PoV Forren
As soon as I entered the gate, I started hearing gunshots. I looked around; I was in a port. People were scared. Many armed people were on a nearby ship.
I immediately hurried in. Locating him was easy. I only needed to follow the trail of corpses. Many of them were still alive. Some had the decency to get out of this world painlessly with a shot to the head.
'This is weird; usually he takes his sweet time torturing and toying with his victims... Why the rush?'
One of them had both his arms cut off. As I finally reached the end of the corridor and turned towards another one, I saw many heavily armed people rushing down some stairs that led down to the cabins.
One of them noticed me, pointed his gun at me, and fired three times, hitting my chest with extreme accuracy. He probably hit my lungs a couple of times, as well as my head, with a clean headshot. I pretended to die there.
As soon as I heard them leave, I swallowed all the blood that had already filled my mount and went straight to the action. I lounged myself at one of the soldiers that was standing at the end of the stairway. Before others could react, I managed to snap his neck, took his weapon, and was met with a barrage of bullets. I didn't take his rifle because it was strapped to his suit and I couldn't be bothered to take it out.
They panicked a little because instead of trying to immobilize me, they simply kept shooting at me, even though I wasn't dying. The handgun didn't seem to work well on them, so I decided to charge at them before they could regain their composure.
I tried to leap towards them, but I failed. Launching myself using only split moments of consciousness was not my forte. Then, after that small leap, they started aiming more specifically for my head, shoulders, and knees.
I then manifested all the aura I could muster to burn my enemies. Unfortunately, the fire was not strong enough to burn through their equipment. It was strong enough to startle a few of them. One of them started rolling on the ground, but since that wasn't a real fire, it wouldn't go off even when a fire extinguisher was used.
The window of time I managed to create was barely enough to regenerate my eyes and my shoulders. I then launched myself towards the wall and pushed myself once more to reach one of the soldiers. When I tackled him to the ground, he managed to shoot me twice in the abdomen. I snatched the rifle from his hand, put him over me to use as a shield, and started shooting at his comrades. Instead of panicking, the soldier I was using as a shield was able to keep his cool. He grabbed a shotgun that was lying near us and proceeded to shoot himself in the head while aiming at me.
'What kind of soldier is this? How can they remain so calm after all of this?' I thought about it moments before an explosion destroyed my head.
When I regained consciousness, there was just one soldier next to me, and he was currently tying my legs together. My hands were cuffed, and there was something weird in my mouth. I immediately used the fire aura to burn the soldier to death.
'This is getting annoying? I can barely stay conscious for more than a couple of minutes at a time because they keep targeting my head!'
I immediately backed away. I tried to run back to the corner I came from, but there waiting for me was another team ready to shoot me down with another barrage of projectiles. They had regained their composure and would not shoot altogether. They alternated with each other to make their mags last longer and to not create openings for my regenation.
'So this is where the others hid, huh?'
I don't know what happened, but when I regained my consciousness, the enemy was shooting somewhere else, and the few that were aiming their weapons at me were currently busy reloading their weapons, so I quickly got up and punched a hole through the wall made out of reinforced steel. I hid inside the room behind said wall, only to then make another hole, this time on the floor.
I quickly changed floors and began charging blindly in a straight line, trying to create as much chaos as possible. This, however, didn't last long as I quickly ran out of space. A couple of minutes passed, and the soldiers had already made their way to me.
I hid behind a wall and waited for them to pass through the tiny hole I made, keeping a low posture. When the first group finally reached my spot, I immediately leaped towards them, grabbed the head of the nearest soldier, and smashed it against the wall with so much force that it completely broke the skull.
The group was made up of six fairly young soldiers; one of the guys shot in my direction as soon as he turned around the corner, while the rest shot towards the other side. I used my arms as my shield and quickly closed the gap between us, then I quickly grabbed his rifle and threw it away. He immediately tried to take out his handgun, so I punched him in the face, then grabbed him by the face and slammed it against the nearby wall. I tried to take some of his stuff away but was immediately stopped by a flashbang.
Immediately after the flashbang, a couple of men armed with only a knife attacked me from behind, lacerating my neck, my armpits, and my neck. They were pretty fast, so fast that by the time the effect of the flashbang wore off, I wasn't able to so much as lift my arms. In order to stop them, I used my body and flung myself against one of the three soldiers, crushing his body against the wall.
When I turned around, my arm had already healed, so I managed to successfully block the second soldier from using his knife against me by grabbing his forearm. He wouldn't let go of the knife, so I broke his elbow by bending his arm, took the knife, and proceeded to get shot again with a barrage of bullets. As soon as they stopped, I threw the knife and proceeded to stab the throat of the last remaining soldier.
'Am I missing something? There were definitely more soldiers just moments before... Have they hid somewhere?' I thought while heading over to the soldier with the knife on his throat to finish him off.
'It's unfortunate that you had to go against me and Diego, you were among the most fearless opponents I've ever faced.' I thought while looking down at the soldiers' corpses.
Shortly after another group of soldiers arrived at the scene, before they could all start shooting, I grabbed one of the corpses around me to use as a shield. While they were focused on me, they didn't notice the arm that emerged from the wall beside them. The arm quickly grabbed the neck of one of the soldiers and dragged it towards the wall until his neck was broken.
He then jumped out of the wall, grabbed one of those soldiers, and quickly retreated inside the opposite wall of where he came from, leaving only his elbow. The poor soldier had no time to react when he found himself strangled against the wall by an elbow sticking out of said wall.
It was then that the soldiers began to panic. After witnessing what Diego was doing and feeling helpless, when they tried to help out their comrade, they quickly lost all hope. Some of them killed themselves, while others tried to keep shooting at me while screaming; either way, they were all doomed from the start.
The last thing I remember was Diego saying: "This is an order, Forry." Then my mind went blank.
PoV Diego
Immediately after, Forren started to act like an animal. He would bite, scratch, and hunt all his enemies like a predator. He was no longer using his wits. Even when his body was continuously being ripped apart by the barrage of gunfire, he was still marching forward.
He was the best deterrent as well as the best being; with him wreaking havoc wherever he went, no one had the time to even think about me. Moreover, he did me a huge favor by breaking a lot of the walls that were in those endless corridors beneath the bridge of the ship.
'Victory is guaranteed now; I can finally take it easy.' I thought while I began following the path of destruction Forren left behind.
It was then that I realized that not all of his victims had been killed; some of those soldiers were still lying on the ground, too weak to move themselves, slowly bleeding to death. Their silent cries filled the hallway, and whenever our eyes met, they would ask for one thing and one thing only: to be mercifully killed.
It didn't take me long before I caught up with Forren. The wave of soldiers seemed almost unending, no matter how many we killed, more would simply appear. The surprising part is that they were all on the same level.
'Mhh, probably God wanted us to complete this stage as fast as possible; yeah, this must be it.'
The longer I observed the situation, the more hopeless it looked. The only thing those soldiers could do was slow him down, and even then they could not stop him. He would swing his arms around aimlessly, scratch, bite, grab, and tear his enemies apart. I noticed his regeneration had slowed down a lot; now even regenerating a lost limb takes more than 5 seconds, to the point where his body starts re-attaching the limb and healing it rather than growing a new one.
'It's weird that those soldiers kept protecting their position; at this point, most other soldiers would have already fallen into despair and fled away like cowards.'
They tried to use a flashbang on him. It did blind him for a while, but they weren't able to subdue him. As soon as they jumped him and realized the difference in weight class, the moment they realized he was more than a simple human with an incredibly strong regenerative power, they began screaming to their allies to fall back before they all inevitably met their bitter end.
I saw some weird balls roll around Forren. They soon started releasing gas. I couldn't risk inhaling it since I had already suffered a reset, so I used my ability to fall on the floor beneath the one I was standing on.
I found myself standing on top of the corpse of one of the soldiers I killed earlier; thankfully, his gas mask was still intact, so I took his mask and proceeded to keep looking out for the engines. I once again summoned Fury to smash through any sealed door.
After the third door was destroyed, I found the engine room.
'Now how do I blow up this thing?'
Fury: Do you really need to blow up the engine room?
'I wanted to do it with some style; you're right, all I really need is a big enough hole so that the water can start to flow in.'
I noticed that I was once again surrounded by enemies. This time, they did not wear gas masks. They had some handguns but no rifles. They weren't wearing any protective gear, either.
'I guess the super soldiers are too occupied dealing with Forren, so they couldn't come here; what a shame.'
Before I could finish my thoughts, one of them stepped ahead of the rest, dropping his weapon and kicking it towards me. At the same time, he was keeping his hands openly visible above his head. The rest of them were pointing their guns at me.
He was old—about 50 or 60 years old. His hair had completely turned white, but he did not lose much of it even after aging that much. He was tall—maybe 1.80 meters. He was also extremely muscular, which was a very odd thing. He didn't have any scars on his face or his arms. He had a full beard. He had a pointy nose and baggy eyes. His face was also full of wrinkles.
"My name is Gustang. May I know the reason why you're attacking us?" he politely asked.
"There is no need for you to know, but I will tell you what I'm doing since I feel generous. Today, this ship will sink. How about it?"
One of them couldn't resist the urge to shoot me, and when the projectile passed right through me without doing any damage, I could feel them starting to panic. I also felt something strange in the air.
"You cannot stop me, as you saw before…" I said this while bending down to pick up the gun the old man threw at me and pointed it straight into my head.
"I guess all you can do is stay still and watch since your weapons don't work on me." I said as I shot myself in the head, showing them simply how ineffective shooting at me was.
Before they could say anything, I started to speak again.
"Can you really stay here?" I asked while getting closer to them.
"What do you mean?" Asked the old man.
I simply pointed to one of the men in the back, who was struggling to breathe and had collapsed on the ground. Only the people who were close to him realized that there was something wrong with them, yet they couldn't even notice the smell of their own gas.
'Do they not have functioning cameras? Can't they see that I have a gas mask? I guess someone is freaking out out there.'
As I got closer and closer, they finally started to back away. Some of them still tried to shoot, but to no avail. Slowly but surely, all of them inhaled their own weapons and began coughing and gasping for air.
'This is not what they used before; did they mix something in, or is this a completely different gas? It doesn't matter either way now.'
I spared the ones that didn't shoot me a horrible death and quickly killed them while leaving the rest to suffocate.
I then tried to smash the walls but could not properly break them. At best, all I could do was dent them.
'Change of plans; do you know a way to easily make a hole through this?'
Dubir: Fire magic!
Fury: Aura!
???1: Magical constructs!
???2: Borrowed Powers!
???3: Maybe there's something useful somewhere in this ship we could use!
All of these voices were shouting at the same time. There was so much chaos that I felt dizzy for a moment, then they all remained silent.
"I couldn't understand a thing you just said. Can you repeat it, please?"
They all then proceeded to repeat the same thing at the same time. It took a while to re-establish order in my head. The first one allowed to talk was random voice number three. It was a deep male voice that seemed extremely serious at all times, unlike the childish voices of one and two.
??? 3: My name's Frey, Master.
'If I recall correctly... you should be the spear.'
Frey: You're correct, my liege; I'm honored you remembered my name.
'Don't mention it; you're quite the useful weapon. Anyway, what's your proposal?'
Frey: In my humble opinion, the fastest way to sink this ship would be to use my ability; however, my liege, my ability is among the most draining ones in your arsenal, and it will surely leave you depleted of any energy.'
'Can it pierce these walls?'
Frey: Affirmative.
"Frey." As I summoned him, I started to notice many little details engraved on his body.
'Sink this ship.'
Frey: At your orders!
Frey then started draining me of any energy left in my body. Some weird, bright particles started to come off of him. They started circling around me, and once enough particles were there, they started to regroup to form the shape of a spear.
Before it was completed, the spear started to pierce and destroy everything around me. It was so fast that it looked like it was bouncing from wall to wall, leaving only destruction wherever the spear went.
Even a couple of seconds were extremely taxing on my body. My body started trembling, I felt lightheaded, I lost my sense of balance, and the world around me was spinning faster than my eyes could keep up. Soon after I fell to the ground, I didn't have enough strength to keep myself standing, even if I was using Frey as a support. I found myself gasping desperately for air. I wanted to rip off the mask and breathe directly with my mouth, but I knew that if I did that, I would only put myself in further danger.
Three and a half seconds was all I could muster. That was the limit of my magic power. I could not give Frey any more energy, and so the magic spear disappeared. All that was left now were the consequences of going further than my body could handle. Nausea, blindness,difficulty breathing—I couldn't hear or touch anything, yet for some reason I couldn't pass out at the same time. Every fiber of my being was screaming in pain. Every breath felt like I was inhaling blades. I wasn't swallowing my own saliva because I was afraid of choking.
All the voices of my weapons could be barely heard in the distance, and then I felt nothing for a moment. Soon after the pain returned, but ten times worse, I realized I had just reset my body in the worst possible situation.
'Forren… please… kill me.' Was all I could think. I felt so insignificant and small that I desperately wanted to be hugged by him and taken care of like a child.
But he never came to my aid. He was too busy dealing with the remnants of those thugs to even realize the reality of my situation.
And while suffocating to death, I had another reset. This time, I felt the entire process. I felt how my body crumbled into a million pieces, how they searched for a safer place, and how they were forced to reassemble soon after at the top of the ship.
I was still in pain. Strangely enough, in that situation, I started sweating profusely. The sweat that was coming off of me was also strange; it felt slimy, and it started covering my entire body.
I felt something, like a warm blanket covering my body. Suddenly all of my pain was gone, and all the voices disappeared. It was a familiar sensation.
'It's similar to Mother's.'
She was nothing more than a reproductive organ kept on life support to create us, yet I always felt her warm embrace whenever I entered her room. I felt her cuddling. I felt her warmth. She was somehow alive.
As I accepted this new warm feeling, I finally got to rest peacefully for a while.
PoV Forren
When I recovered my senses, I was back at the camp. While Valis and Folarin were discussing trivial matters, the wolves were resting next to me. Diego was nowhere to be seen.
'I wonder if he woke up already?'
Then I looked over at the wolves to see if they were also sleeping. They weren't. I then got out and felt this urge to check on him. As soon as I got out, I started to panic. Next to Folarin, there was a giant egg.
"T-that- No, Huff- fuuuuuuu- have you seen Diego?"
Please tell me that's just an empty shell. Please tell me he's gone out fishing or something.
"No, we were going to ask you that? Is he there?" Asked Valis, pointing at the egg.
The first thing that came to mind was the disaster that happened one day during one of the many tests. They were testing his reset limits, and, after a while, he created an impenetrable egg surrounding him. After a couple of weeks, he came out of it with a new ability and killed 300 researchers. He ate almost 200 of them in a single day. Most of the other test subjects died that day while trying to stop his rampage. Only S-1 was capable of holding his own while fighting him, and thanks to him, they were able to stop him.
This damn egg was in front of me again. I immediately rolled it over and kept shaking in hope that Diego would wake up and voluntarily get out. When that didn't work out, I then took a rock nearby and smashed it against the shell.
"What are you doing?" Asked Valis.
I ignored her and proceeded to keep trying to crack the eggshell, but suddenly I lost all the strength left in my body.
'I will not let it happen again!'
"VALIS, DES-" Suddenly, my voice wouldn't come out.
"Run..." was all I could say before losing my consciousness.