if things look like they're taking a turn for the worse, I'll just freeze time and kill them all, should be easy enough. One of them then stepped forward towards us, while the rest hung back. They all had weapons...the kind of weapons that didn't exist in the Sanctuary. Metal swords, guns, axes, spears...

"Are you the ones who've been attacking us for the last couple of months? Who are you?" Inquired Kilella loudly, pointing an XFE blast at the one who was stepping forward, warning him to not get any closer.

​​

"Why don't you calm down, lady? And as far as I'm concerned, I don't have to tell you people a damn thing," He replied with a smirk.

He was tall, had leathery grayish-green skin, sharp yellow eyes, wings on his back and sharp claws on his hands. He had medium-long spiky black hair, wore a dark blue hoodie with the sleeves torn off and slightly worn-out black jeans. Besides the wings and skin, he looked like a regular guy in his mid to late twenties.

"Oh, is that so? Then die," Remarked Kilella, firing the blast at him.

He swiftly stepped back, moved his hands in front of himself...and formed a dense-looking green XFE barrier around himself. The blast struck his barrier, which absorbed most of the impact before shattering, his hands taking some damage, as he winced in pain and stumbled back.

"Ow...well, how about that, some of you sheltered humans aren't actually half-bad...kill them all, but capture that one," He instructed the others behind him, who swiftly charged at us with their weapons brandished.

Eight of them were carrying guns, looks like assault rifles...they looked pretty old, but that doesn't matter, we were in trouble if those weapons still work. As the ones that were charging at us began to close in, the eight with guns took aim. Crap, this is bad!

"Stand back, everyone, I'll handle this," Instructed Kilella, before firing an XFE blast at the ground, kicking up a dense and large dust cloud in front of us.

Before they could figure out what was going on, she swiftly zipped up into the air and charged up massive blasts of red XFE, took aim, and fired them down in a rapid, powerful barrage at the gunmen, killing them all without giving them a chance to use their guns.

She then shot back down towards the group that had rushed forward, as the dust cloud began to clear, closing in on one of them and slamming her fist onto his face, the force smashing his face in and twisting his head all the way around, killing him.

One of them then fired a blue XFE blast at her, which she deflected away with a flick of her hand. Another one then sprang up behind her and swung his sword straight down at her, she shattered the blade by whipping her tail up at it, before blasting a hole through his chest. A few of them were heading our way instead of all ganging up on my sister. Two shot towards Seila, who stayed calm and...

"."

The instant her blades formed, she flicked her wrists and swung both blades outwards while simultaneously expanding them rapidly, slicing both the humanoid who were leaping at her in half, before they could even react. The other two had also formed their Primary Manifestations, Mitchell's Dozen Tails, twelve purple five meter-long tails, and Lin's Shovel, which was...just a green XFE shovel.

Lin evades an XFE blast and then slammed her shovel onto the side of the head of the humanoid who fired it at her, dazing him before swiftly driving the edge of the shovel straight at his throat, piercing it and killing it. Mitchell grabbed two of the humanoids using his tails, getting struck on the shoulder as one of them fired a red XFE blast at him. He winced in pain, before gritting his teeth and breaking their necks with his tails.

Three of the humanoids were heading for Johan and I. Two of them fired XFE blasts at us, I canceled them out with pinpoint shots from my X-Blasters at maximum output, before nailing them with headshots and killing them. Johan then muttered something, it was extremely quiet, but not completely inaudible like my chants were, and I was close enough to hear him, though just barely...

"."

In an instant, the humanoid he was targetting lost consciousness, falling onto the ground...and breaking his neck as his jaw struck a rock jutting out from the ground...he was dead.

"Tch, I was hoping to capture one," Remarked Johan with a frown.

"My sister's still fighting some of them, they're not all dead yet," I pointed out.

"If she's the one fighting them...then they'll all be dead soon."

Yeah, she wasn't holding back, she had already cut down their numbers to about six left. Three of them then leapt at her simultaneously, their weapons raised. She swung her arms out, slamming her fists onto the necks of two of them and breaking them, while simultaneously driving her left foot out behind her, slamming it onto the midsection of the third.

She was rapidly cutting them down, they were using their weapons as well as XFE attacks, but it was no use, they couldn't lay so much as a finger on her. I then noticed the one who'd seemed to be the leader trying to slip away before she could finish off his subordinates and turn her attention to him.

He's pretty fast, he's rapidly increasing the gap...but he's still well within my range. I switched my X-Blasters to sniping mode, took aim, and fired two shots aimed at his heels, nailing my targets perfectly, as he fell to the ground, unable to stand up. Oh, looks like Kilella was done killing the ones she was fighting...and yup, she didn't spare a single one.

"Kilella, why did you kill them all!? You know how much HQ has been wanting to capture one of these things for interrogation!" Snapped Johan in exasperation.

Huh, guess he didn't notice me shooting the l leader guy. And it looks like the others hadn't noticed either. Well, to be fair, unlike the old-school guns that these humanoids were using, XFE firearms didn't make any sound.

"Oops, my bad...I kinda got too into it," She apologized sheepishly.

"Uh, guys...there is one still alive," I spoke up, pointing at the one whose heels I blasted.

"Oh...good work, Kilzachs," Remarked Johan, letting out a sigh of relief, before his eyes widened as if he'd realized something, "Quick, we need to restrain him, all the previous attempts to capture them resulted in either them committing suicide or getting killed by their comrades!"

"I'm on it!" Responded Kilella, rapidly flying towards the humanoid, who was desperately crawling away.

She reached him and grabbed the back of his neck, picking him up and flying back towards us. She tossed him onto the ground, and Johan quickly tied up his hands and feet, restraining him.

"Tch, you might have been able to capture me, but I won't tell you a thing!" He snapped defiantly.

Hm, if these humanoids really have the resolve to commit suicide, then he might be a tough nut to crack. Then again, he had seemed pretty desperate to get away, so it might be worth applying some pressure on him...

"Oh, is that so? You won't even talk under torture? Like, for example, I could shoot your feet and hands like I did to your heels. And let's not forget your tail, I could blast it full of holes, it probably won't be lethal anyw-," I began, pointing my X-Blasters at his feet.

"A-alright, fine, I'll talk! Just don't shoot!"

...huh, well, that was easy. Johan took over and did the questioning, making notes of what our captive said on his I-Watch.

"Let's start simple, just what are you?" Inquired Johan with narrowed eyes.

"I'm a human," Came the reply.

"Be more descriptive, unless you want to be tortured after all-."

"Tch, fine! You can refer to us as Wights, we're also humans that survived after WWIII...though unlike you sheltered humans with your fancy Sanctuary, we had to make do with filthy underground bunkers for decades, but that wasn't enough to stave off the radiation, many of us died, and the rest mutated so much that we barely resemble humans at all anymore...there are plenty of us that are so freakishly and grotesquely mutated that just looking at them would make you physically sick."

So that means not all humans outside the Sanctuary were wiped out by the radiation following WWIII...this is a massive revelation.

"I...see. Let's go back to the bunker...you, tell us the whole story in detail as we head back," Replied Johan, continuing to question him as we turned back and made our way to the bunker.

According to the Wight, who was named Hebi Fujimoto, a surprisingly normal name, during WWIII while the Sanctuary took in as many people as possible, there was no way that it could save everyone. Setting aside the countries that had refused to cooperate with Project Noah's Sanctuary, as well as the ignorant people who had dismissed the whole thing as a conspiracy, there were still hundreds of millions of people that needed saving.

Unfortunately, the Sanctuary wasn't big enough for everyone, and at that point, it was too late to construct another one. And so, many, many people were left to helplessly wait for their deaths, either by bombing or by the intense radiation that was rapidly engulfing the planet.

But not all of them died. Around the same time that the Sanctuary had been midway through construction, Japan followed suit and covertly constructed several massive bunkers deep underground, as they anticipated the worst-case scenario which eventually came to pass.

After the Sanctuary closed its metaphorical doors and stopped taking more people in, Japan took in as many people as possible into the bunkers they constructed, the exact number was unknown, but it was almost certainly over a hundred million.

The majority of those were Japanese, naturally, along with a percentage of southeast Asians and some from the neighboring countries. The Sanctuary had only taken in about sixty million, and even now, ninety plus years later, only had about eighty to ninety million people in total.

However, with the Japanese bunkers, there were so many people crammed into an inadequate amount of space that the few decades or so were an absolute nightmare. Many succumbed to the radiation, there were neverending conflicts as everyone was on edge, it was unsanitary, and so on...eventually, after several had died and the numbers became a bit more manageable, they began to be more organized.

Their numbers were cut down by nearly half, until finally, the death rate slowed down. After the deaths and mutations due to radiation began to slow down as they developed resistance to it, they started putting in more effort into maintaining the bunkers and establishing order amongst themselves. As they somewhat settled into a routine, some of them began reproducing, and their next generation showed signs of even greater resistance to the radiation.

Efforts were put in to educate and train the children, as the Mutants began appearing. They were given basic levels of education in subjects like math and science, and were all primarily taught both Japanese and English, as well as a few other Asian languages. Several pieces of technology had also been stored down in those bunkers, though many of those had gotten damaged or deteriorated with age.

And then, about forty years ago from today, when the Wights evolved and gained a high level of resistance to the radiation, they left the bunkers. Russia, China and North Korea were the only Asian countries that got involved in WWIII, so even though the people had succumbed to the radiation, along with the plants and animals except for the ones that got mutated, there were plenty of buildings that were relatively intact in Japan, though they were overgrown with plants and heavy with dust.

Stuff like vehicles and ships had taken a lot of damage, but some of them weren't beyond repair, and after they had set up a proper base in Japan, they used the repaired ships to travel to South Korea and set up a base there as well.

From there, they moved up to North Korea, then China, followed by Mongolia, and about five years ago, they made it to the border of Russia. They had been somewhere to the south-southeast of the Sanctuary, and had to build a base there from scratch.

That was because Russia had been hit with nukes during WWIII, the Sanctuary had been just a handful of kilometers out of danger, just barely safe. That's why most of the area outside the Sanctuary is a wasteland, the radiation was extremely heavy following the bombings.

After setting up their base and bringing over some vehicles, they began making their way to the Sanctuary. As for the vehicles that they'd modified to look like fake boulders, they were purely mechanical with no fuel, and were operated using pedals...essentially bicycle pedals that were connected to four wheels instead of two.

Anyway, they had intended to make contact with the Sanctuary and establish a relationship with us, but things didn't quite go as planned. Basically, the first time they encountered X-Warriors, the X-Warriors they ran into were terrified, yelled in panic and called them freaks, and ended up killing some of them.

But the X-Warriors were outnumbered and as a result, were killed in retaliation. After that, the Wights were furious, since from their perspective, the people of the Sanctuary had abandoned them in the aftermath of WWIII and now, this happened. And so, they were now planning to kill the humans in the Sanctuary and take over the place.

"That seems like an overreaction," Remarked Mitchell with a raised eyebrow.

We were now back in the bunker, and Johan was still interrogating Hebi, who was cooperating nicely, answering every question without much resistance.

"Admittedly, I kinda agree. But a lot of us wanted to kill you people right from the beginning, and that messy first encounter triggered those suggestions into demands...see, we were taught as kids, or technically brainwashed, that the people of the Sanctuary abandoned us, and it's their fault why we're living in such hardship. I sort of get it, we needed someone to direct our anger at, and blaming it on people who are still alive was just more effective than blaming it on the people who instigated and died in WWIII. A lot of others get that too, but I'd say that for the majority, the hatred has only continued to grow with every hardship we experience."

Johan then asked him about how they obtained food, water and fuel for their ships and vehicles. The fuel wasn't much of a problem, they dug up the ground around spots that used to be gas stations to obtain fuel, and as for food, they'd had a massive stockpile of canned foods down at the underground bunkers, but once that ran out, they began eating Mutants and mutated plants.

Scientists in the Sanctuary had cofirmed that Mutant flesh was toxic to us and inedible, same went for the plants. But the Wights were different, they had been exposed to several times more radiation than we had, since the outside of the Sanctuary repelled effectively ninety-nine point nine percent of the radiation. And as a result, they were a lot more resistant to it than we were.

"Hey, I just realized something...they can use XFE attacks, but they almost definitely don't have Awakening Pods," I pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, that's true...mind explaining that to us?" Johan inquired at Hebi.

"XFE? Oh, you mean the energy blasts? We officially call it Chikara, though most of us just say energy."

"Huh, I feel like I've heard that word before...," Remarked Kilella with a frown.

It then clicked...

"Oh, I think that means power in Japanese, right? Pretty sure I've heard it in a lot of anime," I said.

"Yeah, that's right. Wait, you people have anime? We haven't been able to find any working digital entertainment, the best options we've got are slightly-rotted manga...we've only been able to get a basic level of electricity working, using windmills and waterwheels. So even if I did find a working electronic device, we wouldn't have a way to charge it. Most of us have never experienced digital technology."

If I remember right, the Sanctuary ran on solar power and renewable energy for the most part. Anyway, the interrogation continued. About a third of the current generation of Wights could fire out their XFE, or Chikara, in attacks, but only a few were significantly powerful, not unlike the situation in the Sanctuary in that regard. And sure enough, they didn't use any awakening process.

Instead, they train to get a feel for the energy and use it as a weapon, they don't instinctively know what it is like the Sanctuary's Prodigies do...well, it is an instinctiveness that's artificial generated by the chip that's implanted during the Awakening Procedure, so that makes sense. He claimed that while he'd never seen anyone quite as strong as Kilella, there were a few Wights that could apparently keep up with her, though he couldn't say for sure.

Johan then got to the elephant in the room...how did they know to lie in wait for us and try to ambush us? The answer to that was...they had captured some X-Warriors and tortured them for info, and one of the captured X-Warriors knew about this exam thing...ambushes had been set up in wait for the other two groups as well.

Each of the three ambush groups had been dropped off by vans or buses and were to attack the three Level J student groups, capture one or two from each group, and then head for a rendezvous point where they'd meet up with the van drivers and head back to their base. And if they failed, they were all instructed to kill themselves to prevent us in the Sanctuary from interrogating them in return...

"...yeah, I was supposed to kill myself, but screw that! I'm not like most of those other lunatics, I don't really have a burning hatred towards you people like most of the others who volunteered as soldiers...I was forced to join just because I had good combat abilities and decent control over my energy. But I don't want to die!"

Yeah, that much was obvious. Still, I couldn't fault that, it's only natural to want to live.

"What was with that 'ambush' though, it was so obvious!" Remarked Kilella with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, I know..."

He explained that their thinking was that since the Sanctuary had been isolated for decades and never made contact with any intelligent life at all, even the presence of a trap would be cause for concern and worth investigating. Well, they were right about that...after all, we decided to investigate those 'rocks' instead of heading back.

As for what those were, they were a combination of chairs, a metal frame, and four retractable wheels. The chair went inside the metal frame, which was coated in an exterior that made it look like a large rock. And the bottom had four slots in which they could extend out or retract bicycle-like wheels, which were connected to pedals in front of the chair in the metal frame.

As for the lens I spotted, that was a telescope, and they'd been keeping contact using walkie-talkies. Pretty simple yet creative. They communicated using battery-operated walkie-talkies, but those had a pretty limited range of about ten to fifteen miles at most.

And finally, as for why we hadn't seen any Mutants...apparently, their allies had lured them all away so that their ambush wouldn't be attacked by any. That about covered everything we needed to immediately ask him. And so, with that, the interrogation was over.

"Let's head back to the Sanctuary now," Suggested Johan, before turning to Hebi, "You're coming with us."

"W-wait, what will you do with me?" He inquired nervously.

"Hm, what indeed...for now, we'll take you back to the Sanctuary, the higher ups can decide that," Replied Johan with a shrug.

"So, uh, since no one else has brought it up...what about the exam?" Inquired Mitchell curiously.

"Well, none of you did anything that would make you fail, and it's not your fault that we didn't run into any Mutants, so don't worry about it," My sister assured him.

"Oh, nice...though, that was pretty boring until the end there," Sighed Mitchell in reply.

"Boring is safe," Remarked Katie objectively.

"Y-yeah, it could have gone a lot worse than it actually did," Added Seila in agreement.

"I guess...hey, what about you, what do you think of this whole thing?" He asked me.

"Well, let me think...yeah, I don't like this," I replied with a frown, after mulling it over.

"Oh, uh...why not?"

"Because it's brought in too many uncertain variables, there's no telling what could happen...I don't like it when things are unpredictable," I explained with a frown.

Yeah, I prefer it when things are easy to predict and certain, that makes things around me easier to control...but with these unexpected revelations, nothing was certain anymore...

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Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to vote, and feel free to leave a comment, I appreciate any and all feedback and criticism!

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