Without any warning, everything went dark, total darkness, followed up with complete silence. It wasn't total, almost deafening silence, but an eerie silence, until a quenching, almost like bones cracking in a chorus. No one in the entire lab could see, just complete total darkness. "What the hell?" Isaac thought. He tried moving, but he was stuck in a cage, or essentially stuck in a fleshy, disgusting cage.
Isaac mustered all his strength, and eventually tore through whatever 'cage' he was stuck in, yet he couldn't see anything. Pitch black, until he heard another, almost nauseating sound from up at the ceiling. Then an eerie light brightened the 'room' he was in.
The stench of blood and rot flooded Isaac's senses as he stumbled in the dark, the walls pulsing around him like a living nightmare. His feet squelched in something warm and sticky, the viscous substance clinging to his boots. The walls and floor alike were made up of pure flesh, the blood vessels, nerves, and bone being completely visible. He looked around, and saw a katana pierce through a lump in the 'ground' with Sendo crawling out, coughing and gagging. "Satoya!" Sendo called before he saw movement and sliced open a lump of flesh, freeing Satoya.
They then heard a ripping sound behind them, with Akemi struggling to escape until she ripped through a cage of flesh. "This is disgusting.." She said, looking around, hearing muffled screams or pleas for help from the group. Sendo then quickly sliced open the ground, the group and Juliet sprawling out.
"God damn it, my armor, it's spoiled!" Juliet screamed, in a fit of rage she swung her rapier at a random direction, a large glacier erupting from the ground. The group was no better as well, gagging and vomiting after being freed. "Where are we?" Satoya asked, with no one answering.
In the center of the dome-like structure of pure flesh, stood Roland, completely unscathed. He seemed to be deeply in thought, muttering indecipherable words. "This feeling..It isn't as exhilarating as I had expected." He muttered, looking at the ground. "By altering the molecular structure in inanimate objects into biomass, I transformed them into my own flesh, but I wasn't expecting it to work to this degree..Fascinating."
"Roland!" Satoya yelled, manifesting his katana, "What did you do to this lab?!" He demanded. Roland then turned to face Satoya and everyone else.
"I find explaining my own calibre to be quite counterintuitive," He said, putting his hands in his pocket, a faint smile full of pity was on his face. "But, for the sake of you all's pathetic knowledge, I'll explain it for you insolent fools." He insulted in a casual, nearly empathic tone.
"I simply turned this entire laboratory into a part of my own being.." He said in a cold, detached manner, multiple soldiers emerged across the dome, "They must be the remaining soldiers that survived!" Akemi said, she held her hand out, trying to signal them to stop.
"Die you bastard!" One of the soldiers roared attempting to fire. Roland's eyes flickered lazily to the soldiers, his lips twitching into a thin smile. "Fascinating... the way flesh bends to my will. How charmingly efficient." He held his hand out toward the soldiers, before an appendage emerged from the wall, and pierced the soldier's head, along with several other appendages encasing the rest, the soldiers cried helplessly, until the screams were silent. Several bullet-proof vests, military uniforms, and weaponry were left, the bodies of the soldiers being missing.
"Of course, I have to make contact with the inanimate object to turn it into my own flesh." Roland muttered, he was more so reminding himself of his own calibre. "Been 10 years since I even used my own calibre.." He sighed.
Roland slowly turned back toward the group, then saw a large wall of ice, "another tantrum from that elegant elite rank?" He mocked, until Roland widened his eyes in intrigue, "How clever!" He remarked after realising it, "Blocking my sight with a block of ice?!" He laughed.
"I'm impressed! Never knew you all are capable of coming up with a plan like that!" Roland said while applauding the group.
Behind the wall of ice, Sendo was channelling as much energy as possible into his blade, "From what Juliet said, Roland is an extremely agile individual," Sendo thought while concentrating, "But can he dodge a plasma railgun?" He said, before firing a concentrated plasma blast, condensed into a single point.
The blast pierced through the wall of ice like butter, although Roland was able to see it, he was unable to react to it in time, the plasma blasting through Roland's skull. Brain matter spilled behind him onto the ground.
He then stumbled back, before looking up, with an impressed expression, half of the top of his head was gone, vaporized by the plasma, but it slowly reconstructed itself. "Again!" Akemi ordered before Sendo fired another plasma blast.
This time Roland held his hand out, the blast hit his hand, except, not even a millisecond from piercing his hand, the entire plasma blast turned into a large appendage of biomass that was attached to his palm. The appendage fell on the ground, absorbed into the ground.
Roland flicked his finger up, before multiple appendages of biomass erupted from beneath the wall of ice, shattering the glacier completely. Shortly after the wall of ice shattered, charged the entire group.
"Brute force?" Roland sighed, before another group of appendages punctured through everyone of the group except Satoya, Isaac, Sendo, Juliet, and Akemi, who were all sprinting toward Roland, attempting to fight.
"Idiots." He sighed again, before they were unexpectedly smashed against the fleshy wall from numerous appendages of bones, flesh, blood, and nerves. "If I can fire another plasma rai-" Sendo attempted to speak, but the appendage crushed his ribs, forcing him to cough out blood.
"Weakest of the past 10 cataclysms...." Akemi coughed before losing consciousness. Roland, who heard that claim, raised an eyebrow, before a slight chuckle was heard, "It is in fact true.."
Roland shrugged, before speaking, "It is in fact true, that among the past 10 cataclysms of the past disasters, I am indeed, the weakest." But no one except Juliet, Sendo, and Satoya heard him.
Roland sighed, his disappointment palpable, and slowly walked toward the fallen group. He stopped just inches from Satoya, who was futilely stabbing at the massive appendage pinning him. "Valtilean doesn't care about your suffering," Roland muttered, his voice cold and mocking as he looked down at Satoya. "He wants you alive for now... but that won't last much longer."
The appendages dug deeper, pressing the group harder against the fleshy walls of the grotesque chamber. It felt as if every ounce of life was being drained from them, the weight of the situation suffocating. Consciousness was slipping away, and the unmistakable grip of death was closing in.
That was, until Satoya, in his desperate struggle to free himself, glimpsed something above them—an anomaly in the darkness. A cluster of stars flickered in the ceiling, and then, with an almost surreal grace, a starlit gate opened, pulsing with an otherworldly energy.
The appendages holding them faltered for just a split second, as if distracted by the unexpected intrusion. Time itself seemed to slow as Roland turned, his eyes narrowing in confusion and growing intrigue. And then, through the shimmering gate, a figure descended—Ludwig.
His entrance was effortless. With a dull longsword in hand and one hand coolly shoved in his pocket, he fell through the portal as if it were nothing more than an inconvenience. His expression, an unreadable mask of cold detachment, contrasted sharply with the chaotic battle around him. The atmosphere shifted, the air crackling with the sudden weight of his presence.