What are Immortals?
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Records of them had followed the human histories for thousands of years long before Claude was even born.
People in the modern era had often talked about espers and psychics, but the truth was, Immortals were most probably the first mutation that ever happened to the human species.
The first humans to have evolved and gained access to superpowers beyond what normal humans were capable of. That's what Immortals were.
In general, Immortals had 2 traits that differentiated them from normal humans:
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1. They cannot die of old age
Make no mistakes, Immortals were not invincible. The only thing they were impervious to was 'time'.
At some point in their life, an Immortal would stop getting older and the cells in their bodies would not degenerate further.
But outside of this, unless they had the specific abilities to prevent it, any Immortals would still die when they were stabbed through the heart or blown in the head. Just like a normal human.
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2. Different types of Immortals had different sets of special abilities.
Taking the case of the Vampires of Transylvania as an example:
they were a group of Immortals with an innately strong physics. Stronger than any humans were ever capable of achieving.
Furthermore, they also possessed the special ability to grant their innately strong physical capabilities to normal humans through blood transfusion, allowing them to breed an entire elite army all on their own. Of course, the same thing could not be done for their unaging trait.
With these attributes, they had deemed themselves as nobles in Southeast Europe. The people who came to know about them named them Vampires. But to the rest of the Immortals in the world, they were known as Blood Immortals.
And just like them, other types of Immortals also had their own specific powers and abilities.
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These were the 2 common traits of Immortals.
As for Claude, he was born during the early period of the First World War. And with the world being riddled with conflicts as it had been back then, It hadn't taken a long time for Claude to notice his own peculiarity.
After the shocking discovery, just like many of the Immortals that came before him, he too, soon entered a life of wandering. Moving from places to places, assuming lots of different identities, and never staying in one place for too long.
Throughout his journey, though very rarely, he had had crossed paths quite a few times with other Immortals of various types and shared tales with them on occasions. After several such encounters, before long he too, had understood what being an Immortal entailed.
However, curiously enough.
Even after a long and eventful journey of his life. Even after he had been discovered, caught, and experimented on during the height of conflict in World War 3. Claude had never met an Immortal with the same abilities as him.
Left without any other frame of reference, he had chosen to name his own type as the 'True Immortal'.
And the reason for that was precisely because of the nature of his abilities.
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Outside of the tunnel entrance where his bunker was located, Claude stood completely still with his bare naked upper body and black ragged pants. He still had his head in a daze after witnessing the world around him.
To the present him, the sounds of chirping birds and running water were nothing short of a blessing that welcomed his freedom back into the world.
*sigh*
Before long, he entered a serene and relaxed state of mind.
Unbeknownst to him, a pair of eyes hidden underneath thickets of leaves some distance away from him had caught sight of Claude's figure and were waiting for the most opportune moment to prey.
"..."
Just as Claude had about enough of his new environment and were about to turn around to cover the wide tunnel entrance behind him...
*SWOOSH*
A large black shadow swooped in towards his side at breakneck speed from one of the branches of the trees closest to him. The shadowy figure bore its sharp fang as it closed in on Claude's figure.
Realizing too late the danger that was fast approaching, Claude barely had enough time to turn his head on the direction of the attack when...
*CRUNCH* *SNAP*
"Guh...!"
The shadowy figure dashed past him without delay before stopping a couple meters away from him and turning back.
Only when Claude eventually came around to it did he finally spot the figure of the attacker looking at him from right across the open clearing.
The shape of the attacker was that of a four-legged furred beast. And it was not an unfamiliar one to Claude.
It was a wolf. A wolf the size of a grizzly bear. The beast was standing proudly with his four legs, staring at his prey with wildness in his eyes. And in his mouth...
Was the severed limb of Claude's right arm dangling lightly in the wind following the movement of the wolf's lower jaw.
*drip* *drip*
The place that it was severed from had started to slowly let out droplets of blood that had fallen into the ground.
"Ugh..." Claude's face scrunched up slightly when he saw his own limb hanging from the mouth of his attacker.
He could clearly feel the more than stinging pain radiating from right below his right shoulder.
'Damn, that hurts!'
"...And I thought I wouldn't experience this kind of pain again after being freed." He complained.
Claude had long noticed the beast's stare on him as it waved its bushy tail left and right.
"Are you taunting me?" He smiled. This was not a sarcastic smile, Claude held nothing against the law of the jungle wherein the strong preyed on the weak.
After his question, Claude started to walk slowly towards the beast with a calm demeanor.
one step.
two steps.
Three steps.
The giant wolf instinctively felt the strange development of the situation, which prompted it to rise its alertness once again as it stopped the swinging of its tail.
"I'm sorry, but I truly do need that right arm so..."
After he said that, the limb that was hanging from the wolf's mouth suddenly started to disappear in the next instant. It slowly disintegrated in a spiralling fashion from one end to another.
On the other hand, the exposed area below Claude's right shoulder where his right arm used to be had unexpectedly started to wriggle out and grow at the same time!
It grew starting from the exposed bone, to every single muscle fibers before finally reaching the outer layers of the skin! They grew and extended at a rapid pace, eventually creating a new set of right arm for him.
Claude cracked his joints as if confirming that there's nothing wrong with them before carrying on with his walk.
During this whole bizarre process, one might notice that even the drops of blood that had fallen to the ground had also started to disintegrate little by little.
At the end of it, the beast who had stayed firm and witnessed the whole baffling event, had finally felt its own danger sense flaring out and sending signals all over its body.
Claude was still walking unhurriedly towards the wolf in front of him, "You should leave. Otherwise you might not make it out of this alive." He warned lightly.
*step* *step*
Claude finally stopped when he was about five paces away from the huge wolf. He waited for the wolf's reaction even though he didn't know whether it could understand him or not.
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The beasts and carnivorous plants living inside the Forest Biome were not mindless beings. Although they did not possess the ability to understand human speech, most of them still possessed enough judgement and survival instinct to retreat when encountering certain danger.
*Grrrrr*
Currently, the giant wolf was hesitating between attack and retreat.
This standstill went on for quite a while until Claude decided that it was not worth the wait. He took a single step forward and let out some pressure to his surrounding to make his stance clear.
*step*
"!!"
The extra pressure and killing intent released caused the already on edge giant wolf to jump back reflexively before decisively choosing to run away.
*stomp* *stomp* *stomp*
With how long he had lived and traveled before his imprisonment, mastering some combat techniques and survival skills were nothing surprising. He was confident that he could win against any non-Immortals from the old world in a one-on-one combat situation.
Claude smiled wryly at the scene of the giant wolf running away at full speed. He was glad, he wasn't in any mood for an intense fight right after he got his freedom back.
'Although...' He raised his lower right arm up to his face as if to inspect, 'I didn't think I would get this kind of injury on day 1...'
"This place is truly dangerous." Claude mumbled as he put his arm down, remembering the event that had happened just seconds ago.
What had happened was his ability as an Immortal.
He called this ability 'Save & Load'. And no, it wasn't really something like the Healing Factor mentioned in those old comic books.
Just like its name suggested, it was an ability that allowed him to 'Save' and 'Load' the physical state of his being.
The 'Save' ability allowed his body to memorize its present state. Claude could overwrite the previously saved state whenever he wanted with his present one, but his body could only memorize one state from a single point in time.
And the 'Load' ability.
Is the power that allowed his present state to revert back into its previously 'Saved' condition. When this ability is activated, any substances that weren't supposed to be in him during his saved state would be forced out while other parts of him that were not intact and were left outside would be disintegrated.
This includes any blood or dead tissues that had been secreted out by the body.
With these 2 abilities working in conjunction. Technically, Claude can't die.
'True Immortal'.
Of course, he didn't really know up to what extent was the limit of these abilities of his. After all, even though it might sound pathetic considering how long he'd lived, he was still afraid of letting his body died out without 'Loading' back when encountering some mortal dangers.
This held true even during the long years of his imprisonment in that bunker. Otherwise, he could've just left his body to die of starvation long ago.
His current 'Saved' state-- That is, this current body of his after 'recovering' his right arm. Had been the same body as the one before he was caught during the period of the Third World War.
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*sigh*
Claude felt wistful.
If he were to be told by someone today that he had lived too long a life and that his immortality would be taken away from him, he would have no qualms about it. He had lived a full life and then some, even before his imprisonment.
But most Immortals needed to be the one to pull their own trigger in their lives, and Claude was somewhat ashamed to admit that he didn't have the strength to do it. Especially with his abilities where he needed to actually 'try hard' and experiment on himself to know if it was even possible to die.
'Well... Maybe getting locked up for a while wasn't such a bad thing. At least I haven't seen it all.'
He looked up towards the sky with clear anticipation.
*BOOM*
"!!"
However, before he could collect his thought, the loud sound of an explosion suddenly resounded from a far distance. Followed closely by a strong blast wave and rising smokes.
*WHOOSH*
'What now?' Claude reflexively covered his head with his arm while lowering his stance to try and stay rooted to the ground. Broken twigs and pieces of rocks flew past him as he held on.
When everything had finally passed, he looked towards the direction of the commotion in a daze.
It was the same way in which Rex and Dio were running to earlier.