Second Genesis

The look of horror on Grey’s face had nothing to do with the strength of the Ability. In fact, he was quite happy that it was this strong, that was exactly why he wanted to see it.

The real reason he was reacting like this was because as close as he was to Amunet now, and as focused as he was on the circulation patterns of her Ability, he couldn’t understand the complexities at all.

His Crimson Dragon Nexis Suit was doing a shit job at trying to comprehend it. He thought this thing was a mighty Mythical Grade item. It should be fucking plug and play.

But he had tried to use it against the weird sickly creature and failed—but fair enough. He assumed that had happened because the creature was above the Vector Class. If it was, it made sense that a Vector Class item was useless against it.

He also speculated that maybe it was just some special race trait or something, so maybe it existed outside the realm of what the Crimson Dragon Nexis Suit could be used on.

However, Amunet definitely wasn’t in the Vector Class, and she also wasn’t part of a special race.

Grey froze.

Was she part of a special race? The cloak she stole from him was a Dark Kin Inheritance, could it have turned her into one?

Was that the limit of the Crimson Dragon Nexis Suit? It could only copy Abilities that weren’t tied to specific Race traits?

But he was technically a Dark Kin by that logic too, no? Were there different types of Dark Kin, maybe?

Grey was so distracted that he didn’t realize just how sharp his intuition for these things was becoming. He also didn’t notice that as he thought, his mind was releasing pulses not too dissimilar from a familiar cute little flame either.

It was like he was beginning to deduce the world through his own comprehension. The logical leaps he made were larger, but they were built on a more sturdy foundation than he could fathom.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Screams filled the air as one large arm exhumed itself from the abyss of hell. They grabbed at people in bunches, mouths opening up on their palms that bit them in half.

Amunet had turned a sickly grey, plumes of smoke emitting from her pores as though she was being imbued with death itself.

Grey looked up as a palm with a maw on it slapped down toward them.

He tried to flicker away but failed. All the shadows in the region were being commanded by these arms and these arms alone.

With a flash, he moved to the side. His speed now and his speed before couldn’t even be compared—especially when one considered his ability to accelerate. His body became as light as a feather and the sizzling popping of melting flesh echoed as the arm passed through his magnetic field.

"Weird."

Grey’s eyes narrowed.

Those arms were powerful, and as they devoured the people around, they only became more powerful until they were quickly surpassing the point where Grey could see their limits.

He looked toward Amunet only to find that she had practically become a skeleton by now. All of her beauty had faded into deflated skin and scraggly bone.

’Damn, she’s gonna...’

Pa.

Grey moved too abruptly and Amunet vanished into a puff of ash. Her body crumbled in his hands and she fell to the ground in a dispersing current of black.

There was a fluctuation that pulsed through the air and then, one after another, items began to pop into existence.

’Her inventory? She had one?’

First it was mundane things like clothing.

But then a familiar cloak popped out. Grey reached to grab it, but it fell into wispy shadows beneath his palm, flickering and then vanishing as well.

Grey frowned. Was only one person allowed to have it at the same time? Or maybe the inheritance on it was already taken?

Weapons clattered to the ground, then food, there were even Cyber Cores, but then...

BANG.

A bike fell out from the air. It was a motorcycle, but it didn’t have any wheels at all, it just had arms of black metal where wheels should have been, jetting out like some Ghost Rider replica.

—

Name: Dark Kin Cycle

Rarity: Mythical

Class: Vector

Accepted Type: Recursive

Rejected Type: Resonant

Description: A vehicle of hell.

Abilities: +100% to SPD in the night. Ride a straight path to any destination, ignoring obstacles. Ride beneath the earth at a -50% SPD cost. Allowance for +1 passenger at a -50% SPD cost.

—

Grey blinked, then grinned ear to ear.

Now he would definitely be keeping this one in mind. Suddenly, making it to the Mechanical Jaw Lineage Spirit or back to the outpost quickly enough didn’t seem all that impossible anymore.

While the description didn’t mention anything about the bike’s actual speed, he had a feeling that a Mythical Vector Class item would definitely not be slow. In fact... it might even be faster than the item he had taken off of Frantz’s corpse.

’Perfect.’

BOOM.

Grey already had a palm on the bike, but he didn’t have a spot for it in his inventory. He didn’t have any Mythical slots.

However, what he realized when Amunet’s inventory collapsed was that he could have swallowed hers if he had reacted in time. Meaning...

The bike vanished, and then Grey ducked and rolled to the side.

The palm ate through the earth, leaving a crater so deep it looked like it returned right back to hell.

—

[Rare Instance Event Trigger: Hellish Escape]

— 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

[Congratulations, Genesis Candidate! You have triggered a Named Instance! Good luck and don’t die! :)]

—

[Grey Temolt VERSUS Anchors of Hell]

—

Grey’s lip twitched when he saw this screen, because he realized then that the reason only his name appeared was because everyone else had already died.

And judging by the time, the Syrn should have already appeared by now. The fact it hadn’t meant...

Grey looked up at the skies to find the Syrn standing on black light energy, looking down with wary eyes.

The earth beneath Grey suddenly cracked and he fell into an endless abyss.

’FUCK!’