It didn't take long for Fen to grow accustomed to fighting and controlling ten Vital Spears at the same time. Maybe it was because of the situation, or his talent, or his body's increased perception of energy- maybe it was even all of them combined- but his skill with manipulating Vital energy quickly grew stronger and stronger as Fen circulated his energy however he wanted. Well, his skill didn't actually increase much but the amount of damage that he could do increased as he grew used to controlling so many Vital constructs.
The attack power of his spears wouldn't necessarily grow more powerful if Fen dumped more energy into them, but they did grow sharper and move faster as his ability to control them increased. While his combat capability was outshined by the more experienced and more powerful Executioners who didn't hold back a single ounce of their power, Fen's abilities weren't useless. He swept from Executioner to Executioner, helping out wherever he could, dealing a stunning blow here and piercing through the limb of a Void Spawn there to aid them in clearing a path forwards.
Even the Knight who mostly acted as a supporting Healer had to fight alongside them as the corridors widened throughout the facility in order to prevent the group of Empowered from being overrun.
'It's not the smartest idea to show so much of my strength in front of others, but the faster we find Raisen the faster I can get an idea of just what the hell is going on,' Fen mumbled inwardly. His true race was going to get revealed no matter what he did; that was just the way reality was after factoring in Fen's terrible luck and the possibility that the Death Mark might finally start affecting the people around him instead of just making him encounter dangerous monsters.
'Dangerous monsters... This can't possibly be the effect of the Death Mark, right? There's no way... Right?!' Fen's thoughts became hysterical after realizing that the idea of his terrible luck bringing in so many monsters didn't sound so far-fetched, especially when combined with the strange powers of the Death Primordial.
No matter how unrealistic and improbable, if there was even the slightest chance of it being true then it probably was. Only the Death Primordial fully understood how the Death Mark worked, and they didn't seem like the type of being to share important information.
He tried to calm his thoughts by reasoning with himself. 'An invasion like this never happened before, so there must be some other reason why so many Void Spawn are invading the facility. Yeah, there must be. This can't all be my fault...'
The short sword gripped in between his fingers suddenly became a conduit to release his anxiety, and his movements suddenly became much more ferocious and violent while his face remained apathetic towards the slaughter occurring around him.
"Even if we don't find Raisen, if we can meet up with a Captain we should be alright!" Clark the Warrior yelled over the sound of fighting and bestial snarling.
Fen yelled a question through the chaos happening around them, "What difference does it make if we find a Captain?"
"All the difference in the world! Every Captain's reached Stage four! Originally we had Roberts with us but we separated before the Void Spawn invaded." An Executioner answered, seeing the confused look on his face after he slammed a dog-like Spawn onto the ground and smashing its skull open with his massive hammer.
Fen nodded his understanding. The difference between the Stages of Empowered differed for every Class but overall, after going through Stage Advancement your power was supposed to grow exponentially though he didn't know how high the limit was.
"We heading towards a Captain or something?"
Yasmin hesitated before answering, "Well, we don't actually know. Because the interfaces' are offline, information's gotten pretty hard to get."
"So we just keep moving forward then?"
"...yeah."
Eventually, they'd meet other people; it was impossible that there weren't any other groups like them who were separated from the main group and were fighting through the swarms of monsters to reach other people.
And just like they predicted, it didn't take too long until they found another person. But it wasn't a group of Executioners like they all hoped and was instead a single Foundation member.
Fen blinked as his eyes lit up with recognition. 'Isn't that the woman in charge of my Tasks?"
She certainly looked similar, with the same scared look on her face and thin figure. It seemed she recognized him too by the shriek of shock that came out her mouth.
"You! You survived!" Her expression lit up with joy before the harsh reality around her clouded her face again after remembering she was being chased by a group of three Void Spawn. Unfortunately, the way she came from was the direction that they wanted to continue traveling in but Fen's senses told him that there were a lot more than three Void Spawn waiting in that hallway.
Before any of them could come up with another plan of action, a loud explosion of red and black energy swept across the new group of Void Spawn, opening up a path to that corridor. At the entrance of the new type of energy, a relieved expression came across all the Executioners faces who immediately took off running, choosing to follow the source of the energy.
"Come on! That's a Captain right over there!" Without saying another word, Fen threw the Foundation lady- he learned that Yuki was her name- over his shoulder and sprinted to follow the Executioners using micro-Vital Dashes to keep up with their sudden burst of speed.
The Captain had the appearance of a red and black version of one of Dey's energy manifestations, like a living person made up of energy- in this case, Aura. They used their energy body to shoot beams of energy into the swarm of monsters while using the weapons strapped to their body to tear them apart, easily clearing a path for the group of Empowered to reach the relative safety of a Training Hall packed with other people.
Fen set Yuki down while taking a moment to calm his heaving lungs, all while observing the actions of the Stage four Empowered and their strange energy body.
****
Meanwhile, on the other side of the facility.
Raisen pulled out a red metal blade from the body of a dead Void Spawn with ease, destroying the carcass without a second look by burning the rest of it's life force forcibly. His control over Vital energy had risen to a whole new level ever since he breached through into Stage seven, giving him the ability to even manipulate the complex Vital energy of other lifeforms without the need to waste his own energy.
Of course, this ability came with some limitations, but a mere swarm of millions of Void Spawn was nowhere near enough to reach those limitations. Their life force was too simple and their intelligence too lacking, and he could simply replenish his energy using their Vitality and repeat his efforts to fight until they all died.
Thankfully, Deion was working to reduce the number as much as he could away from the Foundation's sight, reducing the millions to just a few hundred thousand, but even that number would exhaust the Foundation's Executioners and guards if not dealt with properly.
If he wanted to, it wouldn't take him very long to deal with every single Void Spawn roaming around the facility and even the countless thousands swarming outside it., but he joined under this fake identity for a much better reason than just to mess around, so he just fought within the limits of his records and swept the Void Spawn away from his assigned area. While he became a nightmarish figure to the dull Void Spawn, the old Knight looked around with boredom at the chaos around him, thinking about the organization that he joined.
The Foundation was currently unaware of his identity and only new him as Raisen York, the Stage five Knight who fled from another world and sought refuge within the VPF in exchange for his efforts to teach talented youths. After showcasing his strength, it wasn't too hard to join them; they practically begged him to join their pool of talent.
And he must admit, the organization had a considerable number of talented Empowered with a not-so-small number of Stage four and five Empowered that could even rival some of the armies of Stellar Systems Grade civilizations. They even had some geniuses capable of breaking through into Stage six...
But the difference between an organization originating from a Planet Grade civilization and that from a Stellar Systems Grade civilization wasn't so small as to be bridged by the number of talents. The number of high-Class materials and equipment along with the aide of powerful technology made up most of an Empowered's combat ability by letting them use more of their power, similar to how even if two people had similar amounts of energy and the same amount of ability, the side with better equipment would always win. It was the difference between using your hands to scoop out water and a giant bucket, while the 'water' was the amount of energy that you could use effectively.
And Raisen had an ocean of energy as a being who pierced through the barrier presented by the Stages and fused even deeper with Vitality than any being was ever supposed to. In order to even utilize his energy he needed the highest Class material money could buy and the help of an advanced civilization to aid him in creating his equipment, otherwise, he wouldn't even be able to show half of his power.
The old Knight mumbled under his breath, "Fuu... What the hell is Dey doing? A swarm on this scale isn't possible unless she woke up, and he has her so tightly restricted by his Void energy that this should be impossible. Is someone else doing this?"
He retracted his crimson armor back into his body. It was the same armor as when Dey shocked Fen and him with his appearance in his Training Hall, but right now he wasn't using it to defend himself but rather to kill more Void Spawn. Just going near the monsters was all he needed to destroy them.
If he used his equipment where everyone else could see they might immediately notice some discrepancies between his records and the quality of his equipment, which was why he only used it when he was alone like now.
"Or maybe it's both? It's possible that someone's helping her do this, but for what reason?" Raisen slammed another Void Spawn that distracted his thinking into the wall, frowning as some of the black blood sprayed onto body. A wave of energy was all it took to clean it off but it was still annoying.
The Knight sighed, "I'm tired of this. Who knew that fighting could get so boring... Guess I should get some helpers to kill them for me."
Thick strands of Vitality suddenly exploded out from his body and punctured into the most intact of the bodies, revitalizing their cells and forcing their energy cores to accept his energy. The strands disappeared, but the glow of gold and green light inside their bodies gave away their allegiances. In an instant, the revived Spawn were surrounded by their previous allies who tried to tear them apart.
By the time Raisen left the area to search for Fen, his 'helpers' were exercising their newfound strength by slaughtering the remaining Void Spawn, viciously piercing through their previous allies to appease their master.
****
"Oh. So the metal doors were meant to protect the Opfer from coming out and facing Void Spawn?"
Yuki nodded in reply.
"They're supposed to. There's not supposed to be any Opfer capable of blowing past them right now. Except for you."
She gave him a weird look like he was the strange one and not the Foundation for putting him against two Chosen, one of which was a whole Stage stronger than him.
Fen paused while he considered the strength of the metal gates, saying, "Are they stronger from the outside or something? Those Void Spawn are stronger than me. If they tried to get in it wouldn't take much effort until the metal cracked and gave in."
"The energy from the facility is supposed to blur their senses..." She suddenly looked worried. "But if there was enough energy fluctuating within the facility then it's possible for the cloaking to stop."
"And how much energy would it take for something like that to happen?"
"Just a high-energy reaction chain taking place inside the facility would be enough."
Suddenly Fen's expression turned ugly. He pointed at the energy body of one of the Stage four Captains and asked, "Are the attacks from them enough to cause something like that?"
He had seen the powerful energy that came from their attacks and understood how much energy was packed into them from his enhanced senses; if there were enough of those attacks, how could the facility's energy circulation system keep running?
And, as if reality was mocking him for coming to the realization mere moments before the event he worried about occurring happened, the entire facility violently shook while a tremendous amount of white energy seeped out of the walls.
From outside the facility it looked like a small star was suddenly being born as the energy reserves within the building all reacted with one another, causing the major systems of the interface to stoop in performance. On cue, the metal gates retracted back into the walls they came out of. With the Task rooms opened up several of the trapped Opfers' faces were revealed with obvious confusion on their faces.
Without wasting a single moment Fen whirled over to Yuki and grabbed her arm, rushing out the exit with the chaos occurring behind him as cover, not bothering to explain his actions while his heart started pumping adrenaline in his bloodstream while his Vital core strained to enhance his actions with Vital energy.
"What's happening? Shit, did the power go out?!"
"Someone find the Archons! We need that power to maintain the stealth barrier otherwise the whole swarm's gonna burrow into this place!"
"Fuck, fuck, fuck! I didn't sign up to be a guard for this shit, I'm out!"
"Where the hell do you think you're going?! Everyone stay here, we need to fight together if we want to survive this!"
In the face of an unplanned event, the Foundation members were clueless about what to do. Never, in all of their calculations and planning did they account for the presence of a Vitul that could potentially throw all their plans into chaos from how terrible their luck was and their Death Mark.
After getting a far enough distance away from the room Fen hurriedly asked Yuki with desperation, "Do you know where my Squad mates are?"
Yuki's eyes lit up with understanding while her mind whirred to remember what she had seen about his Squad mates.
The moment he saw her minute nod, he crushed the worry in his heart and roused all his Vital energy, instantly lighting up the dark area around them with greenish light. The bad thing about being such a realist was that Fen held very little confidence in his ability to both slaughter his way through the Void Spawn and protect his friends at the same time, let alone whether or not he could find them in time to protect them, but he had no other choice but to try.
'What's the point of going home if we don't all go back together?' Fen ground his teeth in frustration, hating the fact that he could never catch a single moment of piece inside this damned Program. The him from two months ago might disagree with his actions and urge him to prioritize his own survival rather than risk death and not being able to come home, but right now he didn't give a damn. He didn't even have the time to admire the changes in his personality because there simply wasn't enough time.
Still, he could feel his ideology start to shift. He originally wanted power to go home, but what was the point of having power if he couldn't protect the people he cared about? What was the point of surviving if he didn't have people to survive with?
Fen let Yuki point before picking her up across his back again, setting her down and picking her back up whenever they reached an intersection. As they were running, screams of pain echoed throughout the facility as some of the released Opfer came face to face with snarling Void Spawn who wanted nothing more than to devour them.
The two of them came face to face many times with the grisly scenes of people getting eaten by the pale and leathery Void monsters, but the monsters were too busy eating to pay any attention to them. And the ones that did shift their attention to the passing Knight and Mage received a powerful Vital Spear to the head to 'dissuade' them from paying them any mind.
Fen wasn't confident in his ability to fight off more than one Void Spawn; his attacks could barely injure one of them in a one on one fight either way, but at least he could make them think twice about attacking him.
Though the monsters didn't seem very intelligent, they appeared to understand the value of their own lives enough to not risk losing theirs in a fight that wasn't worth it when they had fresh food sitting right underneath their claws.
And when a Vital Spear wasn't enough, Fen grabbed a nearby Opfer and chucked them to the Void Spawn, coldly sprinting past their outstretched hands and yells for help. Yuki opened her mouth to yell at him for his ruthlessness, but even she couldn't deny that the only reason they were able to go so far through the swarm of monsters was because of the Opfer's bodies.
A small part of Fen was disgusted to use the bodies of other humans in such a way but an even smaller and newly awakened part of him rejoiced at the fact that he was already starting to lose his ability to see other humans as 'equals'.
But if it meant that he'd find his friends sooner, he was willing to do whatever it took, even if it meant sacrificing the lives of a few Opfer. They meant nothing to him anyway.