TERROR UNVEILED

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Author's note: there might be a few important information dumps here and there. Please bear with this chapter and the author. I had to do this to make the novel enjoyable in the future.

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"What was that crap you said about today being your lucky day?" Stare muttered through gritted teeth, his frustration evident as he glanced at the shivering Doush beside him.

As the enigmatic figures draped in white hooded cloaks emerged from the smoke, cloaking themselves in an ominous aura, the crowd's terror deepened. The emblem of a golden circle with a burning cross etched on their robes sent a chill down everyone's spine. It was unmistakable—the infamous 'Divine Movement of Zod.'

This religious faction was characterized by its violent and supremacist beliefs, asserting that anything outside of their faith was inherently inferior. This included individuals who held differing beliefs.

Moreover, their convictions extended to the notion that humanity's leadership should be bestowed upon their supreme leader, Zod, as a natural order. Consequently, their clashes with the government and all its affiliations were frequent and inevitable.

Although the group had been known to frequently carry out violent expeditions and attacks around the regions of New Earth and had already been classified as an extremely dangerous terrorist group by the government.

They rarely made the Central Region a target for their missions as the security there was the tightest since it was the Capital Region of the Colony.

After the creation of New Earth, the colony was separated into five regions, The Northern Region, The  Southern Region, The Eastern Region, The Western Region, and The Central Region.

Each region was overseen by a governor with an exception being the Central Region which was the Capital Region of 'New Earth' and hence was directly overseen by the 'Head of Regions'.

The process of democracy was still in use, so each government official was replaced after every five years in office by voting.

Surprisingly despite their condition being a lot worse with the presence of the religious fanatics, aside from the frequent shivering, red watery eyes, and open mouth, the place was oddly very quiet.

Everyone seemed to be watching the trio with intense wariness, scared of what their next set of actions might be.

After all, if the group could be as mad as to carry out an open attack at Central Capital then who knew what they would do to them?

"F*ck you…I'm not letting you scum lay a finger on me." A man suddenly growled, as he leaped off his vehicle which he had been struggling to make functional, and sprinted on foot, attempting to escape these ominous figures.

However, before he could make a complete movement of five steps, flames suddenly dashed toward him from the direction of one of the hooded figures, engulfing him completely.

"Ahhhhhhh!" 

The painful screams of the burning man reverberated through the area as he rolled on the floor trying to put out the flames on his body, unfortunately, the flames didn't reduce and rather kept burning fervently.

The attention of the people immediately moved from the enigmatic trio to the man burning to a crisp and then back to the trio, in particular the man on the left who the flames had been thrown from, he had both his hands stretched forth and his fists squeezed.

"A prime!!…and an elemental one at that." Shock and fear resonated in someone's trembling voice

Prime was a name used to describe a human with superhuman abilities or supernatural powers. 

During the early period of Earth's regrowth which also marked the beginning of the planet's advancement in science and technology, a new element had been discovered. The scientists found this element which they called Algos or Element A for short, capable of granting humans a variety of supernatural abilities and powers.

Yet there was a drawback to this new trump card they had discovered, and that was the fact that only an estimated 5% of the total human Populus could gain powers from consuming the Element Algos, hence the importance and reverence given to Primes were high, as they were seen as a rare set of living and walking battle weapons.

"This should be at least a Tier II flame control."  Stare muttered with a deep frown on his face as he stared at the wailing man slowly burn away.

Although on normal circumstances, he would be sure of not randomly dying in the hands of some religious terrorist group at least not until he had finished walking the Oracle's path to fulfill the 'Cycle of Evolution' and fight Y-204 but that was on normal circumstances, now with his memories unsealed, he wasn't too sure if he still enjoyed such privilege.

The prime with flame control eventually retracted his hands when all that was left of the man's painful death was his coals.

Those who previously had ideas or had been considering an escape by foot immediately put away the idea as they stared at the man's coal on the floor, still fresh with billowing smoke.

Seeing the fear in the eyes of the crowd grow deeper, the masked man in between the other two suddenly stepped an inch or two forward.

His hand went to the golden mask covering his face as he carefully removed it, showing his face to the people.

The man, or rather the young man didn't look any older than 26, and in a way could be defined as handsome with his amber eyes and brown curly hair if one didn't put into account the grotesque scar that ran from the top of his left eyebrows to the side of his lips.

The corners of his lip moved upward as though attempting to give a friendly smile, unfortunately rather than delivering a friendly smile it seemed like he was making a threatening gesture. His scar coupled with the odd way he moved his lips upward made his smile look very menacing and if one looked closely at both his hands they could still spot the tip of the silver daggers which he used to take out the security drone bots.

"To those who still haven't been able to connect the malfunction of your communication devices and techs alike to our presence, then yes, the reason your toys aren't working is because of us…" The young man immediately announced with a surprisingly calm and friendly tone.

"To be a bit clearer, it's because of the E.T. Disrupter with us." He added whilst pointing to the heavy-looking cubic metal box in the hands of the masked man at his right.

Immediately the people heard the reason for the malfunction of their devices, murmurs, and complaints erupted as the people were well aware of what an E.T Disrupter was but nobody suspected this to be the cause at first, after all this was a device that wasn't supposed to find its way into the hands of a private individual and was limited only to the government's use, now suddenly this device not only finds its way into the hands of an individual aside the government, it also finds its way into the hands of a very dangerous terrorist group.

"For those who don't understand what that means…it means any technological device in the radius of 540 square meters will be rendered useless as long as the E.T Device is operational…" The calm tone of the young man immediately quelled their chatter.

"It also means no one comes or leaves without my approval." He added with a hint of sinister edge.

Immediately the people heard the last part of the young man's words, they erupted into cries and pleadings.

Despite already knowing their fate the moment they heard about the E.T. Disrupter, they still became disoriented when this dreadful fate was voiced out.

Many pleaded, using family, vulnerabilities, and desperation as bargaining chips. The young man remained unmoved, unfazed by their desperation.

He cheerfully waved his hands as his smile seemed to grow wider at this point.

"No...no, don't be scared, you all, as long as you cooperate, we won't hurt you, rather we than hurt you, we're actually here to do the contrary. We bring you the good tidings of our lord and god, Zod, an opportunity to leave your filthy inferior self and transcend into a higher realm, basking in the glory of our Lord and the rays of his salvation on humanity."

Immediately the people heard the young man's words, their cries, and pleadings seemed to grow a lot louder and pitiable.

Amidst this chaos, an old woman feebly walked towards the young man in front of them and then surprisingly spat into his smiling face.

"I'd rather die than-"

Shing!

Before her sentence could find closure, her head was ruthlessly severed from her body, unleashing a gruesome torrent of blood that erupted from the gaping wound at the exposed crown of her neck.

"And I forgot to mention…you only have three minutes to make your decision, according to the word of our Lord and god, those who willingly reject his tidings to remain in their inferior state, must die."