Chapter 14: The massacre (part 1)

Raizel found himself in a pitch black space, a screen popped up right before him and scanned him from head to toe before going away and then from right underneath him a circle lit up. He watched with curiosity as to what it's purpose was, a small wave of mana washed over his body then expanded and became something of a cocoon, while inside he wondered where the little one was as she was no longer present with him.

"Worry not, your companion is safe and shall be returned to you the moment you're done with the tests"

A small being popped up right into the space and flew around him like it was evaluating him until it came to a stop before his face.

[Mutant evaluation complete]

[Level - First path]

[Layer - 1]

[Ability - Nine]

[Hunting ground - Blue imp dungeon (easy)]

A voice resounded, the little being before Raizel waved at him "hellooooo, I'll be your guide for your time being".

He raised a brow and was about to ask for the reason why he would need a guide but was cut off by the voice once more.

[Limit test starting in 3-2-1]

Raizel suddenly found himself in what seemed to be a water, then a mighty force pulled him down out of nowhere until he found himself in his new environment standing atop a tree branch in what seemed to be a forest of sorts, but tremors and booming sounds of destruction kept on resounding from everywhere around him and the atmosphere itself was deeply saturated by dust and smoke

His self proclaimed guide popped up right next to him;

"Welcome to the imp dungeon, here there are four levels and right now you currently reside on the first".

"In order to ascend floors you must first clear all the imps present on this floor and finally it's guardian".

"Each floor also has outer areas and inner areas then finally the guardians nest which resides right in the very centre"

"Imps in the outer areas are comparable to an average first path mutant and range from layers 1-3, the guardian is equal to a genius first path mutant and is at the 4rd layer".

"Each floor on average is comparable to 138,000Km² worth of land, in simplified terms they can be called countries so it could take a bit to complete this test when taking into account all factors".

"Once you feel that you can no longer progress, either due to a case of exhaustion or you feel that your abilities would can no longer help you progress forward then simply call for me and the test shall be put on hold

"Death is very much possible here but worry not, you get three chances at revival per day and pushing your luck could result in a permanent death.....well that's if your family do not have the resources to revive you once again in the outside world".

"And that is everything....for now, best of luck on the test" the guide disappeared and Raizel prepared himself before jumping down the tree and onto the ground with immense power and flaring up his aura.

As this was a mutant evaluation test Raizel made sure to use nothing that did not fall under this category, that included the natural gifts he had at the base level. The only problem arose from his physical capabilities and immortality, but with a bit of practice he would be able to separate the limit granted to him by his mutant side and the limit that was not of it, though his immortality remained something he could not affect unless his aunt or Esna made it possible.

Seals would become quite a necessity to him very soon in order for him to have a smoother ride, as expected the intentional commotion he had caused by making his presence known like that had attracted the blue imps towards his area, asmutants grew stronger by fighting, killing and devouring others that were either of the same level or stronger his massive presence was like a jackpot to them.

It didn't take long for them to appear as the length of his thoughts in real time was barely a second and they were only a few hundred miles from him but their numbers were quite small contrary to what he expected as only about 63 of them had appeared in total and some of them were full of injuries.

The imps seemed to be confused at the new thing standing before them as was Raizel also, they were nearly 6ft tall hairless creatures with blue skin, yellow eyes and razor sharp teeth, a slender build with huge clawed hands that had an almost metallic sheen to them, a sleek long tail with a very dangerous barbed tip and powerful legs with vicious claws.

He had met mutants before and then...chimeras, these felt closer to the latter than the former though somehow not completely.

"Ev---

He had nearly commited a great blunder, though seemingly fine on both the inside and outside it would be the little moments like these that keep betraying him.

"Tsk" his mood of earlier had turned a bit sour due to thinking something so unpleasant and so to ease his mind off the guilt Raizel flared his aura once more then for the first time summoned his mutant ability to be used in combat, nine tennis sized white orbs with an inscribed golden dragon around them were summoned while steadily rotating in a wheel like fashion beside him, it's color had shifted from it's original pitch black hue to this as a result of him willing it.

Raizel's bio-aura had become visible to the naked eye and it carried a deep crimson hue, the hearts of all the blue imps present beat in both fear and uncontrollable hunger, their mouths soaked in their own drool as they also activated their varying mutant abilities and turned feral with desire.

Then all of a sudden everything went still and silent except for Raizel who just looked around curiously, a ripple appeared in the space before him and from it stepped out Aereth who was one of his personal maids. She approached him and bowed her head "my apologies for the interruption young lord".

Raizel felt the weight on his heart and mood ease greatly "it's okay" he smiled.

"Thank you, I came here to assist you with your issue if earlier".

"Which do you refer to".

"You want to separate the gifts your strand of divinity grants to you from what your mutant abilities grant to you on their own".

"Ahh" he realised and then smiled "I did"

She looked at him with dutiful eyes "then please allow me to assist you young lord".

He nod in agreement and she proceeded without any delay, Aereth drew a small in the air with her finger and then flicked it towards him. In Raizels mind a new link had been formed and his body felt quite weird, he looked at Aereth who smiled at him.

"It's done young lord, whenever you feel like you need to restrict the effects of the divine strand on your body it automatically seals it shut".

"When you have no need for it any longer then it is released".

"The seal also activates on it own if the young lord is at risk of dying due to having not been quick enough to release the divine strand in a dire situation".

"And if the young lord is also at risk of dying even with the divine strand released then one of us will step in to erase the threat if it serves too great for our young lord to overcome".

Raizel smiled "as expected, thank you Aereth".

She bowed her head very quickly but Raizel still caught the smile on her face "I'll be going now" and she was gone the next instant without waiting for to see if he had anything left to say.

He sighed and looked up the sky of thick dust and smoke, everything had begun moving again and Raizel closed his eyes. The Imps were slightly confused as to why he was so differently positioned compared to the last time they saw him but this worry was much too small in comparison to their insatiable hunger for his blood.

And so the flurry of attacks began, a blue energy vine popped up from the ground then wrapped around him in a flash and the other imps prepared their attacks but the vine suddenly pulled him underground then burst out to the surface and slammed him hard into the ground causing hundreds of metres worth of destruction and a huge shockwave.

Wasting no time the imps rushed into the dust cloud to check on their prey in hopes he still remained in mostly piece so as to have an easier time consuming him but what met them was a strange sight, the prey was choking one of their kind and had immediately tossed it towards them with the speed of a bullet the moment they appeared before him.

The imps had reacted fast and one had torn the airborne imp in half then advanced forward with the other crushing it's body to paste beneath their feet in their feral advance. Raizel quickly the size of one or to become large as a building then moved it towards the Imps to clear a path then with no breaths wasted he shaped another into a staff and jumped high into the sky.

Different firepowers were thrown at him and he released the or from it's form as a staff to that of a huge shield of which he pushed down to the ground to crush some mutants while grabbing one of the airborne imps that had jumped to avoid the shield and punched it straight in the face instantly deforming and shattering it's skull with it's body suffering more damage upon the great impact it caused after being punched down.

Raizel twist his body mid air to avoid the same vine which had around him before and got down on the ground then instantly disappeared into the midst of the Imps who reacted as he had expected and stabbed or slashed at him with their claws but he was gone once more and the only thing they got was themselves.

He recalled the shield and shaped it into a staff once again then used it to bash the heads of a few Imps in and destroy some of their attacks as well, the staff suddenly elongated with and shot Raizel up, he grabbed the staff with both hands then swung in a circular motion with great force. The disfigured bodies of unfortunate Imps caught in the attack flew into the air with the heavy air currents caused by his force blowing them away even further.

After the attack was completed Raizel shrunk the staff back to a normal size and stared at the battlefield ahead of him to count how many of his preys remained but the results quite surprised him.. He was in a deep crater that spanned thousands of meters and all of his prey had been smothered with their bits and pieces lying all over the place, seeing this he got a little annoyed as this was not what he wanted in the slightest.

He had thought he suppressed himself well enough so as not cause their destruction this easily but it hadn't been enough, he didn't get to enjoy enough battle and enough blood, this was boring. With his mood soured once more he opted to quickly round up the pieces of his successful hunt and tossed them into an orb that he had made big enough to hold them.

Then with a second orb he drilled into the ground after expanding it's size to that of a two storey building and jumped down into it along with the smaller orb while making sure to cover his traces right after.

"Guide".

Immediately the little being popped "you called".

"Is there a time limit to this test" he asked.

The guide placed a hand on it's chin "hmmm, not....exactly per se".

"Explain".

The guide flew around him a bit then came to a stop before him "wellll, while there might not be an official time limit recorded time exists as rankings and the shorter the recorded time the better".

"Call it a personal bias of the judges that uhhh, might possibly help in giving you a better rated overall performance".

"But I truly must say, you're already looking up to be the most interesting player the judges have ever seen".

"The first user of nine who awakened as an omega mutant, you're already shattering the known limitations of how such an ability works".

"You cannot imagine just how excited they are to see the nine mythical and mythical god level abilities possessed by a single person".

Raizel was not surprised to hear that they had discovered he was an omega mutant though it was still quite wrong but good enough "Is it possible for me to see the rankings for those who cleared the entire dungeon".

"Oh sure, that's within limits" it snapped it's fingers and a screen appeared before him.

Raizel was only interested in the top 10 so that's what he chose to see, then he began reading it from the bottom up;

Rank 10: Uras Biguru.

Mutant class - High mutant.

Dungeon progress - 100% cleared.

Time needed - 8 months and 3 weeks.

Breaks taken - 436, 273.

Amount of times killed - 1, 665, 821.

Level as at time of entry - First path «5th layer»

Level as at moment of completion - Second path «8th layer»

And so he kept scrolling through them while observing each and everyone carefully, each of the bottom five out of the top ten were all High Mutants and there wasn't too much of a gap between them as it regards to their time of completion, only rank six managed to complete his a whole month and a week earlier but from the fifth rank a chasm of a gap appeared.

Rank 5: Dorothy Williams.

Mutant class - Supreme Mutant.

Dungeon progress - 100% cleared.

Time needed - 1 month and 2 days.

Breaks taken - 57.

Amount of times killed - 76.

Level as at time of entry - First path «2nd layer

Level as at moment of completion - Second path «6th layer»

Rank 4: Helel Sedo.

Mutant class - Supreme Mutant.

Dungeon progress - 100% cleared.

Time needed - 29 days.

Breaks taken - 13.

Amount of times killed - 26.

Level as at time of entry - First path «4th layer»

Level as at moment of completion - Second path «5th layer»

Rank 3: Ozborn

Mutant class - Supreme Mutant.

Dungeon progress - 100% cleared.

Time needed - 22 days.

Breaks taken - 9.

Amount of times killed - 16.

Level as at time of entry - First path «3rd layer»

Level as at moment of completion - Second path «4th layer»

Rank 2: Wigrun Vittfarne.

Mutant class - Omega Mutant.

Dungeon progress - 100% cleared.

Time needed - 8 days.

Breaks taken - 8.

Amount of times killed - 6.

Level as at time of entry - First path «4th layer»

Level as at moment of completion - Second path «1st layer»

Rank 1: Erlang Garim.

Mutant class - Omega Mutant.

Dungeon progress - 100% cleared.

Time needed - 5 days.

Breaks taken - 2.

Amount of times killed - 1.

Level as at time of entry - First path «4th layer»

Level as at moment of completion - Second path «6th layer»

"How unsurprising"

"Hm?" the guide flew closer to him wanting to understand what he meant

But Raizel changed the subject and questioned his guide about the total numbers of imps on each floor;

"Hm, well there's usually about 200-400 million imps on each floor, this floor is currently in the 200 million range but it'll get back up soon enough" it shrugged.

He was curious as to what he meant by that but quickly got over it "Okay, you've done well".

The little being smiled then disappeared but before he did so Raizel requested that a timer be given to him, it complied and imprinted one onto the palm of his left hand. Raizel was left to himself once more and he examined the timer imprinted on his hand, the top showed the amount of minutes he had spent in this test already and the bottom showed the seconds passing by.

"Only 13 minutes huh".

He pulled the smaller orb containing the dead bodies of all the imps he slaughtered and opened it, an arm fell out immediately so he picked it up and looked at it for a bit, then he took a bite out of it's flesh. Then he continued devouring it one bite after the other until he was down to bones which he tossed aside after biting off it's claws, he took another part to devour, this time it was an entire upper halfway with a hanging spine.

He tore both arms off brutally which got it's red blood all over him but due to his natural bio-aura it didn't stick and slid right off like oil on water, for the next half an hour Raizel would spend his time devouring the bodies of the Imps and when he was done he tossed the little skeleton back into the orb then closed it and layed down as he drifted off to sleep.

"5 hours, everything has been assimilated now"

He closed his his hands and balled it into a fist, feeling the the power flowing through his body, pumping through his heart and the vibrant joy expressed by his very cells which were well fed. Then he smiled and got up, fighting and killing may have been the best ways to get stronger but that was only due to another option being off the table to most people due to it's much too gruesome nature, cannibalism of another Mutant was the strongest possible way to get stronger as a mutant.

The stronger the mutant the better the benefits, but though cannibalism was indeed the strongest reason the real reason barely anyone dares to practice it other than the inherent disgust it brings was because of how unstable and dangerous it was assimilating the raw power of another Mutant directly into yours and the fact it also leads to a near incurable madness.

But to him all these problems were non-existent, there was no denying that he was already quite mad in a sense of the word, he just had it under control better than anyone else and as someone who once the lord of domination itself the problems of taming raw power was second nature to him already. He released his aura once again, thanks to the effect of the orb it's feeling was contained and nothing on the surface was alerted.

He took the time to examine it's new look, it had become so much heavier but still so fluid and robust. Raizel began taking advantage of the very great privilege available only supreme genius mutants, that was the power to shape and extend bio-auras into whatever form they wished. With a set image in his mind he began to slowly but surely bring it's form into reality, the aura around him shrunk by the second except for four long tendrils of it that remained visible after the rest had settled into an outline state around him.

Two of the tendrils originated from each side of his shoulder blades at the back and two from the back point of his waistline, the tendrils which flickered like a candle light about to be extinguished began gaining stability as time passed, then from stability to a better thickness, from thickness to sturdiness and from sturdiness to slender sharpness until the image was fully manifested.

Four crimson red arachnid limbs with long and pointy bladed ends that exuded a sharpness capable of sending chills down one's spine, he moved one limb after the other to get familiar with each of them. Then he moved on to controlling two limbs at a time, three at a time and finally all four limbs simultaneously. It was something finally clicked in his mind as he struck one limb forward at a speed where it almost vanished from his eyes, he smiled in satisfaction as his purpose had been achieved, it would be much easier from here on out.

Now it was time to resume his hunt, he pushed the orb back into the surface which caused a great disturbance and confusion to the imps above who scurried away from the area to a more stable point. When the disturbance was over what was before their eyes was a humongous white orb, the imps watched with morbid curiosity as it was possibly the most strangest of events ever witnessed by them.

The orb seemed to pose no threat as their senses wasn't telling them anything about it so their instincts deemed it seemed fine for them to approach it, they circled around it and tapped it occasionally wanting to see what it was, they even tried scratching or moving it but the orb never budged in the slightest and just when they were about to give up on prodding it the orb it showed a sudden movement which startled them.

Their curiosity was piqued once more so they watched, a gap began appearing on it's body and something stepped out. Their instincts went wild with danger warnings, the hunger that was supposed to be present anytime a strong prey was gone and replaced by pure heartfelt terror when staring into the eyes of the unknown thing standing before them.

The orb behind it vanished and what spilled all over the floor was the bloodied bones of their kind with all flesh ripped off it and it was then that they understood what this fear was, it was the feeling of meeting your natural predator and with that revelation they immediately turned heel and fled for their lives.

'How boring'

Thousands of tendrils popped up from the ground and struck, each tendril drilled into the guts of multiple thousand imps and kept on going for miles and miles until it finally stopped extending. Then one by one they all rose upwards dragging the stacked impaled bodies of the imps with them until it was fully straightened, the sight was ghastly and could be seen by many imps all around.

Then suddenly a very loud and ghastly shriek resounded throughout the entire floor, all imps turned their gazes towards one particular direction, Raizel. Every last imp flared their areas to it's highest possible peak, their eyes whitened as all sense of reasoning had disappeared and only one objective remained.

«Kill»

And so the hunt began, they all rushed towards his location at full speed from every point even trampling on themselves along the way.

Raizel smiled seeing the approaching horde and opened his right hand as a sword was formed, then with a single step forward he vanished. By god it was a massacre, for every second that passed a thousand bodies were separated and multiple thousands more were cleaved, impaled and diced to pieces by those gruesome limbs. It mattered not what they threw at him, how heavy they hit or how fast they struck it was all cut down and turned against them.

The earth shattered all of a sudden beneath him revealing a seemingly bottomless pit with a width that spanned many thousands meters, it took a good number of imps along with him but the perpetrator cared little about such a sacrifice. But just letting him fall down wasn't the end of it, those with the most destructive abilities all came forward one after the other to throw them down the hole. The combination was as destructive as one would expect, it was like multiple thousand nuclear weapons had been combined into one and detonated, the blast radius was massive and it also took the lives of many other Imps in the process but even then they kept rushing in one after the other without stopping because the signature of their prey hadn't been exterminated yet.

Lo and behold there he was, even after all that the most damage was the loss of his left arm which was steaming and a terrible burn that spread all over 60% of his body. But even in such a state he was smiling, there was pure absolute brimming madness in those eyes and they translated to his movements. With a platform made beneath him for support he jumped high into the sky, many more destructive abilities came flying at him once more but in a giant red popped up from the ground to stop them.

In this moment he crafted another support and jumped down like a meteor towards the earth causing utmost destruction, then he was gone once again. The slaughter fest had resumed and this time at a much worser pace than before and it mattered not which direction they came at him from, side to side, from both below and above or in the form of mental attacks and other intangible ways. They were all suppressed and cut down accordingly, he reshaped the sword in his hand into the grim reaper's scythe and the arachnid limbs thin razor sharp thin threads that stretched on for miles on end inconspicuously reaping the lives of multiple hundred thousands of lives every second that passed and his scythe taking tens of thousands.

He continued on in this manner like a madman and the more he killed the stronger he got and the more refined his skills became, Raizel carried on with with his onslaught for a full 12 minutes until he slashed once more but felt nothing but the wind across his blade. It was then that he looked up and then all around him to see nothing but piles of dead bodies, but the problem was more weren't arriving to add onto this pile. This was unsatisfactory for him, such an abrupt break to his madness was just not a welcome feeling, he needed more.

'There is still the guardian right, it's the strongest on the entire floor so that means it's not over yet. And if it isn't able to sate my hunger then I can just ascend to a higher floor'

He smiled with such maddening beauty, with that thought in mind he began making a beeline straight for the centre but stopped midway and collapsed to the ground.

'what the!'

He exclaimed internally flabbergasted as to what this strange turn of events was, it was then he was reminded of his missing arm and terribly burnt body which reminded him dearly of the fact that he was no longer immortal and could die from a whole lot of dangerous things now that would have been deemed as worthless before.

Upon accepting this he calmed down and just let himself.....rest, the constant stream of energy releasing from his left arm and the itchy feeling that could be felt over most of his body was testament to the fact that even without his divinity his body was still more than blessed enough to have the capability to regenerate.

So he closed his eyes shut and drifted off to sleep as he let the natural process continue.

EnD.