The Abyss Panther is hatching!

Marshall Troy Watson’s POV:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I’m walking towards one of our secret laboratories, which is in space, orbiting around the Pluto. It’s a very well hidden laboratory and there were a lot of things invented in this place when the wars were still going on. Since the wars, peace has befallen humanity. But even though it was like that, we, the military, still stayed the governing power. Thanks to Richard, we got our hands on one of these beings’ scale.

They gave it away for a shopkeeper as a present. Idiots… they have no idea how many possibilities that scale holds for us! I’d never give such a thing to my enemy! Well, maybe they aren’t looking at us as enemies or else they would have killed many humans by now. This prompts me to believe in their words, but creating new weapons for humanity is necessary! The three meters thick metal door opened in front of me and I stepped through the door, which quickly closed behind me.

In front of me were groups of white-coated scientists, walking up and down, being visibly busy. That’s how it was supposed to be! If they don’t have anything to do, that means that we are out of ideas! The head scientist came up to me and stopped in front of me with a salute. “Report!” I said with an authoritative voice and a serious face.

“Yes! After examining and testing that scale, we found out that we don’t have a weapon which is powerful enough to penetrate it! Its molecules are very thick and complex, creating a material which is more powerful than anything we have ever met!” He said with an elated face, almost shouting in his happiness. Hearing his words, my whole body started trembling. The possibilities this scale might hold is enormous!

“What about recreating or cloning?” I said with my brows raised as I crossed my arms in front of my chest. I was waiting for his answer anxiously, wishing to know the results, but his face turned red as he started avoiding eye contact. His eyes were darting around while sweat started appearing on his forehead. “Spit it out already!” I shouted as I felt my anger rising upon seeing him standing there all mute.

“Well… the thing is that… although this scale is a miracle to humanity, we have no way to recreate it. We were able to examine only its surface. I fear that it holds much more knowledge in it than what we believe. Since we can’t decipher its full structure, we have no way to recreate it either, not to mention that we don’t have the materials for recreation either. Cloning was also a failure for some unknown reason. Probably we don’t have the technology for that,” He explained while pulling on his neck with a sorry look on his face.

“B- But this is our most advanced secret base. If you can’t clone it here then nowhere else can!” I said, hoping to change reality, but the head scientist only shook his head as he continued.

“Yes, it’s exactly like that. We can only keep on trying to decipher the deepness of this scale and maybe one day, we can resolve its mystery and recreate it!”

I felt very sad upon realizing that my dreams of mass producing this scale and making armors out of them would stay as a dream for who knows how long. Maybe I’m stuck in the past, searching for ways to win the wars, but now that I think about it. Why do we even need such a thing? We aren’t having wars, the humans are peaceful thanks to the Arena and we don’t have any kind of enemy. The most we have are those monsters on the newly explored planets. What am I even fighting for?

I sighed loudly upon realizing that I was fighting for nothing and that I was looking for new ways of weapons and armors, even though no one needed it. “A- Are you alright?” The scientist questioned me in a more friendly manner, not bothering with rank. After telling him honestly what I thought, his eyes opened widely for a moment and then he started nodding as well. It seems like I’m too old and I’m the only one who is stuck in this infinite loop of insanity. Should I retire? Well, let’s wait with that for a bit. Maybe after these creatures leave…

------------------------- Alice’s POV: ------------------------

Those millions, no, billions of crystals were lighting up this whole place. Spotting a Universe Crystal, I quickly picked it up and stored it away, but upon doing so, the whole room started trembling as the crystals started moving into a single point. That seems like a trap to me… “H- Honey… i- it wasn’t me! Alright?!” I said with my hands raised while making an innocent face upon seeing how the crystals turned into a huge crystal giant.

“Haha~ I know, Alice. Don’t worry. Let’s see what happens now,” Hiro said with a smile as he put his hand on my face. I started flailing my tail from left to right in my happiness. The crystal gian opened its mouth and roared at us loudly, while Gaia appeared out of nowhere!? She stood next to the monster, touching its leg. After a swipe of my mind power, I realized that it wasn’t her. It was only a picture projected by a formation. This whole thing was a record, except the monster…

“Hello, inheritors. I don’t know who might you be and I hope that you have abided my request of not hurting the humans. Now that you have reached this place, I’m going to tell you the truth behind my world. I’ve never shut out the Universe Energy. At first, I indeed did such a thing, but it felt so terrible and unbearable. As a cultivator at the eighth level, I couldn’t bear it. I had to leave every hour at least once to satiate my cells. Thinking of ways on how to resolve this problem, we came up with this idea.”

“We cut off a small part of our world and made a world within a world. This place is impossible to reach unless you come through one of the Star Formations. This was made so that we can have Universe Energy, while the mortals don’t. We decided to create a very powerful Universe Formation, which pulled in the energy. If you are a high-level cultivator, then you should have realized that my words were false before. If you shut out the Universe Energy, then you do so completely.”

“This mini-universe of ours has bits of Universe Energy only because the energy itself is still pouring in! This formation is powerful enough to collect ninety-nine percent of the Universe Energy. Originally, it was supposed to enter this separate world and then pour into the mini-universe. After making this formation, only this place has universe energy, while our mini-universe only barely have any.”

“Now, the thing with this monster beside me is that I don’t like lucky people. My life was quite unlucky, so this creation of mine is for you, who entered my world. I don’t believe that you should get so many treasures just by stumbling upon this place, so I decided to set up tests for you. There are many formations through this whole world and all of them can sense your levels. If you get past the first one, then you’ll be teleported into the next one. Go and fight for your rewards and don’t turn into a lazy ass! Hahaha!”

She explained the truth with a serious face and then she also told us that we will have to fight if we want to get our hands on her, on their treasures. We didn’t have a problem with this since that was how we have gained most of our things up till now anyway. She disappeared from where she stood and the Crystal Golem quickly charged towards us.

Our symbiotes covered our bodies and we also turned into our monster forms. Originally it was at the second stage but as we turned into our monster forms, its strength jumped to the third stage. Poirlion was standing at the back and it seemed like as if he would be ignored by the monster as well. Interesting… This hidden world indeed has Universe Energy in it and the formations also made a very intelligent system. A few puddles of Universe Energy were also littering the ground.

Poirlion understood that we wanted to fight with this monster alone, so he sat down at the back. The crystal giant smashed its fist into the ground and a few thorns of crystals thrust out of the ground from under us. With our three-layered defense, it simply broke upon contact. Using Infinis’ ability I made us quicker while we also slowed the giant down. With our newfound speed, we appeared in front of it in a flash and bit into its body. We had ten heads in total, so this meant that almost its whole body was chewed into pieces.

Not so surprisingly, a huge amount of World Energy flooded our bodies. We were actually eating World Crystals, so it was no wonder. We were at the peak of the first stage, but after gulping down those large chunks of World Crystals, I quickly stepped into the second stage right after Hiro. The strength of the monster increased once again, but it didn’t matter as it barely had anything left of its body. After biting another time with all of our heads, the slow monster was eaten alive and then we simply crushed its soul with our soul attacks.

I turned into my battle form as I said with an unconvinced look on my face. “Well, that was quite anticlimactic...”

Hiro also turned into his battle form and embraced my back as he nodded while saying - “Well, you can’t expect everyone and everything to be as unfair and overpowered as us. We are cheats, you know?” He finished as he poked my nose and then gave a kiss on it. Suddenly, the original amount of World Crystals and Universe Crystals returned to the room.

We quickly started storing them away, but after taking two-thirds of it, we were teleported to a different place. “Huh? That’s weird,” I remarked as I turned my head to look to the left, only to see Hiro’s face so close to mine, that my nose touched him. I almost got scared for a moment…

“It is. It seems like Poirlion will have to go through the same kinds of tests as we. Let’s go in that case. We can meet up in the end anyway,” Hiro said as he kissed my temple and then stepped forward. I quickly followed after him and coiled my tail around him, fearing that he would be teleported away without me. He turned around and after a kiss, he patted my head and then continued on.

Ufufu~ I feel happy just from this alone. We enjoyed Poirlion’s company, but it’s been quite a while that we were left alone, together, only the two of us. I was strangely happy and Hiro felt the same. We are the kind of people who need community from time to time, but otherwise, we prefer to be alone, only the two of us. We understand Poirlion, but we can’t resonate with him as much as we do to each other, though that’s perfectly natural.

After walking for twenty seconds, we came upon a chamber. In the middle of it was a Law Crystal. That was just perfect! To be honest, both of us expected such a thing to appear. There were so many laws in this small world, so it would be weird if there wouldn’t be any. This time, a six meters tall tiger was in front of us. It had thick fur covering its body, with long claws and canine teeth. It was a monster at the early fourth stage. It had eighty Crypt, while we had only seventy-three, which in truth, wasn’t a big difference with our abilities.

We used Hydro Mind on the monster, which made it stop in its place for a moment. Using Infinis’ ability, I rushed towards the side of the tiger and thrust my spear towards its heart. I didn’t use a staff since I wanted to pierce it. Thanks to its thick fur and its quick reaction speed, it was able to stay alive because it recovered from our mind attacks quickly enough and jumped away. After my attack failed, I quickly turned Infinis into a full body shield in front of me.

I dide so just in time to take on the swipe of the tiger. Hiro also appeared on the other side of the tiger and formed a hammer in his hand. He swung it towards the side of the tiger, which attacked me, so it wasn’t able to evade. I stepped back two after feeling such a huge amount of punching strength behind that swipe, while the stupid cat flew through the air and landed five meters away with a loud thud from Hiro’s attack.

It sprung up from the ground with its bloody right side. A few of its ribs were visibly broken, which probably also punctured its lungs. Using its soul force, it quickly started healing its body, but we weren’t just idling by. Hiro used Bolt of Silence, which was our soul attack. The monster’s regeneration quickly stopped while I started using Dragon’s Bane, my martial art. I turned Infinis into a rapier as I thrust my arms forward.

A huge dragon head appeared behind me and rushed through my body, towards my target. The cat quickly wanted to jump to the side, but Hiro was waiting for it with three clones. I released my bloodlust, which made the cat stop for a moment. The Bolt of Silence only increased that delay. My quick attack also reached the tiger and crashed into its face. The tiger was overturned by the force of my attack, while its soul was continuously bombarded by us.

I turned my rapier into a spear and swung it in an arc to imitate a horizontal cut. My Dragon’s Wing was released with a power which was much more than it usually had since we ranked up. The overturned monster was completely defenseless, so my attack swiped past the monster without the slightest bit of resistance, along with a huge amount of soul force. It stayed unmoving for a moment before its four legs and its lower body slipped down from its upper body and fell to the side. It was cut into two halves.

Its blood dyed the ground red. The kind of red I liked seeing when I fought with my enemies. It died on the spot, so we quickly took away the Law Crystal and stored it in Hiro’s Hydra’s Storage. After learning that nothing could be sensed from that space even if we were in the Abyss, we stored all of our important possessions in our racial storages.

We were also teleported to the next place, but before moving towards the chamber, nothing would happen so we were safe here. That being the case, Hiro took out the Abyss Panther’s egg and then turned back into his battle form. “Shall we do it?” He asked me with visibly excited eyes.

“Yes, let’s make it hatch! I want a pet!” I said happily, feeling excited that we would be finally be able to make it hatch. Hiro sat down on the ground with his legs crossed and I sat onto his lap. I held the egg in my hand while Hiro was embracing me at my stomach from behind. I felt so happy and peaceful in his embrace. I just couldn’t help it. He soothed my mind every time, no matter what kind of problem I had.

I took out a newly acquired Universe Crystal and put it on top of this huge egg. “Let’s use more. Maybe it will turn stronger.,” Hiro said as he gave a kiss on my back. I obeyed his wish and put a few more on the egg, which started shaking and trembling. The Universe Crystals melted and turned into liquefied energy, which flowed into the egg. I opened my eyes widely upon seeing that every crystal disappeared, so I took out a few more World Crystals and Universe Crystals.

I repeated this process at least twenty times before I realized that it was being overloaded! I hope that it’s going to be alright. The originally black egg was shining with a light, which was similar to the light of the sun. It was like a ball of light. Black cracks started appearing on the surface of the shining egg and small knocks could be heard from the inside of the egg. I knocked back for our little companion. It started playing around and knocking on the egg, which in the end, cracked. I was able to see a terribly cute little thing.

Its body was thirty centimeters long, considering its tail, while it was only twelve centimeters tall. Its fur was completely black, with a few green stripes on its body. It had cute little pink colored paws and it and a tiny nose. It reached its paws out towards me as it yawned cutely. I held onto its sides and raised it up towards my chest. Hiro got out from under me and sat down in front of me to see the cute little panther as well.

“I love this thing! It’s so cute!” I shouted as I rubbed my face on its soft, lush, and black fur. It put its soft paw on my face and then licked my face. Hiro made a wishful face and not wanting to expropriate our new companion, I handed it… no, her, over to him.

“Hello, little girl~ Who is your daddy?” Hiro questioned the little panther, which answered by licking his face as well and… embraced his face? I think. I mean she put her two front legs on the two sides of his face and rubbed her head on his. Hehe~ I felt a new connection forming between us and this panther. She grew up while consuming our blood, so it was nothing surprising. Wait… now that I think about it…

I took her away from Hiro and looked carefully at her body, only to see a few tiny scales on her stomach. Hmm~ I wonder what's going to become of her with our blood in her body. Knowing that she should eat her egg, we started breaking the shell of the egg into pieces and feed it to her slowly.

“How should we call her?” I asked Hiro as I tilted my head to the side and started patting her little head. He put his hand on his chin as he started thinking.

“What about Suku? In the mythology of the Earth, there was a Mayan god called Awilix. She had a panther as a mount as well and its name was Suku. We could name her like that!” Hiro said after remembering about one of the Mayan gods. I liked that name, but somehow it didn’t fit well with this little blackie. She finished eating the shell of the egg and rolled on her back. I started scraping her stomach gently, which to she reacted by playing with my hand, gently biting into my fingers in a playful way. Hehe~ I’m already loving her!

“I don’t know. It seems to be wrong to call her as Suku. What about Rin? It’s one of the names of the nekomimi, but it seems to fit her, don’t you think?” I questioned Hiro with my brows raised. She jumped up from the ground and climbed up on my arms onto my shoulder, with a speed which was almost that of a cultivator at the fifth level! Ever since eating her egg, her aura has been increasing by the seconds! She put her cute little pink paw on the left side of my face with a happy meow.

“It seems like she likes Rin better,” Hiro said with a shrug of his shoulder as Rin meowed once again happily. I was probably smiling like an idiot, but I couldn’t help myself. She was such a cute little thing. I grabbed onto her two sides and raised her in front of me. Her hind legs were hanging down in the air and she kept flailing them, wishing to touch the ground.

“Your name is going to be Rin from now on. Are we clear?” I questioned her while looking into her eyes. She approved of her name with another happy meow and with a lick on my face. I put it on the ground and it quickly rushed onto Hiro’s lap. Hiro started caressing her back as she started purring like a cat. Both of us made a clone of ourselves and put her into our own world. She would grow up quickly after eating her egg, but she had to sleep while doing so.

Our clones laid down on our bed and Rin laid down on between our clones’ bellies. She meowed loudly, feeling happy that she was very close to her masters and then quickly fell asleep peacefully. “Alright, let’s go!” I said with a bright smile on my face as I stood up from the ground and cleared the dust from my butt. Hiro also helped me in doing so with his hands, which didn’t forget to grab onto my buttocks.

“Auhn~ This isn’t the right place. Let’s go. Fufu,” I remarked with a small laugh as I felt my heart to be filled with love. Our bond with Rin was powerful as well since she was connected with us through our blood. Blood bonds always meant a way for two or more people to create a looser and freer bond. This provided cultivators at most with a way to enter the other’s world and maybe a way to communicate through their minds.

Rin is probably going to be very clever in the future and she would understand our words, but if she would learn to talk or not? That was for the future, though it was unlikely since she was still a monster. And monsters can’t talk. We quickly moved forward, towards the next chamber. This time, there was a T-Rex-like monster in front of us, which was at the late fourth stage with eighty-six Crypt. It was four meters tall and fifteen meters long.

It roared loudly upon noticing us, which to we answered by turning into our true forms and roaring back at it. Its roar was like a fart in front of ours as it hung its head down in its defeat. Hmph, loser shit. That’s how you roar! It started walking around us, in a careful manner, not underestimating our battle potentials. Upon reaching our back since we weren’t moving, it quickly rushed towards us with its increased strength of ninety-two Crypt.

Hiro turned around in a flash with his three meters tall and twelve meters long body, while I swiped with my tail towards our enemy. It unexpectedly jumped into the air and continued its charge towards Hiro who welcomed it with seven of his heads. The monster opened its jaws widely and jumped once again to attack Hiro from above. Hiro flew into the air so the monster wasn’t able to reach him. It tried biting into Hiro’s chest from below, but it wasn’t able to reach him quickly enough.

Since it was still in the air, I charged towards its neck. I was able to bite into it, but thanks to the force behind my charge, I wasn’t able to stop, so we rolled on the ground. It screamed out in pain upon feeling my jaws and teeth in its neck. I also used my other two heads to hold onto its whole neck strongly. It tried biting me, but it was impossible in such a state.

I started pouring my soul force into its body, destroying it quickly, while I also used one of my minds to attack its mind continuously. Hiro landed on its back and using his heads, started tearing the monster’s body into pieces. After its body was destroyed, it could fight only with its mind power and soul force, which didn’t add up to much. In a few seconds, it died. If our bodies were to be destroyed, we could recover them completely.

But while doing so, we can’t fight with our bodies and we can only defend ourselves, which, in the middle of a battle, is equal to dying. Also, we can attack others’ soul, only through infusing soul force into our energy attacks or upon contact. Like when we cut into our enemies’ body with our weapons. On the other hand, those who don’t have a body, can’t move either. That’s the case with Gaia and her friends’ world as well. They created this huge world, but there is only a single entrance, other than that little treasure chamber they made.

Others could easily enter this world as well after breaking that one-time use formation in the Abyss. Probably no one ever before has found the real and only entrance of this world. Those who are weak, don’t walk so deeply into the Abyss to find it, but those who are the sixth level go deeper. This makes it so, that there is only a very little chance for anyone to stumble upon its entrance. The other ‘entrance’, which was for those who found the map and the keys, was only an extension into this world, with a limited amount of rewards.

Since in this area, the biggest power was Genotin and Angelwood academy, no one was powerful enough to break forcefully into the world through that extension. Gaia was at the peak of the eighth level, so that was no wonder. And since no one knew about this entrance, we were the first ones to enter through it and possibly the last ones as well. After killing the monster, Gaia once again appeared in front of us.

“Hello again. If you had problems reaching this place, then I’m sorry, but this place was really small and we had to create millions of formations to make this system work, so we weren’t able to add exit points after each chamber. If you reached this place then it also means that you are a genius. I can only praise your talent, but I’ll be honest. I’ve been hoarding the best things for millions of years and I’d feel bad if I were to hand it over to someone so easily.”

“Up till now, you’ve gained quite a lot, like World Crystals. I’m sure that it’s going to hold out for a long time, not to mention the Universe Crystals which are much more powerful. Now, you have two possibilities. You can enter the next chamber, which is also the last, but my creation is at the peak of the seventh level, so you’ll probably have a hard time killing it.”

“Or you can leave this place after inheriting our legacy and our most powerful ability. This is our bloodline, our true legacy, which not even our children know about. After so many of us have bonded together, a new idea started forming in our heads. I’m sure that you have heard of Soul Bonding before. That comes without any danger, but we have created something, which was even more powerful.”

“This is the epitome and peak of true bonding. After learning this ability, you can gain something even deeper than soul bonding. It also comes with the danger that one of you might get over the other and fuse together into a single powerful being. If you want to be together, then that surely isn’t a good end for you...”

“The truth is that this inheritance might be useless for you since it’s rare for someone to bond together, but believe me. If you can go through with this, then you can reach a sync you have never dreamed of before. It’s a wonderful feeling~”

“Alright, enough of talking. Here, take this Grail and drink the blood. After doing so, you’ll know what to do,” She said as a small column raised from the ground with a Grail on top of it. After a sigh, she continued with a slightly sad face. “I wish for you to find someone who can share your soul with. In this mad world, we are chasing an invisible goal, ‘the top’, fighting to get over everyone, but rarely do we stop to share our true selves with others.”

“So mark my words and take our legacy. Show your soul to someone you can trust in and find out the true power behind our legacy. We have our souls and hard work in it. It’s called...”

“Soul Fusion!”