"Xua..." Luna clung to her older brother's arms and hid behind her older brother as much as she could. Seeing Don's face and hearing his words caused her to shiver in fear. Xua, the brother who was sitting in between Luna and Nua. Wasn't simply astonished but felt fear run throughout his body.
He only heard of what fear felt like and what it caused, and for the first time, he actually felt it. "Ummm... shouldn't we tell father and mother about this?" Nua, the eldest of the three, asked, and Xua quickly shook his head. "No! I want to see what happens! Will he truly be able to pull it off!? He is going to go through this hell again to keep everyone alive. Don't you find that interesting!?" Xua looked towards his elder sister, Nua.
Seeing the look in Xua's eyes, she could tell that her brother was far too infatuated with Don. Sure, she wanted to play with Don and maybe try to do some things with him, but this seemed a bit much. "But, we aren't supposed to help them... So why did you tip-off that General guy?" Nua asked.
Xua shook his head. "Because things were boring, but look! Now things are getting interesting!" Xua returned his eyes to the screen. Watching and waiting for what Don would do. Even Nua couldn't help but look at the screen. She wondered just how far Don would go, but more importantly, what was going on with Don.
What she saw happening to Don wasn't something that happened to the other Contenders on any of the other test planets.
The Mutated Seed inside of Don started to blossom once again, blooming even brighter than before. An evolution within an evolution. If one was to put it in simple terms, it was something that far surpassed that of a Grade 5. Sure, Don was abnormal, so he was already on par with a Grade 5, maybe even slightly above, but now he far surpassed it.
Along his body, markings began to form in a unique and tribal-like design. The left was pure white, while the right was pitch black. The markings ran throughout his body, from the tips of his fingers to the sockets of his eyes and lobes of his ear.
Even if that wasn't abnormal enough, a visible clock appeared behind him. Not simply a distortion that appeared below his feet, but an actual clock. One that looked like it belonged on the wall with roman numerals. His body still seemed to shift out, as if his soul was leaping from his body and trying to escape. Upon closer inspection, the "souls" looked like an emotional expression of what Don was presently feeling. Sadness, Anger, Rage, Frustration, Distraught, Hate, Anguish, Failure, Disgust, so and so forth.
Sadly, this wasn't it. There was one final thing, the most intimidating of them all. A visible pitch-black abyssal aura was radiating from his boldly. Many of the people who were too close to Don began to pass out, and even Gabe found it hard to stay awake. Those that were able to withstand felt immense chill and fear overwhelm them.
It was as if the Reaper was here to collect their souls. That was what they felt and what they saw standing before them. General Smith seeing all of this, felt his body shiver. For the first time in a while, his body was actually reacting. His instincts telling him to run away and return to fight another day, but his ego and pride were telling him this was nothing.
He had fought bigger pray and tougher battles. This was nothing like the battles before. Besides, Don was already exhausted. General Smith had seen it plenty of times. Creatures, Undead, and Bugs, even other Contenders exuded such a force as a last burst or last-ditch effort to win a fight or scare the foe away.
General Smith was pretty low on energy, but he had enough to create a large Ice Sword and charge towards Don. "I'll take you down here!" General Smith shouted boldly and proud as he charged towards Don, but before he even got a few steps in, he started to see the sky. "Huh?" General Smith said with surprise.
Everything was rotating, and the earth was spinning, and when it stopped, he found himself right in front of Don. General Smith tried to swing his arm, but nothing happened. When he looked down, he saw his body was missing, and he was only a head, but at the last second, he finally died. Don tossed the General's head aside and looked at everyone here.
"No one lives..." Don muttered, and shortly after that, screams of terror and pain started to fill the city and checkpoint. Rowdy battle cries didn't even last long since they were replaced with screams of horror. By the time it was all over, Gabe was the last one standing at the entry of the checkpoint.
He was quaking in his boots as he saw Don slowly walking towards him, covered in blood from head to toe like some Reaper who had just finished harvesting the souls of an army. "Why?" Gabe asked as he fell onto his knees, looking up at Don, who stopped in front of him. Tears were streaming from his eyes.
"Without her... there is no meaning to life. Without her.... this world is empty...." Don replied slow and emotionless. If one could see from his viewpoint, the world had no color. Time was flowing perfectly fine, but there was no color to the world. As if the last of the light had died out. Nothing remained, and along with it, his reason for holding back.
Gabe understood now. He wondered why Don seemed so different from other people. He understood something. April was bright, April was light, and now that such a light no longer existed, only darkness remained. A darkness that would envelop the entire world. At that moment, the darkness he thought about became a reality. Don had killed him. He was the last person.
A few had managed to flee unbeknownst to Don, so he didn't chase them down. Some of the few that got away were Linda, Max, and Sam. No one else made it out alive. The only reason these three were able to make it out alive was that Max and Sam weren't going to stay for this. Linda wanted to help her people, but Sam knocked her out. Both of them put her into the back of a truck, and they drove away.
He had gotten word that Victor was killed, so now they were down one strong. Linda was pretty strong, which was why they took her. Before they had even left, they wanted to investigate who killed Victor, but they got their answer the moment they saw the Reaper. Tearing, ripping, destroying, and eliminating anything within his sight.
"Yo. Who the fuck was that!?" Sam said, still shivering from the sight. Sam was a young man with a handsome face and excellent features. He had wonderful blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. One shouldn't let his appearance fool them because this man was evil and nasty deep down inside.
"I don't fucking know!" Max exclaimed while trying his best to steer the truck as fast as possible while avoiding other vehicles along the road. Max was a man with a good build and decent height, but he had a face as ugly as his personality. "Fuck! There goes our plan! Now we have to find a different Faction to turn over!" Max exclaimed while hitting the steering wheel in frustration.
They had planned to turn the people of Freedom Fighters into slaves and laborers, but now that went out the window since the entire Faction was massacred. Currently, they were heading to their hideout. An abandoned factory that most people would avoid since it had little to no supplies, to begin with.
"What are we gonna do about her?" Sam asked after a moment of silence and recollection. "Linda?" Max asked. "You know she is pretty strong. Should we have her replace Victor?" Sam asked. The truth was they were gonna have Linda be their personal pleasure toy. She had a rocking body, so they decided on that at least until they got bored or found a better toy.
Max sighed heavily. He couldn't refute Sam's remarks. Linda was strong and knew how to use a weapon. She was as strong as them, which was why they would take her on as a group of three. Still, Linda was a woman. Not only that but she was also had high morals. Max knew Linda would disagree with their ways.
If he wanted her on their side, they would need to find a way for her to overlook their ways while still joining them. That was when it hit him—a perfect way. "We'll tell her that we were imprisoned and took in as slaves. That the man who massacred her Faction is the Leader of Nightfall. We'll have to tell everyone in the group about this, but I am sure it will be easy to fool the woman. She's pretty naive." Max said. Although his plan was pretty much trash, it didn't matter since Linda was actually awake when she overheard this.
She decided to remain quiet and not move around since she wanted to make sure what these two were saying was true. "Haha! That's excellent! That stupid bitch will buy it! Then when we take care of that crazy guy, we'll be able to use her as much as we please!" Sam exclaimed, thinking that Linda was still asleep.
"Shut up, idiot! Not so loud!" Max said to try and calm down Sam. He looked through the rearview mirror to make sure Linda was still out cold, and when he saw she was, he returned his eyes to the road. "Sorry, bro," Sam said apologetically.
"I need to escape this place and find the one who killed my Faction. I need to find out what happened!" Linda thought to herself.
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Jake was still sitting on the throne, but unlike before, he knew what he was doing. He had a piece of paper in hand that he was looking over. "Master Jake, do you find everything in order?" Miranda asked. "Everything looks to be in order, but where did you get all of this stuff? Also, why were you all gathering it?" Jake asked as he looked over the paper. The paper was like a list of things they had and the amount of what they had. Various materials were on the list, from gears and screws to mechanical and electrical parts.
"For when the King would return. All of the undead you see here suddenly caught a glimpse of the future. A man known as the Lich King would come before us and bring us to greatness. No longer would we suffer at the hands of others." Miranda said proudly. "Glimpse of the future?" Jake asked, and Miranda nodded.
"It was about three months ago, I believe. A figure of a lone man who could create and control Undead would appear, and once he took the throne, we would be saved." Miranda responded.
"Three months ago...?" Jake thought to himself. It wasn't hard to recall what happened. Three months ago was when everything went down. That was also when Don died, came back to life, and explained what happened. "Could it have something to with Don?" Jake thought aloud.
Miranda didn't let this single thought go by and asked, "Don? Is that your friend?" Miranda asked. Hearing Miranda's question, Jake knew he spoke aloud, a thought he meant to keep in his mind. "Yeah. A great friend." Jake answered with a smile. "Then we will have to meet him. I am sure he is just as great as you, My Ki-- Master Jake." Miranda had to stop herself from calling him, My King.
This wasn't the first time she had to stop herself either, considering it had happened on multiple occasions, but she was getting better.
Just then, an undead came running up the stone steps. "My Liege!" The undead took to a respectful bow, and Jake told him to speak since it seemed urgent. "Contenders have found out about this place! They are killing our people for sport!" The undead said with his broken English.
For some reason, a wave of anger started to rise inside of Jake. He didn't know why or understand it, but he was not pleased to hear this. "What shall we do?" Miranda asked with a worried yet frustrated expression. "Kill them," Jake said and rose from his throne. He would set the piece of paper on a stone table beside him and walk past the undead who was still bowing.
The undead looked at him with awe and gratitude. Miranda was also just as awestruck but smiled in the end and nodded. "Then I shall accompany you, My King," Miranda said and followed quickly to his side but stayed a step or two behind him. "How many are there?" Jake asked as the undead from earlier had followed them.
"Around ten or so, my Liege." The undead answered, and Jake nodded with a glare of anger in his eyes. "Then you will have a feast tonight," Jake said without remorse or regret. He didn't know why, but he wasn't too happy. These undead were taking care of him since he was brought here. Sure they followed his orders, but as he spent some time here, he came to find out that they were just wrongly killed.
Many of the undead here were just normal people who were killed during the invasion of their planet. Others were just innocents that were brought to this world. Miranda had told him that every single undead here was trying to live the life they had. Jake figured if they had intelligence, they were a stage-two, or possibly a stage-three, but there was something else regardless of that.
In the short time he was here. He found that these undead were rather peaceful. Aside from looking like zombies, they tried their best to live with their newfound life or rather undead life. Jake didn't know if they were always like this or if it only started three months ago, but what he did know was that these undead looked more human than most humans he had seen in this place.
Jake moved throughout the crowds of undead, and once they reached the exit of the cave, they came across a grizzly scene. Undead bodies and body parts were scattered all over the place. Some of them looked like they were minced just for the fun of it. Although, what Jake noticed was that there were no human bodies.
"Oh, hey! Isn't that a Contender? Hey! Are you here to have some fun too!?" One of the other Contenders asked. She is a woman looking to be in her mid-twenties with an expression of thrill on her face like some psychopath. Shortly after, others began to look in the direction she shouted, and that was when they saw the man. They also saw his gray eyes flare vividly, and before they could react, someone had screamed in terror.
"Nina!" Someone shouted out the name of their companion. It was the girl who had the expression of thrill earlier. The woman's upper body had been taken off by a bizarre-looking creature with a large mouth for a head and walking on all fours like a beast.
"You will pay dearly for touching my people," Jake said with a glare in his eyes, and several more undead started to raise in front of him. Not just the Eater Undead, but also zombie dogs and ferals. All of them radiated a gray aura and before the group of ten or so people knew it, they had been surrounded and were now fending for their lives against unknown undead.