Chapter 36: Mentality

The undeads transformed by honkai energy are usually weak. They are at the level of unrestrained ordinary people. Hua could deal with them, as did other trained martial artists.

What was different was the mutated undeads. These are people who have a high enough honkai resistance. The infusion of honkai energy to their bodies allowed them to surpass the limits of normal humans.

Nevertheless, they are still weaker compared to ordinary chariot-class beasts.

Swoosh-!

Aleph did not hesitate to turn on the boosters on his black combat suit. He flew in the air while holding the guardless katana. Three ratio lines were presented in his eyes. The seventh division was located on the undeads' necks.

His entire body spun, gathering enough momentum to behead three undeads in a straight line.

Bam-!

His feet landed straight into the lounge's wall. The metal wall was dented by this action.

Click-!

A compartment went up in his left arm. Two small missiles went out of it.

Boom-!

Boom-!

The entire lounge was destroyed by the explosions he let out. A cloud of black smoke rose from the explosion.

"As expected…"

Aleph saw that the damage to the metal portions was negligible. It was only enough to destroy all the sundries and couches in this wide room.

He kept his flight state as his vision scanned through the surviving undeads. The room was filled with the smell of burnt flesh. 

Fortunately, his nuclear-powered exoskeleton suit came with a ventilation filter. The soft pads present inside it made him as comfortable as he was when sitting on a couch.

Hum.

This time, Aleph used his [Elemental Sight]. He compared it with the readings from the GUI and found out that it missed out two of the weakest undeads.

Overall, less than five survived the explosion. It went to say that these experimental subjects might've been far more flawed than they thought—that, or the humans injected with seraph and chariot-class honkai beast genes are not enough to tank two missiles that could destroy a tank.

Rumble-!

The camera he minimized on the corner of his eye enlarged. Aleph saw the templar-class beast with a set of mechanical armor heading towards his direction.

"I won't waste any more time."

Click-!

Hum-!

The camouflage state of the suit was activated. At the same time, his cursed energy started expanding outwardly. It stopped until it was more than thirty centimeters outside his body. The purple lines started appearing all over his body as well, giving it yet another boost.

Using the black cloud as a smokescreen, Aleph charged straight to the strongest undead.

Swoosh-!

Unexpectedly, the undead with the templar-class honkai gene evaded his blade with a hair's breadth. Its eyes suddenly met the white light that outlined the suit's eyes.

Unfortunately for it…

Pssshk-!

Aleph played with the katana's grip. The sharp edge that passed by it was heading towards its neck once more. A single slash was all it took to sever its head from its body.

Thud-!

It wasn't enough to evade by chance. Aleph's current strength reached an all-time high as a Grade One. Even the small squadron who tried to ambush him failed in his hands.

Simply put, he was a one-man army.

The rest of the undeads were killed in the same manner. Fighting against undeads became trivial to the current Aleph.

Rumble-!

Bam-!

A huge silhouette broke out of the small metal hallway. It was a templar-class honkai beast. Unlike the normal ones with a shield and a lance, it has a glaringly red spear instead. Half of its face was filled with metallic objects.

Its right hand, which was used to hold the red spear, was also beginning to glow red.

Its height of four storeys tall only fell short to the mutated templar-class beast he encountered back in Sapphire City.

Its red mechanical eye flashed a red light to the entire room.

The source of the huge bright purple light in his elemental sight finally arrived in this room.

Beep-!

"{Shockwaves are detected. Attempting to block outside scans…}"

"{Judging subsequent actions…}"

"{There is a seventy percent chance of detection blockage.}"

Aleph looked at the bewildered templar-class beast. It did not see him at all. Both the transparent state of the suit and his [Sphere Boundary] worked wonders.

"A templar-class with unknown abilities… How were they even able to create such a thing..?"

Aleph's perspective was opened the more he interacted with Fire MOTH's hidden research. It was clear that the undead and this semi-robot templar-class beast were made at the cost of hundreds of human lives.

A ratio line appeared all over its body—a total of five. Its arms and legs are each placed with a corresponding ratio line. Finally, its neck was marked by the seventh division of the fifth ratio line.

Hum-!

Buzz-!

Seeing no activity inside the room, the templar-class beast swung its red sphere around. The spear emitted smoke as it touched the military-grade carbon steel, cutting through it like silken tofu.

Aleph's brows furrowed as he thought how Donnie seemed extremely well-prepared in worst-case scenarios like this.

Just then, he noticed an important detail.

"The spear is too hot."

He soon noticed the metallic glove on its right arm. It was beginning to fall apart.

Fuzz-!

Fizzle-!

Aleph waited like this. Two minutes later, its metallic glove started melting off. It started turning liquid as it fell to the metal floor. Three more minutes was all it took for the spear to fall straight to the ground.

Bam-!

Fizzle-!

The templar-class beast had seemingly fallen into a malfunction. It was left standing in this wide room.

Its kill directive was to annihilate all things with vital signs. When the lab workers died, it had lost its meaning. Such was the fate of the cleaner. 

Both the undeads and the templar-class beast were never meant for Donnie's killers, but to destroy his research findings—to be exact, the people who knew about it.

His mindset was simple: if he can't have it, nobody else can.

Beep-!

The previously silent communication link went alive.

"{Phew. I finally dealt with it. I didn't expect him to be this vicious…}"

Vill-V explained what happened to Aleph. Aside from the undeads and honkai beasts, all of the databases inside Donnie's buildings are starting to undergo a data wipeout. Her focus was transferred from Aleph's battles to resolving the wipeout.

"{For the next few hours, I have complete control over his digital empire. Shall we move onto the next one?}"

"I will deal with this one first."

The templar-class beast in front of Aleph had its right arm melted down. It didn't have weapons to threaten him anymore.

In the truest sense, it became a standing dummy.

Swoosh-!

Utilizing the momentum built from the leap, he strode into the air. He mimicked his previous actions and spun his entire body to gather enough force to his katana.

Psshk-!

Bam-!

The texture of silicon and metal greeted his blade. Its right leg was decapitated just like that.

The sudden change to its center of gravity made it tilt sideways for a moment. It remained floating in the air, however.

Aleph was not surprised upon seeing this.

The templar-class beasts all had the ability to levitate through unknown means.

Still, its greatly castrated strength wasn't enough to face off against him.

Psshk-!

Pssshk-!

With the help of his two-layered stealth, Aleph severed its other leg as well as its left arm.

Hum-!

The boosters on his back pushed him high enough to be at its head.

The seventh division in its neck was struck.

Psshk-!

Thud-!

Tap-!

Along the falling head of the honkai beast was Aleph's metallic footsteps.