Terrence and the other guards left the Void spawn corpse on the ground. The body itself had very little value inside of the Rift because the Foundation had accumulated such a massive stock of the various spawns the Void created, so it wasn't worth lifting the heavy corpse back to the facility.
That was how the shift worked for them. When it began, they patrolled the grounds until it was over. When they weren't on patrol, they weren't really restricted in their actions. They could lounge around, take a walk, sleep, stare into the endless abyss...
...Maybe not that last option though. Unless the Void already sapped their sanity away.
'Wonder if that kid's still alive. Probably not. Hopefully not.' Terrence thought to himself, zoning out while his shift-mates talked amongst themselves. When he thought back to Fen, complicated feelings came up in his heart.
He felt guilty for dragging the poor kid into the Guardian Program, but the logical side of his head told him not to reminisce about past jobs. Going down that rabbit hole almost always ended with him passed out surrounded by alcohol bottles in the Foundation-provided bar. And that was if he was lucky.
If he was unlucky, the alcohol wouldn't drown out their voices, and the nightmares would soon follow; Terrence couldn't stay awake forever and when he did pass out from exhaustion all their faces would surround him. Fen's was just another face among many, adding to the cacophony of sorrow.
Fen wasn't the only victim of Terrence's actions. There were countless other people, even kids. They all suffered because of him. He wasn't always employed by the Foundation, and used to work as a mercenary for other nations back on Earth; when there wasn't a war (which there almost always was one) he did all the secretive shit that nobody else wanted to do. He did it all to gain money to support his own training as a Warrior. Even if he wasn't proud of it, he refused to lie to himself and disrespect the memories of the dead that he killed to get this far in life.
If the kid was already dead then he wouldn't feel so guilty; at least they wouldn't have to suffer through the rest of the Program and have to endure the constant wearing down on their nerves until they had a nervous breakdown. Being ignorant about the kid's fate was probably the greatest possible outcome overall. He could just push away all thoughts about him until his mind forgot even if his heart would still carry the scars.
As the group approached the guard post they were assigned to, thoughts concerning Fen gradually disappeared from his mind. Delila, the warlock Mage of the group, broke the silence that had followed the group since they started their walk back to end their shift.
"Anyone up for a game of spoons? I want to steal- Ahem, win, some of your guys' food."
"Hell no! You always cheat with your damn tentacle arms- Like, come one, we don't need to know what you do in your alone time-"
Terrence quickly reached to shut Giant's mouth before he crossed the line, but Delila was a second faster. Small portals were conjured in the Mana rich air, with several large tentacles with sharp suckers on them stretching out and wrapping around the poor man. The tentacles carried him with his limbs dangling in the air until his face was centimeters away from her cold eyes.
With a smile so thin even a blind man could certify it's falsity, she asked him a question. The tiny tinge of red on her cheeks was the only indication of her embarrassment at Giant's crude remark.
"What were you saying I do in my alone time~? I must have misheard you, right~?"
"There's no way you assumed that I used these," she pointed at the tentacles wrapped around Giant, making them squeeze the man tighter, "to do unmentionable things to myself right~?"
Giant quickly nodded his head, seeing that the only unrestrained part of his body was his head. "That's right, that's exactly what I said! You have some really good ears!" He said with a smirk.
Kessler, the designated quartermaster and logistician of the group, audibly slapped his forehead at the man's stupidity. No one in the group could tell if Giant was extremely brave, immune to pain, or simply an idiot.
What happened next quickly confirmed that Giant was, in fact, not immune to pain. Even more tentacles appeared around the man and the expressions of pity from the surroundings patrol members quickly morphed into ones of horror as they realized what Delila was about to do.
Terrence, not willing to see another man no matter how pathetic and sad be violated in such a manner decided to speak up.
"Wait! Delila, he's not worth it! Think about your own innocence! Don't let yourself be corrupted by that side!"
The only response he got in return was a glance from the side, before she quickly put all her energy back into preparing for the deed all while Giant's screams of terror increased in volume, painting the group of guards' faces white as a sheet.
The black tentacles completely covered Giant save for his bloodshot eyes, tears streaming down and staining the ground. When his screams turned into whimpers as he was violated further, Delila turned to Terrence.
She pointed at the wriggling tentacles, an example of the extremes magic was capable of.
"Do you want to join him? If you really want to save him you're welcome to take his place." The previous tinge of red was replaced by a gleeful delight that shadowed the blacks of her eyes. If a certain Opfer were to see this, he would shiver before running away to find and bring whatever the Foundation equivalent of the Governmental Bureau of Investigation was to take care of these messed up psychopaths and their perverted habits.
Terrence glanced back at the poor human, refusing to think of Giant as a man to save the pitiful man from future shame.
He looked back at Delila who was still reveling in the echoing whimpers.
"You know what? I actually have some urgent business to perform. So uh, I'm good." And with that, Terrence quickly booked as far away from Delila as he could run without his legs collapsing.
"And here I thought you could only find that in 'those' comics. Didn't know you could do that in real life."
"By the Heavens..."
"Its a good thing that the Heaven's aren't here to witness this. Can you imagine their reaction? They might just abandon the Earth even despite all our efforts to bring them back." One of the guards poked fun at the gristly scene in front of them, but her face was the same shade as the rest of them. Her attempt to lighten the mood failed epically.
Soon he couldn't hear Giant anymore, so Terrence stopped running and looked around to see where his crazed fleein- Ahem, tactical retreat had led him. He was still outside the facility, the fortress' cold walls protruding from the dead ground; not that there was anywhere else he could go. If he truly left the protection provided by the facility then he'd end up somewhere inside the Void.
That was another idea that he couldn't wrap his head around. There was life in the seemingly empty Void, but it didn't appear as if there were any plant life. And although Terrence didn't remember much from his temporary stay in the Natural Science classes he did recall that any and all life had to process their energy from plants, which were the only beings capable of making food out of inedible energies such as starlight. Even carnivores back on Earth ate herbivores and obtained their energy from the animals' meat.
But that fact of life was completely ignored in this environment where there was seemingly endless amounts of Void spawn. It made sense however. There was too much that even he, as a guard within the Foundation was unaware about.
If they ate anything besides themselves, there was no evidence of it. Or, at least, no evidence that the Foundation could detect. Although they proclaimed themselves masters of the magical arts, compared to the grand scale of the universe they were simply a slightly more advanced magical institution. Hundreds of other groups existed in the known universes, and dozens of ancient Orders had integrated themselves so deeply inside of any significant organization that they were firmly rooted. He suspected that an answer to his question was within those orders.
There were many of these groups inside the Foundation, but there two that had specifically risen to power, although they hadn't grown powerful enough yet to rival the leader of the VPF, the Urok family. The founders of the organization had kept any powerful technology they had unearthed to themselves, gifting only their loyal followers with it. By doing that, they had stayed in power on Earth. It was only recently that the organization rebranded themselves as the VPF, seeking to restore the balance between Earth and Heaven so as to save their dying planet.
To his right, facing the facility, was the entrance to the Chosen's side of the institution. Through spaced out composite windows Terrence could view them, and he gradually grew disgusted with what he saw.
He had initially kept a high opinion of the Chosen, believing that they wouldn't waste their opportunity to gain knowledge and power to bolster their rank within the Foundation.
That belief was gone now. After staying in contact with the guards, he slowly learned more about the culture and societal structure within the organization, learning how most Chosen squandered their power in menial tasks and chose the temporary pleasure of hedonism rather than the lifetime benefits that was simply surrounding them within the knowledge provided within the Program Lessons and instructors.
Even when sent into the Guardian Program, most of the Chosen still didn't take the opportunity that they were being given. Many of them continued to laze around, believing in the skills their families or families' connections had ingrained into them despite their lazy work ethic.
Even now, as he watched through the windows, instead of filled Training Halls and libraries with advanced knowledge bustling with activity, he saw forlorn and empty rooms in which a pitiful amount of Chosen were training or learning. In the lounges however, rooms that only the Chosen had access to, were a staggering amount of people. Sleeping, eating, playing, any activity that could be considered leisure, they were all there. Some of them were even bowling, the brats!
'What the hell...' Terrence had never personally been to the Opfer section of the facility in fear that he would see Fen, or even worse, not see him. However, he had heard descriptions from the other guards. Empty rooms, basic furniture, and less amenities than these youths. The only thing that the two groups shared equally was the quality of their training, if they wished to do so.
Looking back at the few Chosen in the Training Halls, what he did see startled the hulking axe wielder. Every single one of them were practicing advanced magical arts, and a small minority were even wielding blade techniques only accessible to high-Staged Classes.
A cold feeling went down his spine, making him shiver. Conjuring animals wasn't difficult, it just took practice. What scared him was that none of the Chosen practicing conjuring summoned simple animals. Fiery salamanders, a blizzard fox, one of them was even practicing summoning a inter-dimensional higher being with a bright humanoid shadowing over a petite teen, empowering her every action.
To understand the power that they were displaying, Terrence had to understand the basics of using conjuring magic, which he did. Conjuring was a very general term, which could be used to describe creating weapons out of nothing as well as summoning armor. Conjuring living beings to assist the summoner was a level of skill on an entire different league compared to conjuring a non-sentient item, the skill level increasing exponentially with the power of the conjured creature.
And the blade techniques were something that he, as a powerful Warrior understood even deeper. Using blade technique allowed the wielder to expand their circulation of Aura into their weapon and enhance it. Some, like Terrence, could create energy spikes alongside his weapon that contained an amount of strength proportional to the amount of energy inserted into them.
That was exactly what these training Chosen were doing; energies of all colors and varieties emerged from their weapons and they fought against one another, explosions so powerful that although he couldn't hear them, he could feel their power through the vibration traveling to his feet through the floor.
If Fen was alive, then he could only hope that he wasn't matched up against a Chosen during the Task.
****
After talking with Raisen, Fen went back to Squad 42.
"So. Where'd you go?" asked Amelia.
Fen flipped his hand and showed them the golden sapling glowing on his inner wrist.
"Met with a guy who told me to find him after the Initiation. So I signed up for his Lesson: Vitality Manipulation. Supposedly it's going to train me to become a Knight. What did you guys go with?" Fen had decided to be more friendly with his Squad, as much as he could. Even if they had gotten off on the wrong foot, he shouldn't drive away some of his only options for allies. He wouldn't forget his grudge however; he would simply store it away until they were in a better position to talk.
Only part of his reasons were because of the option of becoming allies. The main reason why Fen wanted to be friendlier towards his Squad mates was because of the practice it gave him. If he spent too much time alone, he'd quickly revert back into a anti-social humanoid that only closely resembled a person, something that he obviously didn't want.
There was too much to do, and not enough time to prepare. Today (how does time even work here?) there wouldn't be any Lessons and it was designated as the time for Opfer to familiarize themselves with the interface and the Shop as well as purchase any Lessons they were interested in.
Qin was the first to speak up about the Lesson he took on, revealing a silver spear glowing on his wrist.
"Warrior-training. I went with spear training."
"You any good with a spear?" Fen gave him a weird look, images of Qin as a kid waving a big stick around floating around his mind. He fit the image, with dense forearm muscles.
"Of course not." He snorted in response.
"What were you thinking of?" Qin raised his eyebrows, wondering why Fen looked slightly disappointed, ignorant that he had crushed his dreams of a tiny spear-wielding Qin.
"Nothing. So why spear then, if you never practiced?"
"I used to play hockey, so I just switched to using a bigger stick."
"Hehe. Ah, ahem." Crap, the chuckle escaped from him. He had tried to hold it in, but the evolution of kid Qin holding a big stick into bigger Qin holding a hockey stick made him laugh. Thankfully, no one called him on his chuckle although Amelia gave him her customary glare.
He had already gotten used to that look, however. Before he might have been slightly offended but now that he knew that was just how her face looked, he could ignore it.
"I went into magic." Amelia showed a red glowing ember on her wrist, perfectly matching her hair. It matched so well that Fen wondered whether she chose that Lesson because of it's color, but assured himself otherwise when remembering her personality.
'There's no way that a cute fashionable girl exists underneath that glare, right?' he thought inside his head, where it was safe to voice such dangerous words.
And then Gray spoke, proudly announcing his choice with almost child-like joy. Honestly, the guy was practically vibrating with joy.
"I'm gonna be a greatsword wielding badass! With massive muscles!" Somehow, the swear seemed much cuter and adorable when the tiny teen yelled it with enthusiasm.
Fen looked at Qin and Amelia, only now realizing that if the Squad was going to preserve Gray's innocence then they would need the three of them to use all their effort to hide the cruelness of reality from Gray. That smile and childhood innocence was simply too adorable to risk losing.