“My goodness..”

Charlotte’s hands were on her mouth. Instead of the violently thrashing creature behind us, the one in front of us just groaned as it looked at us.

Its eyes weren’t the eyes of a human despite having the body of one.

–K-K-Kill...

It was saying something but it couldn’t form words and only spoke incoherently. Damian was on high alert as he took out his black daggers.

–M-M-Me...

Black fluids came out of its eye sockets.

–P-Please...

And then it sobbed.

I got goose bumps all over my body.

That thing’s body was completely black and covered with slime. It was unlike the one I saw in my dream but I felt like they were similar.

A disfigured mouth. Two yellow eyes. Body ash black in colour.

It was missing both its legs. The rods were impaled into both arms and its shoulders.

We heard several other groans. I heard both Charlotte and Damian gulp.

“Edna...Light all the torches.”

She nodded and did as I said.

I clutched my stomach to stop the vomiting from coming out.

“A-Ah...”

Charlotte fell on the ground as she also saw the horrific figures impaled into the walls just like the one who begged us to kill it. The figures thrashed as they groaned and screeched.

It was like watching someone being tortured by the way they were screaming.

“Did... did the light wake them up? Are they that sensitive to light...?”

It was a scene of horror seeing heavily distorted beings still alive. Many were missing their heads but were still somehow moving. There were even severed arms grabbing at our feet with weak attempts.

None of us said a thing as we looked at all the black slimy creatures. Charlotte held my arm and trembled with her head on my chest.

Some had all their body parts while others were just a head. Each and every one of them was a different shape.

“What in the hell...”

–Hooooaaaoa

–Hieeeek

–Kieeee

All of their heads turned in our directions.

A few tried speaking but all we heard were gurgling sounds and sounds similar to pooping.

“What the fuck is this!?”

Damian took out his daggers and surrounded himself in black mana.

“How the fuck are these things alive!?”

It made no sense to me either. This was something that shouldn’t exist. If a human was responsible for this then they wouldn’t be classified as human anymore.

“Huh?”

I then noticed a pillar with a sign on it. The sign was badly rusted but I could make out the name. It was written in our continent’s language.

–‘Experiment is a failure’

These people or whatever they were before were a result of experiments gone wrong.

Out of the many, only one had a mouth and could speak properly.

–Kill me... P-Please...

Its voice wasn’t feminine nor was it masculine. It was a monotonous voice that sounded as if listening to someone scrape chalk on a black board.

It felt like a snake was licking my skin.

I approached it and looked into its eyes.

“Who did this...?”

It opened its mouth and sucked in air a few times. But it couldn’t speak.

Even more black fluids which I assume were tears streamed down its face. I stopped Damian from killing it.

I touched its chin. It felt so disgusting how my fingers sunk into the slimy mess. The figure looked upwards again.

It met my eyes.

“It must’ve been hard for all of you...”

The black tears fell onto my hand. It felt cold on my skin.

“Not being able to die...”My hand gently touched its cheek. It closed its eyes and nodded.

“A-Ah...”

The figure then started speaking more coherently when I got closer. A female? It certainly sounded like it.

“A-A-A–“

I didn’t even know what she was trying to say.

I took out a leather bag filled with water and poured it into her mouth.

The female drank the water with big gulps.

Her yellow eyes gained a little light. She exhaled deeply.

“Arius... I-Immortal Race... Homunculi...”

“Lord Clyde. What is it saying?”

Charlotte kept away from the creature while I was leaning with my ear near its mouth.

“Homunculi?”

She nodded.

She tapped on my shoulder with her disfigured hand.

“H-Human and Homunculi... fused cells...”

She coughed, causing black fluid to fall out of her distorted mouth.

“Injected.. with immortal... blood... combined... create tools...”

Then she pointed to herself with her stump.

“They used both human and homunculi DNA together and injected them with immortal blood?”

She nodded. That was the only way I could construct the words to make sense.

“How...?”

Her finger pointed down to the lab we came from.

“Underground... more experiments... documents and plans there...”

Her eyes were starting to lose their light again.

“Hey! Stay with us!”

I shook her shoulder. Her eyes opened again.

“What happened to the United Empire? Who could’ve done this?”

“First success... Sync... abandon...”

Her body started decaying.

What happened? She was talking just a second ago...

The other monsters’ screams were the only noises that remained.

“She held on this long...”

Edna’s ears drooped as she looked at the dust that fell down.

Only the black rods remained in its place.

That was once a human?

“Clyde?”

Damian put his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t notice the way my body was trembling. But I knew what I was feeling.

Anger.

I turned my gaze upwards. The distorted figures made noise as they looked at me. They probably didn’t even have a brain left to think.

Could they still be called humans?

“Are you okay?”

I nodded my head at Damian.

“Let’s go. This might be the clue as to why this empire fell.”

Damian and Charlotte followed close behind as we ignored the screaming figures. My spirit core was slightly shaking from my emotions.

◇◇◇

We came back to the lab and managed to find documents that were left intact. Only Charlotte could read the ancient language while Damian, Edna and I stood there listening to her.

“This is a diary from an alchemist and scientist that was part of the experimental operation. It was before all of this happened. It says ‘We were only a group of small scientists interested in evolving humans even further. Why wait for evolution when we can hasten it ourselves? I gathered many of my comrades that also shared my same ambition. My wife left me calling us crazy but that didn’t matter to me.

I wanted to change the way us humans think, feel, grow and evolve. It was one day when a strange gentleman wearing a completely black suit entered our lab. He goes by the name of Mister Z. He told us he was a rich merchant that wanted to prolong his life by supporting our project.

He supported us. He supported our cause while everyone called us crazy. Those bastards will be begging us for our potions of evolution when we finish our final product. He even gave us our first test subject. I will call that man Mister S. Mister Z said that Mister S was like a brother to him so he wanted us to fix him up. He wanted powerful subordinates to aid him in his goal.

We created our first potion. It was a failure. The injured man’s body rapidly aged and even his skin burned off. We luckily managed to save him. Although he was still a mess even more than before. Mister Z scolded us saying that we had to do tests before attempting the real thing.

He bought us something we could never afford. Slaves. We received hundreds of them. People with nowhere to go. Wouldn’t it be perfect for them to work for us so long as they receive food–“

Charlotte then frowned.

“I’m sorry but I have to skip this. Even talking about this gives me chills.”

I wonder what she meant.

She continued reading after flipping the page

“Day 708. We managed to create a potion that managed to work. Using Homunculi and human DNA plus the blood from Mr. Z himself. He said ‘This will be important as our blood will deepen our brotherhood’. I felt really fuzzy hearing his words. He cares so much for his brother that he’s willing to risk this much. We were successful. However, the previous slaves he brought all failed. We only had two successes so far.

Well, I had to use my wife since we couldn’t ask Mr. Z for more slaves. She managed to survive at least. I proved her wrong. I could do it. The result was that she turned into a hideous creature with ash black skin. Out of the many, only she regained her sanity. Mister S was our real success. His body grew stronger and his mana skyrocketed. I never thought I’d see such a powerful being in all my life and such a being was created by us. He was even more powerful than a dragon.

His main power is using materialized mana and controlling the space around him. Mister Z rewarded us handsomely for our efforts. We gave him the instructions to creating what we call immortal humans. Beings fit for war. The next evolution of super soldiers.”

Charlotte’s eyes opened wide.

“T-This last line...”

“What does it say?”

‘What else did this crazy scientist write down?’

“Day 1010. Beings with bodies similar to humans covered in a black miasma invaded the United Empire the day the Red Abyss’ red mana dyed the atmosphere blood red. It was a day of carnage. Not even our strongest dragons could defeat them. We were all reduced to human cattle. Did we create these Immortal super soldiers only to be wiped out afterwards?”

Charlotte closed the book.

She looked at us.

“It ends there. Multiple pages were ripped out...”

I pondered on something that Charlotte said.

His wife... The slaves that failed the experiments.

I suddenly realized...

“That creature that just died... she was the wife of this crazy scientist.”

Her only wish must’ve been to escape this hell. A hell where she was reduced to a bottom feeder that had to remain in the dark for several hundred years.

“This Mister Z... who is this person?”

“He could be the mastermind behind everything that the dairy just described. Who are these immortals he spoke of?”

I kept my mouth shut. Could this Mister Z be an immortal? It mentioned his blood so that was the only plausible reason I could come up with.

That meant that they were of the same sort that attacked the kingdom a year ago.

That woman who died earlier also mentioned immortal blood...

‘I see. There’s no doubt about it. This Mister Z guy really is an immortal. If that’s the case then he should still be alive somewhere.’

For some reason, I had an ominous feeling about the future.

We left the chamber and the lab behind since we got what we were looking for. I grabbed multiple scrolls about mana cores. Maybe I could learn something that could explain how I could fix my core.

Charlotte also took the diary of that scientist.

“Where should we go now?”

Charlotte was the one in front, leading us.

“Let us head down to the treasury. We might find ourselves lucky.”

Anything was better than that hellhole they call a lab. Even though we came to the Palace already, I still heard the cries and screeches of those nightmare creatures.

It was hell incarnate.