Abyssal Awakening

Staring at the disintegrating pieces of the Arachne's body that were being consumed by her violet flames and spider lilies, Alice felt a bit of pity for the girl.

If it wasn't for the resilient nature of her own body, this might've been her fate as well. Living and dying as a tool of the Zenia family.

But thinking up to this stage, Alice began to wonder what a product of the Zenia's was doing this far out. The only candidates in mind were Erick and his group but she had no evidence to back it up. For now, she simply made her way to the orphanage to see what the Arachne was trying to protect.

Brushing aside the threads, Alice furrowed her brows upon seeing the crest belonging to the Church of the Moon.

Pushing open the orphanage doors, dust trembled from the wooden frame as moonlight filtered through the gaps, revealing rows upon rows of broken seats and a fractured altar. There were no signs of anyone being here as Alice wandered the halls.

Every room she visited was empty yet it had shown signs of people living here in the past.

Belongings such as toys, books and so on were strewn about haphazardly.

'This is too… 'clean.'' Alice frowned as Alyss agreed.

'If there are no signs of being living here recently, then why is the beast guarding this place? Or do you think it used to live here?'

'Maybe…'

Crouching down, Alice activated her third Sigil as blood began to swirl around her. Stretching it out as much as possible, she had the blood mist envelope every inch of this orphanage, marking down every nook and cranny while a small model of the interior manifested in front of her.

Turning and flipping the model, Alice wanted to see if there was anything she had missed when her mist discovered a gap beneath the orphanage. A secret passage leading far below the surface beyond the reach of her mist.

Dispelling her third Sigil, Alice made her way to where the entrance was discovered and it was right below the alter.

There were small signs of movement that she only noticed once she knew there was a passage but without this knowledge, she would've overlooked this mark.

*BANG!!!

Punching down with her fist covered by a swirl of blood, Alice was surprised at how sturdy the floor was. Furrowing her brows, she created a Void Flux and forcefully punched a hole down into the unknown.

None of them were talking right now as all three simply wanted to see the end of this path. What the orphanage was hiding and possibly what the Arachne was 'guarding'.

Pulling out the lantern from her pouch, Alice lit the candle before hanging it on her waist.

Keeping her right hand on the wall to stabilize herself, she made her way down the staircase.

###

Pausing momentarily, Selen furrowed her brows and pulled out a talisman that had cracked in half.

"Sir, one of the nearby research stations has been broken into." She reported as Erick frowned.

"Tsk… troublesome. Pick two that you think are suitable for the task and get rid of the mongrels that breached the station immediately. Make sure you clean it up properly as well." Erick ordered as Selen nodded her head.

There was a complicated light in her eyes but it soon faded away as she carried out his order.

Meanwhile, Michael and Melissa overheard this and frowned.

"Do you need us to check out the situation?" Michael asked curiously. As researchers, this task ultimately falls to them.

"No need. Since it's been breached, I can only assume the people left to guard it were killed. Going there would only cause unnecessary trouble for the Guards. Just focus on what we need to do here." Erick shook his head.

The family sent him here to 'negotiate' access into the Inverted World but if there was trouble at a nearby station then he may as well sort that out while he's here. There's been cases like this in the past but they were quelled rather quickly since they killed the intruder before the news could get out.

This time was going to be no different.

###

After walking for what Alice assumed to be 15 minutes, she began to see the bottom of the stairs.

However, the faint hums of equipment brought back bad memories of her time in the Zenia prison. Clenching her fist, she held back her anger continued down.

But as she reached the bottom, she was stunned beyond belief.

In the large open space filled with countless expensive equipment, corpses belonging to the researchers were strewn out. Their innards were pulled from their body, their limbs twisted in abnormal directions and their bodies pierced by crimson thorns.

Their eyes gouged out with parts of their skin flayed and peeled.

Yet this wasn't what shocked her.

Aside from the researchers, there were casualties among those with a familiar collar around their neck.

While it was broken now, Alice could vividly remember the pain and torment it brought her. Subconsciously, her hand rubbed against her neck.

Among the casualties, many of which were lying down on the operating tables. Pregnant woman who had their stomachs torn open by countless hands from the inside. Malformed foetuses that were a mix between child and beast.

Their faces were warped in pain and tears in their last moments.

Many of the foetuses held a resemblance to the Arachne they saw on the outside as their mutated bodies meant the death of their own mother.

Neither Alice nor Alyss were surprised as they were familiar with the methods of the Zenia family but Cayla was speechless. Her eyes watched with horror as she couldn't believe humans were capable of such cruelty. Against their own race no less!

Holding back her anger, Alice looked around for some research documenting what had happened here but most of the notes had been soaked in blood. What little she could glean from the pages documented the process of applying side effects while the child was still in the womb.

When injecting blood into a human, adult or child, their body would show some signs of rejection, forming defects with little to no practical use.

Side effects that hindered their movements and so on.

However, if they were to modify the blood to a certain extent via experimentation and then apply it directly to the foetuses in regular doses while it matured, they could observe the growth and ensure a perfect specimen for observation.

A merge between human and beast. There was little success but by taking the blood samples of those failures and impregnating the mother once more, it suppressed the side effect of the beast enough for more doses of Abyss Blood that didn't directly kill the child.

Through this method, they were able to produce better results such as beasts with harder defences, more lethality and even features from other beasts merged into one.

A lot of the details between the initial experiments and the final experiment were obscured but seeing the state of the mothers with their stomachs torn open from the inside, Alice could already guess what had occurred.

[Vile creatures! They don't deserve to be called human! O' master mine, tell me what I can do to help you rend these cursed parasites from the face of this realm! How dare they insult the love that Velouria had shown them in the past!] Cayla raged.

'Don't worry, I know. They all deserve to die though it seems the Arachne outside had already taken care of that for us.' Alice nodded.

The Arachne that she had faced was never given a name by her mother. But she was the final product achieved by these Zenia researchers. Their pride and joy.

'How ironic. Their best masterpiece became their downfall. And likewise, I'll become the blade that cuts down the Zenia family.' Alice smiled.

Taking this research and storing it in her pouch, she looked for more evidence of their cruelty. While the Zenias may hold sway over public opinion, with enough evidence and regular exposure, she could turn the public perception of this family in due time.

Once she had gathered everything she could find, Alice condensed all of her energy into a single spark.

Narrowing her gaze, she fired the spark towards the centre of the lab before diving into a blood mirror to teleport herself back to the surface. After killing the Arachne, Alice left a marker to act as an anchor point for her teleport.

Landing roughly on the grass, Alice glanced back and watched as a pillar of flames tore through the ground, creating a spire of pure destruction, consuming the entire orphanage.

Giving a silent prayer to the victims of the experiment, Alice turned and prepared to make her way back when her body froze up.

"What the hell happened here." A voice rang out as Alice glanced back and saw two figures dropping from the sky.

One had large draconic wings on her back while the other Alice was familiar with. Both were part of the Zenia guard department!

Jyn whom she had fought before. During their fight, he had held back due to it being a spar and the second, a woman called Rita. She was mostly silent, rarely giving her input yet her eyes had always been observing her when she was acting as Kale.

If both of them where here then it means…

'Sh*t!' Cursing in her mind, Alice immediately raised her guard as Jyn's blade tore into her flesh, crushing her bones with its sheer weight as her body was sent back, slamming against the tree.

"F*cking hell… I didn't think a rat would actually sneak in." Jyn cracked his neck as he hoisted his ring blade onto his shoulder while Rita was silent. She glanced at the scattering of energy from Alice's Void Flux and frowned.

"Clean up. Then we go back." She ordered as Jyn grinned.

"You don't have to tell me twice." Jyn laughed, approaching the motionless Alice who slumped over in the remains of a broken tree.