Second Genesis

Grey raised an eyebrow, his head shifting to the side again.

Elowen’s scream came delayed, but his dodge wasn’t slow in the slightest, and his reaction was even faster after that.

When they entered the room, Grey walked around it. It looked as though he was a country bumpkin who didn’t know what the hell he was looking at—and that much was true. But there was another purpose to it as well. A purpose that was very hard to see in a room with so much darkness and shadows.

PUCHI.

A blood blade ripped through Zara’s guard’s chest and blood sprayed across the surface of everything.

Well, that was the first attack Elowen saw, anyway. What she didn’t notice until much later—too much later—was the fact the blood was far too much for a single person, and Grey happened to have two blood blades, not just one.

Zara looked down at her chest, disbelieving.

"You’re a princess and you died that easily?" Grey raised an eyebrow, speechless. "Hm?"

Grey frowned.

A strong suction came from his blood blade and Zara was suddenly sucked dry.

A large amount of power poured into Grey’s veins and for a moment, his eyes flashed amber before they were overwhelmed by his original crimson.

White gold light flooded out of his body, a pulsing radiance he could control pooling out everywhere.

’Huh?’

Grey was a bit speechless as his body began a wild purge he didn’t understand. It was like a part of himself had been begging for a change, and the moment it found it, it latched onto it all of its own accord.

Raging drums and blaring trumpets filled his ears. It didn’t have the same rhythm it should have at all. Instead, it felt like the world around him was being overwhelmed by it. They layered over one another without any coordination, so much so that his ears began to bleed, his brain rattling around in his skull to the wild vibrations.

But the more time passed, and the more impurities were pushed out of him, the cleaner the sounds became.

All of a sudden, the drums expanded. More than just war drums, they gained cymbals and hi-hats, snares and toms. The steady bass was still there, but it was more whole, more expansive.

The horns grew more beautiful. Sometimes they sounded like french horns more than trumpets, and sometimes it sounded like they were trumpets with mutes that gave them a jazzy timbre.

Grey’s blood rolled and he felt a constant pulse coming from Prometheus. It ate away at the energy reserves quickly, and more and more had to come from his inventory, but he didn’t need to think about it much at all to realize just how worthwhile it was.

’This is so...’

Grey exhaled a breath. He felt like his stats hadn’t changed at all, and yet like everything had changed.

By the time his eyes regained focus and he could no longer hear anything, his senses were instead overwhelmed by the foul stench emitting from his body, a stench that wasn’t just calmly blasted away this time like it had been the first time.

Luckily for him, the Crimson Dragon Nexis Suit seemed to have a beautiful self-cleaning function. The smell didn’t assault him for long.

So, it also wasn’t long before he found himself standing in a room with two corpses and one girl who was staring forward in an absent daze.

Well, it was more like one corpse and another pile of ash.

Elowen had blood splattered all over her face, her mouth pressed into a thin line. But even as it dripped down her face, she didn’t even blink a single time as though the stinging that came from its slight acidity was the only thing keeping her alive and awake right now.

Grey cleared his throat as the last of the lingering scent was wiped clean.

"Well, um... this is a bit awk—."

Grey’s eyes sharpened as he sensed a shift through the air. That shift came from space.

He had experienced this once before when Amunet died.

Without hesitation, he snapped at it with his own inventory, taking it up and swallowing it whole. Then, hoping that Elowen would stay in a daze for a bit longer, he quickly took a look at it.

BOOM.

Grey didn’t get a chance to look for very long before the entire empire shook.

’... Shit.’

Grey didn’t need to be a genius to know that this was related to him. Had he known that killing a princess would probably lead to problems...?

Yes.

Had it felt good to kill the chatty bitch?

Also yes.

Was he probably screwed right now?

Almost certainly.

’Dammit.’

Grey rushed past Elowen who was still in a daze, pushing his way outside the door and sliding his way into the huge atrium only to find what might very well have been a Goddess hovering in the air.

He could see her through all the hexagonal windows. She was enormous, taller than even the palace itself. Formed of golden energy, she was the silhouette of a busty woman with perfect proportions. But even Grey wasn’t thinking horny thoughts at the moment. All he could feel was the power.

What level of strength was that? It felt completely different in substance.

The alien had felt within a range he could manage until he suddenly wasn’t. But this felt like a true deity.

And then that figure looked directly at him and pointed a finger.

—

[You have been Marked by a God’s Fury]

—

A blinker appeared above Grey’s head. It was a halo of burning infernal fires.

Honestly, he thought it looked quite cool. The problem was that everyone looked at him with a great amount of hunger as horns blared across the city.

Horns that only played when a member of the Imperial Family died. Horns that hadn’t played in years.

Suddenly, everyone put two and two together and Grey instantly became public enemy number one.

An endless, rolling amount of energies surged toward him.

’Shit.’