Abyssal Awakening

"Questions that you've been raising? Seems like you don't approve of your family's actions. Not that I know what they are." Eryn shrugged.

Sweeping her eyes across the capital, she could sense the presence of two Lords and one strange aura near the large tree in the centre. No doubt the Queen.

None of them were aware of her existence right now and she intends to leave it as such.

"It's not that I don't approve. But I don't fully approve of them either. It's… weird." Albert sighed.

He wasn't sure when he began to have these hesitations. In the past, he thought it was only natural for sacrifices to be made for the advancement of human kind.

In all of history, there has been no advancement without sacrifice.

Something was always being used as a cost.

Whether that be human lives or something else, the cost cannot be avoided.

In order for the people to enjoy reliable Abyss Blood, healing vials and more, trial runs had to be done.

As much as he disliked the monster they hid in their prison, she had her uses. The only being so far to have shown a perfect resistance against the effects of the Abyss, allowing her to recover from any kind of side effects.

It was the perfect target to test out any unstable Abyss Blood samples before giving out to the public. If it wasn't for her, a vast majority of their products wouldn't have even gotten past the testing stage.

Of course, the burden couldn't be solely placed on the monster. Due to her constitution, they couldn't test for long term effects even if they seemed safe. That's where others had to step in.

He knew that and understood it. Which is why he never found fault in his family's actions. They were simply born higher on the pecking order, no more no less.

In another life, he could've been one of the people who were taken for testing rather than being an observer.

But since when? Since when has their path diverged from helping people? While the 'main' experiments were still conducted in the name of advancement and progress, their experiments performed in the shadows made Albert question the goal behind it.

One of which being the Hybrid protocol.

With Alice's sudden disappearance, the Doctor sped up the process of the experiment, pumping the subjects with growth agents and sped up the development of their body.

Despite looking like adults and having the body to withstand the operation, they were still in essence, child soldiers.

Their fate was already set in stone before they were born. The mother is injected with Alice's blood so that it would trigger a reaction in the body of the mother. Once they become pregnant with a specimen they deem worthy to create the perfect combination, they then inject beast blood into the womb.

If the egg survives this kind of environment while developing, they'll be given on more dose of Alice's diluted blood before they are born.

A majority of the children die at this stage. Even after adapting to beast blood in the womb, they couldn't adjust to Alice's blood.

But for those that survive, they are pushed to the next stage.

'All of the Hybrids have been in development for five years. Losing so many subjects with a limited amount of blood left means we can't make many more of them without risking huge losses.' Albert thought to himself.

He failed to see the usefulness of the Hybrids other than weapons. How were they supposed to help humankind?

If they were given beast blood that granted abilities to heal and so on, he'd be able to understand it.

But most of the hybrids were given the power to kill, to become the perfect weapons of war.

Shaking his head, he took a deep breath and calmed himself.

Their goal is to find Alice. To scout out the capital and see what happened after the attack.

"Let's visit the market." Albert suggested.

After a tough battle, most people will look for a way to relax. They'll go through each of the leisure spots one by one.

Nodding her head, Eryn said nothing and stood behind Albert, escorting him and keeping an eye on any potential dangers that might approach them. Continue your saga on m|v-l'e m,p| y- r

###

"Urg…" Letting out a groan, Alice collapsed on her chair as sweat drenched her clothes.

This was far more exhausting than she had originally expected even with people deciding not to undergo the operation at all.

After all, it's not like being infected stopped them from fighting. It simply decreased their capacity and made it so that they couldn't fight the way they could before.

If the warrior possessed low cost Sigils that didn't drain a lot of energy, they should largely function the same.

Choosing the route of the berserker was a last resort.

Despite that, there were still quite a few who chose to become a berserker even after Alice warned them of the dangers.

As for Bloodline Release, after the Governor, there were only 6 others that showed promise but none as much as her.

Looking out of the tent, Alice let out a sigh of fatigue since the queue felt never ending.

"Perhaps it's fine for you to get a break." Caera suggested but Alice shook her head.

The sooner she finishes this, the better.

Snapping her finger, she created a set of blood curtains around her and changed out of her sweaty outfit.

"Send in the next person, let's just hope the path of the berserker becomes less popular with the people remaining." Alice dismissed the curtains. Ideally, it should be a split between Bloodline Release or no operation at all with maybe a few exceptions for berserker.

But currently, berserker was the most popular option which only served to annoy Alice.

She wasn't sure why they were so keen on sealing their fate as people who could lose their minds forever. All for the goal of protecting the capital. Was there something she didn't understand? Was it simply a difference of viewpoints?

Regardless, Alice was simply here to help them out. If that's what they want to do then so be it.

"Should I give it a try?" Caera suddenly spoke up as Alice tilted her head.

"What do you mean?"

"Give me a sample of your blood. I'll see if I can perform the berserker operation. I don't think I can help with Bloodline release but if it's just the berserker operation, I should be able to replicate it to some extent." Caera clarified as Alice folded her arms.

She didn't mind Caera giving it a try since she was the one who thought of it in the first place. But the catalyst that's required for the operation is ultimately her blood.

Entrusting her blood to someone else… Someone she barely knew, even if it was Caera, didn't quite sit right with Alice.

"It'll be fine, don't worry about it. Once I get used to the operation, it shouldn't be difficult." Alice dismissed with a smile as the next person entered the tent.

Nodding her head in silence, Caera gave Alice another glance before focusing back on her work.

###

After exploring the markets and the other leisure spots in the capital, Albert couldn't help but frown as there wasn't a single trace of Alice.

Mostly talks of the battle, murmurings of someone crazy for mead and the rebuilding process.

"Should we take a look at the battle locations?" Eryn suggested. If they wanted clues, it was better to see it where the battle was fought. After all, there will always be traces of powers used.

"Not yet. If we go there now, there's a rather high risk of them spotting us even with this device. Let's just take our time with it for now." Albert suggested with a shake of his head.

Right when he was about to plan his next spot, he overheard a conversation.

"Do you think Alice will take a break or overwork herself again? There was quite the queue there after all." Selen asked while holding Egil's hand.

"Knowing her, she'll probably overwork herself. Should we bring some food and mead over?" He gave a light chuckle.

"We can look for some spicy skewers too for Alyss. Though… maybe we can skip out on mead. I'd rather not see a drunk partying Alice while operating on people." Selen scratched her cheek.

Whenever Alice got herself drunk, all of her filters just disappear and she becomes a party animal. Drinking mead like it's no tomorrow, jumping on tables and even making bets.

If that kind of Alice was to appear during an operation… Yeah Selen didn't even need to think about it.

Discussing which stores they should visit for food, the two left while Albert furrowed his brows.

He was rather doubtful when he heard Ayla mention that Alice seemed to have kept her old name. Even now, he was still doubtful but it was worth it to take a look.

"Seems like this Alice girl is who you're looking for. Anything I should be careful about?" Eryn asked, noticing Albert's change in demeanour.

"Whatever you do, do not let her blood enter your body. That's all." Albert replied as they began to follow Egil and Selen.

They were taking a bit of a detour to visit shops but Albert didn't mind. After all, this was the first clue that they've gotten when it came to Alice's whereabouts.

###

Standing over the place where the living shadows had died, the Doctor kneeled down and rubbed his finger against the dirt. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to determine the origin of such power as images of the battle flashed in his mind.

It was brief but he managed to catch a glimpse of the instance that they died. A one hit one kill.

And this power… It didn't feel Abyssal or Holy.

'So its not the Abyss or the three Gods… Void? No, that doesn't feel right either. It's something outside of these three sources of power…' Curling his lips up into a grin, the Doctor began to piece together a theory on where this power came from.