Wiped Out

The adiraid spread its wings and flew past the blood-horned shura. She swung her greatsword and sliced the arm and shoulder of one.

The blood-horn shura that was dealt the blow, however, acted as if it did not even feel pain. Without a care for the bleeding puncture, it swung its beast soul sword towards the adiraid's neck.

Other blood-horn shura approached the adiraid as this went on, in an attempt to surround her. She swung her greatsword again and decapitated the shura she had already injured, before dashing away to avoid the attacks of the rest.

The blood-horn shura did not seem to fear death, and this made it increasingly difficult for the adiraid to finish the fight quickly.

"The first stage Angel Gene Fluid is clearly not as effective as we would have hoped. Plainly, they cannot compete with super creatures just yet. Their effectiveness against an evolver with an opened gene lock would be much higher," Zhao Lian thought to himself, as he recorded the combat data he was obtaining from observing the blood-horn shura. Although he could not use machinery to more accurately log the battle and performance of the combatants, he had sharp eyes, and his records would more than suffice.

"But non-evolvers are unable to cope with the mutation of their genes. If they could, the Angel Gene Fluid would have been enough to allow humans to slay super creatures in the First God's Sanctuary. It's a shame, really." Zhao Lian then turned his gaze to Han Sen, and continued to think, "Perhaps they may not be able to kill a super creature, but killing a human should be no problem for them. Even if he is a top-evolver, with powerful beast souls and a high fitness level, there is no way he stands a chance against them." While Zhao Lian was deep in thought, Han Sen summoned a crossbow that resembled a peacock. He withdrew a bolt from his quiver and loaded it.

"He wants to use a crossbow to kill the shura? Pah, he is naïve. With their speed, I doubt he'd be able to hit any of them, even if he had a berserk sacred-blood crossbow with berserk sacred-blood bolts." Zhao Lian raised his lips, confident in the blood-horn shura. He had been in charge of the research program of the Angel Gene Fluid and was well-aware of the terrifying power the subjects wielded, upon consumption of the substance.

Even elites with an opened gene lock, upon facing one of these test-lab shura, didn't stand a chance.

The only advantage such evolvers had were the skills of their opened gene lock. But in every other facet, they would be inferior.

The eight shura surrounding Han Sen began to swing their weapons toward him with bloodlust. Their power and speed made for a frightening combination. Eager to see what would happen next, Zhao Lian began to get excited.

Experimentation and improvements to the Angel Gene Fluid were still ongoing. It would only be deemed complete when they could remove its negative side-effects, and humans could freely consume it. Once it was complete, the Zhao family believed it would usher in a new era for humanity. Zhao Lian was the lead of this entire project, and he would be recognized as the person responsible. This also put him first-in-line for trying the final product out.

But in the next second, Zhao Lian was turned to stone. Despite the scary shura surrounding him, Han Sen raised the crossbow, which emitted a number of black flashes.

The bolts pierced through each of the shura's heads, one by one like the tumbling of a circle of dominos. Eight of them were killed in no time at all. They all crumpled to the ground, none of them managing to get within two meters of the person they had sought to kill.

"How is that possible? No way!" Zhao Lian's eyes were wide-open in disbelief, having great difficulty comprehending what he had just seen. He did not understand how the blood-horn shura could have been so easily killed by a crossbow like that.

The super pet itself seemed to have a harder time killing its foes.

"Han Sen is stronger than the super pet? That's impossible! That crossbow must be a super beast soul; it's the only explanation. Damn it! How can Han Sen own something like that? How many super creatures has he truly killed?" Zhao Lian quickly realized his mission today had failed. For as long as Han Sen wielded that crossbow, he knew the shura would pose no threat to him.

Although the advantage he had counted on had quickly disappeared, Zhao Lian did not panic. He continued to record what he could see, the battle of the shura and the adiraid, in particular.

Within half an hour, the adiraid had managed to kill the remainder of the shura. The time it took for the event to come to a close was half as long as Zhao Lian had predicted.

"As expected, these blood-horn shura still lack the required strength and skill to tackle super creatures." When the battle was almost done, Zhao Lian packed up in a hurry and got ready to leave the area.

Han Sen observed the dead bodies that lay strewn about and frowned. The bodies of the blood-horn shura, after being killed by the adiraid, began to rot quickly. Even the horns on their heads decomposed, as their mangled bodies reduced to thick, bloody mush on the ground. It was a grotesque sight.

"What are these things?" Han Sen frowned.

Clearly, they weren't creatures. But neither were they humans. And if they were indeed shura, as he initially suspected, there was something different about them.

Han Sen's thoughts turned to Zero, but she was vastly different than these monsters, as well.

Regardless of whether Zero was in human or shura mode, she did not have a disfigured body akin to the creatures he had just fought. Her body cleanly represented either a human shape or a shura shape.

"These things cannot be a natural creation of this world. Humans must have constructed these beings. Whoever created these and set them loose upon me, obviously wants to see me dead. But who would do such a thing?" Han Sen frowned again.

Angel Gene seemed like the most likely candidate, but Han Sen had once offended the Dong Lin company before, too. And it was no secret how good Dong Lin was, when it came to manufacturing such things. But there were more than two companies in the Alliance that researched genes, so even though he believed Angel Gene was the most likely suspect, he couldn't be one hundred percent sure.

Han Sen did not continue. Instead, he returned to the nearest shelter and teleported back to the Alliance. If his opponent was willing to do this to him, he was afraid of what they might do to his family.

No one would dare come after him in the Alliance, especially now that he was counted as one of the Ji family. Furthermore, he was a member of the Special Squad. No one would come after him there. And after all, with the technology available there, discovering who might be after him would be far easier.

It was different than the shelter. So, the first thing he did when he returned to the Alliance was try to contact his mother. He wanted to tell her not to spend much time in the shelter and remain in the Alliance for as long as she could. Or at least, wait until he arrived there to protect her.

But when Han Sen called his mother, he received no answer. This made Han Sen's heart jump with worry.

Han Sen called Qin Xuan and asked her to send a few members of the Special Squad over to protect his mother and escort her out of the shelter, if they could.