Chapter 93

The life cycle of an archuman consists of four major stages: infancy, childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

Infancy begins when a human is exposed to mana and starts to develop an aura as a protective measure. Its duration is quite variable, ranging from a few days to several years. Once the aura settles down, an archuman is not referred to as a newborn anymore but as a child.

It's during childhood that aura starts to affect the body and the mind, improving physical capabilities and psychological resilience. On average, an archuman exits childhood after five to seven years, entering adolescence.

Once an archuman becomes a youth, growth starts to ramp up: strength increases remarkably, cognitive and sensory capabilities bloom and aura usage and control are refined. During this stage, developmental differences between individuals can be quite severe, making it difficult to accurately identify the end of childhood and the start of adolescence. The line dividing the two stages is blurred.

It's at adolescence that almost the totality of archumans meet the end of their growth. In some cases, this is due to an encounter with a premature death at the hands of beasts or other archumans, but most often it is due to the lack of physical, auric or mental qualifications.

Adulthood for archumans is not related to age. It is a change in status so profound that juveniles and adults are better to be considered different species altogether.

And the twenty and one assailants who had tried to hunt one would soon learn why.

Soon, the chains wrapped around my arm started to tighten, due to the rapidly regenerating flesh. A shiver ran through the body of the leader of the enemies. He recalled his weapons just before the pressure born from my newly adjusted arm could break them apart.

The wounds on my body started to grow rapidly. Seeing this, one of the spearmen tried to stick his weapon in my lower abdomen, only managing to scratch the outer layers of my skin. Before a single thought could pass through his mind he found his spear grabbed by my hand while his body flew through the air towards his comrades.

His companions saw the sudden change in the momentum of the battle and stiffened for a moment, but they immediately recollected themselves and closed the formation, just to find out my fallen belt had found its way back into my hands.

I opened one of the pouches and swept up with my hand a handful of ceramic pebbles. Ignoring their attempts to hurt me, with spears trying to dig into my flesh and arrows bouncing off my skin, I swung my arm and released a volley of bullets.

The barrage ran over several people, completely thrashing their armour. I continued emptying my bullet satchels and threw the ceramic spheres at the same group of people until none remained.

Silence fell and horror filled the faces of my enemies when they saw six mangled individuals laying limp on the ground. Half of them missed a limb, severed by a volley of well-thrown bullets.

I turned my gaze to the remaining ones. I kicked the ground and run to another enemy. I ignored her spear raised towards my body, which ended up bending due to my charge, and punched at her head. The helmet caved in and she went limp, while a copious amount of blood sprang from the wound.

"Code Red! I repeat, Code Red! Get into position!" the leader cried out frantically, trying to regain control of the situation. In less than a minute, he had seen seven of his subordinates perish at my hand.

At their leader's warcry, the enemies changed their battle tactics. The ranged fighter let go of their primary weapons, took in hand the pair of swords hanging from their sides and joined their melee companions.

The enemies reorganised their position, forming an open crescent moon behind and around their leader, with the "belly" of the formation facing towards me. They raised their weapons in front of their bodies and remained in wait for me to move.

"Come on, you wretched abomination! Fight me! I'll send you to hell myself, you unholy beast!" the leader screamed taunts at me with reddened eyes.

The new formation closely resembled a concave mirror, with the leader positioned in its focus. Its aim appeared to be to re-direct me towards the captain, in order to push me to fight him face to face, while the other enemies provided support. The leader seemed to be the only one capable of following my movements, so he was the one who had to step up to try and stop me from massacring them all.

I picked up a spear from the ground and bent it in half until it broke in two. The mana graph inscribed within unravelled, making the weapon lose its augmentations.

After that, I bent my legs. And then, I released all of my strength.

The ground behind me exploded into a thousand pieces and the atmosphere around me screamed due to the ensuing shockwave. The air surrounding me became so hot that what little remained of my clothes went up in flames.

The eyes of my enemy grew wide. He tried to swing his whip swords, but they were diverted by the two broken halves of the spear. They got cut up by the blades of the enemy and became useless, and this gave me the opening I needed to raise my foot and plant it against the leader. I kicked out, transferring my entire momentum to him.

His armour broke apart and he flew at sonic speed against two of his subordinates, who were thrown far away. The three rolled on the ground for several metres. The leader tried to stand back up again as he spat copious amounts of blood, while the other two affected people remained limp on the ground, still alive but with several broken bones.

After breaking the formation I proceeded to butcher the remaining enemies. One got his head broken against the ground, another one got pierced from side to side by her own weapon, someone else got his spine bent in half, and so on until no one remained.

In the end, the only two people standing were me and the leader of the enemies. Every single other assailant was either dead or maimed for life. They would never be able to recover from the wound inflicted by a mature archuman.

I fixed my gaze on the leader. His lip was quivering and his eyes were maddened.

"H-how is this possible…" he uttered incredulously.

"A group of children fighting an adult. The outcome is obvious," I stated matter-of-factly.

The outcome of the battle should have been evident from the start. A single unharmed archuman, except for a bunch of pebbles, going against an armoured team of atypical individuals specialized in archuman-hunting. He should have been more cautious.

Only an adult would pick such an apparently unfavourable fight because only other adults represented a risk to them.

If they didn't wear armour, it was because it would be useless to cover themselves in garments flimsier than their own skin.

If they went to battle without weapons, it was because their hands and feet were weapons in themselves.

If they entered the fray without any care or fear, it was because it was nigh impossible to stop their onslaught.

They would not fall or stop. And the leader of the enemies seemed to have finally understood it. From the moment he had decided to face the individual standing in front of him, he had sentenced himself and his subordinates to certain death.

His eyes reflected the image of his personal reaper approaching him. They held a great amount of fear, but fury too.

"For Mother!" he cried out loud, swinging his weapons in a last attempt to vanquish the one he saw as a monster.

The blades moved through the air voraciously and wrapped around its entire body, sinking their teeth in his flesh. He tug at them and squeezed out every ounce of his strength, tightening their grip on his target.

This didn't stop the man, nor slowed him down. It barely made him bleed, as his darkened blood had become too viscous to fall from his body. He felt his throat being grabbed and his body being pressed against the ground.

"That's quite an interesting word you have used. I'm curious about this "Mother" you talked about," his reaper spoke in a curious tone free from any malice.

He opened his eyes wide. He had committed a mistake. He should have kept his mouth shut. Before any information could be extracted from him, he put the last energies residing in his body into motion and stopped the beating of his own heart.

"... Seems like I will have to ask someone else," were the last words which could reach his ears.