Ash was still talking with Ho'olheyak about her knowledge of Terra's history. But she was being a bit stubborn and danced around the topic.
"Ugh, why are you being difficult, woman?" Ash rolled his eyes at the smug looking Ho'olheyak. "Hmph, you ruin my operations. I won't give you the satisfaction of winning." She smirked at him and he raised a brow.
"You do know that you're not getting out of here whatever you do right?" Ash reminded her and she just snorted.
"Hmm, you still don't understand? You're just making things difficult. Ho'olheyak, and you don't want to do this the hard way." Ash snapped his fingers and a signal was sent to Shining.
Ho'olheyak was about to scoff, but she suddenly saw a shadow loom from behind her. She craned her neck and she went wide eyed.
Shining was wearing the mask of the Confessarius and Ho'olheyak of course knew who those were.
She suddenly paled in fright and Ash gave her a sweet smile. "You know my friend here don't you? What she can do to you. Or do you want to have a sample?" Ash nodded at Shining and she slowly started to unsheathe her sword.
"I'll talk! I'll talk!" Ho'olheyak cowered immediately. "Damn right you should, is my reputation that good Shining? I've already attacked Ursus and Yan, but people still think I'm a very kind and generous guy." Ash sighed.
Ho'olheyak isn't scared of him at all. Ash underestimated the spread of news all over Terra. He did give a lot of people cheap, but good food, and medicine too. So it wasn't surprising that they would view him as a philanthropist.
"Maybe you should destroy a country or something. Make it disappear? Then they'll be scared of you." Shining shrugged and he rubbed his chin.
"You're not that strong, are you?" Ho'olheyak raised a brow, she hasn't seen any devas around. So she of course does not believe in the stories.
But he wasn't exactly normal, he was cheating. "Do you really want to know what I can do? Maybe I should just sink a part of Terra to the bottom of the ocean." Ash rolled his eyes and Ho'olheyak shook her head.
"Now, tell me what I want to know." Ash squinted his eyes and the snake woman sighed.
"According to what I found about the seaborne. There are four behemoths that are special out there." Ho'olheyak thought about it and recalled the information about them.
"Is one of them Ishar-mla? What about the others?" Ash frowned when he heard that. Ishar-mla is already extremely annoying. But there were still more out there.
"There are four things that are connected to them. Growth, Survival, Reproduction, and Migration." Ho'olheyak put up four fingers.
"First is the growth, Caerula Arbor. It was said to be a tree-like seaborne that grows and basically divides itself to spawn new seaborne. But it lost against another of the firstborns." Ho'olheyak explained
Ash thought that was the reason why some of the seaborne has traits of plants. Because it most likely copied Caerula Arbor.
"Survival; The Primordial Lifespring. We don't know much about it, except that it is supposed to be seaborne cells in the oceans." Ho'olheyak shrugged as that was a bit more mysterious.
"Fuck..." Ash thought about what it meant and he connected it with its name. The whole ocean is filled with seaborne cells.
"Next is Reproduction; it is in the form of a gigantic iceberg. This, I really have no idea about it." Ho'olheyak shook her head wistfully.
"Last is Migration; Ishar-mla. It is the most active one. Leading the seaborne to migrate to land and cause untold disasters." Ho'olheyak finished.
"Damn, this is going to be a fuckfest. Especially with that bastard, survival." Ash could feel his head ache at the thought of creating counters against that.
"But aren't leviathans the only one that has been sighted? I think that these behemoths are symbolic leviathans." Ho'olheyak didn't believe that there are things like that out there.
"Well, you would be wrong. Ishar-mla is right here at this very place." Ash dropped a bomb on her and Ho'olheyak stood up in a rush.
"What!? Where!?" She might be more interested in the ancient civilization, but Ho'olheyak can't ignore meeting one of the behemoths.
"Aren't you overreacting? There's tons of Feranmuts here too you know?" Ash added and she froze.
"Right, you had two dragons when you invaded Yan! And four of them appeared at the signing of Gelato Accords!" Ho'olheyak forgot about that.
She thought that with the power of the gods, she could get help in rightfully restoring her race's strength that rivals the weaker Feranmuts, like Kjera.
Ho'olheyak is the last of the Kukulkans. And it is her ambition to make her race great again.
"Can I meet with them?" Ho'olheyak was hoping that they might know something about her race and what the Kukulkans were truly capable of.
Feranmuts are practically immortal with how long their lives are.
"If they agree to meet up with you, they're busy you see." Ash coughed. One was a shut in, another just drink all day, eats, then sleeps.
Nian and Chongyue were the only ones who had real work in Paradiso. With the latter being relegated to paperwork for now. Or at least until his strength is needed.
Shining and Ash toured Ho'olheyak throughout Paradiso. Nian was in god knows where, she usually disappears from time to time to film a movie or a short video.
And as expected, Ling was dead drunk. Unavailable to talk to anyone. So they went to Chongyue. With Dusk, the only people she even speaks to are Ash and her siblings.
Her relationship with her siblings were estranged at best. She doesn't even want to talk to them.
"What can I do for you?" Chongyue looked tired. He did not expect that the military of Paradiso has tons of paperwork.
Unlike Yan, they always checked the number of used up shells and ammunition. Firearms also had courtesy calls every day. Modern guns can't fall on other countries' hands.
Even though they can't make bullets, there was still a chance that with enough time. They can reverse engineer their guns, which is a big no, no.
"You're a Feranmut right? Do you know something about the Kukulkans?" Ho'olheyak went up to Chongyue incredibly close.
"Uhhh, who is this, Ash?" Chongyue got uncomfortable at her, Ho'olheyak was violating his personal space.
"She's crazy, don't worry about it. Just answer the question." Ash shrugged and Chongyue thought about it.
He looked at her and remembered some elder species like that thousands of years ago.
"Ahh, the Pythia and Liberi crossbreeds right?" Chongyue nodded as he recalled.
"They look like them, but they're not." She huffed at him and he shrugged.
"Yeah, those... They can control wind, to the point that they are able to cause storms that could affect huge amounts of land. I believe that they became weaker and weaker though." Chongyue explained and Ho'olheyak started nodding.
"And, and!?" Her eyes were bloodshot and Chongyue raised a brow.
"Crazy." Ash commented from the side. "Right... Ahh, yeah. The Kukulkans needed to fly to the heavens every night. I don't know why, but that was their tradition. That's about it on my end." Chongyue shrugged.
Ho'olheyak frowned immediately and she went into deep thought. 'Are they absorbing the starlight at night? Due to the fake sky acting as an umbrella, is that why they weakened?'
Her mind was racing for solutions to her problem. "Chongyue is the oldest among them, so that's about it." Ash shrugged and Ho'olheyak surprisingly nodded.
"Our race are connected to the stars. So I learned a lot even with his vague recall." Ho'olheyak explained upon seeing Ash's reaction.
Chongyue sighed and just continued finishing his paperwork.
"Is that so? Then you will continue your work on Columbia. I don't think we can go to Chernobog and kill tons of people to get the sarcophagus there." Ash gave Ho'olheyak her orders.
"You would want me to continue, really?" She was quite surprised by that after calming down a bit. She definitely thought he would dismantle her efforts.
"Of course, you already used up my money and you started with it. Go finish it and we'll most likely unearth some secrets." Ash shrugged and she smirked.
"Ara~ such a good boss you are." Ho'olheyak licked her lips and her long, forked tongue was quite freaky.
"Our employee satisfaction survey is really high you know? The scientists from Rhine labs were so thankful to be here too." Ash chuckled and Ho'olheyak suddenly blinked.
"Ahhh, I remembered... Rhine labs huh? Ferdinand Clooney is collaborating with a company called Hydebro. A construction materials company." Ho'olheyak revealed.
"What? Did you knew this because you requested them for supplies?" Ho'olheyak nodded at him and she snorted.
"That Clooney isn't really good at hiding things. They caused the downfall of a company called Simon co. Hydebro's rival. It resulted in the scion being imprisoned; Anthony Simon." Ho'olheyak sneered at their information network.
"Why are you telling me this anyways?" Ash raised a brow. It would be one thing if they're being a pain in the ass, but Simon co. is none of his concern at all.
"Well, Simon co. Is a major investor of Rhine labs. I thought you'd be interested to know that." Ho'olheyak shrugged.
Ash frowned. "Was this recent? That Clooney really wants to sleep with the fishes eh? Or in this case, the seaborne." He cracked his knuckles.
"Would Silence want to be a director of Rhine labs? Ahh, but she's from the structural department. Clooney is in the energy one." Ash thought about new replacements.
Kristen didn't really replace Saria as she is technically still the head of defense. Parvis did though, the new director of structural was someone called Mayer.
"Okay, I have decided. We will go to Columbia, the sequencing is almost finished. It should be done when we return. I'll talk to Saria and Silence first." Ash went to the lab.
"Bye~" Ho'olheyak was pleased that she can continue her research. "Don't have any funny ideas." Shining whispered to her and she suddenly disappeared without a trace.
"I'll definitely do my work diligently." Ho'olheyak gulped as she started sweating.
Ash gathered Silence and Saria because Joyce was busy. They were confused and Ash started. "Do you know a company called Simon co.?"
"Ahhh, that's a major investor back then. They got bankrupt a few years ago though." Saria remembered and the heir got imprisoned, which was fishy.
They did not have any crimes that can result in being imprisoned after all.
"I have heard of them, Anthony Simon was the one who got taken in right? Honestly, I smell foul play with that. Must be a power struggle and they put him in prison so they won't retaliate." Silence squinted her eyes.
"Could be, highly likely to be exact. Companies in Columbia are cutthroat, Kristen and I had to fight tooth and nail to establish Rhine labs to what it is today." Saria expounded.
"Apparently, that bastard Clooney helped with this. And he should've stopped when I went to Rhine labs. That guy must still be receiving funds from Hydebro." Ash smirked.
"Then, shall we prepare to go to Columbia?" Saria rolled her shoulders and thought they'd be breaking in the prison.
"Of course, why do you think I called you here?" Ash chuckled.
"So... We are going to raid a prison huh?" Silence winced, she was a bit too innocent. And in her mind, breaking in a prison is a crime.
"Did I hear that you guys will be going on an adventure! I, Ifrit-sama will grace you with my presence." The little blonde huffed and put her arms on her hips.
"What's a shrimp like you gonna do?" Ash laughed and she fumed at him.
"I requested the research division for an arts unit! Don't be so smug, I can properly use my powers now!" Ifrit ran away. They waited for her a bit and she showed them a backpack that's filled with arts units and a nozzle.
"A flamethrower?" Ash raised a brow and Ifrit nodded with a grin.
"I'll melt everything away! In front of Ifrit-sama, there is nothing that can't be melted!" She had a smug look on her face.
"Ohhh? Even Kjera?" Ash tested her confidence and she immediately waned. Yelena would also easily freeze her ass. Yelena can beat Talulah's arts that are like catastrophes.
"N-not that one. Narcissa, Alastor, and Astaroth too. They're different." She whimpered. After all, Narcissa once picked her up with her arts. And the feline warned her that she'll pop Ifrit like a balloon if she steals their snacks again.
"Ash, we shouldn't bring her to this operation." Saria frowned and Silence nodded.
Ifrit deflated and Ash ruffled her hair. "Sure, I'll be with you anyways. There's nothing out there that will be able to touch you when I'm with you." Ash's energy started leaking and Ifrit felt like she was looking at an insurmountable wall.
"Un! We'll kick their ass!" Ifrit got excited and she spewed some fire a bit from her flamethrower.
"Ash, isn't this a bad idea?" Silence looked at Ifrit anxiously. They were raiding a maximum security prison and they're going to bring Ifrit. If that wasn't a recipe for disaster, she didn't know what is.
"Heh, this is the perfect mission for Ifrit. It will be scorched earth tactics after we retrieve the target. Then we'll go to Rhine labs, I do have to check on Kristen's progress." Ash shrugged and Ifrit beamed.
"Ohh yeah! I'll burn that place to the ground!" She couldn't wait at all.
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