"Aliens are actually real!??" Kaida shouted in exclamation, her flas confused as to what they should be mad about. "And you're telling that they quietly and discreetly replaced hundreds of S-Rank Hunters!? Just how long have they been living among us!?? Look, even that ice bastard Ezekiel and the Dragon Slayer are aliens! Ha, that dumb idiot really went and allowed himself to be replaced by a hideous alien!"
"Wait, does that an the Dragon Slayer is dead??" Kaida asked, both excited and disappointed that she couldn't finish the deed herself.
"That should be the least of your worries right now," said the Battlemonger, his toothy grin widening. "But no, the answer you seek is no. Every human we took the forms of did not technically die. Their husks are safely stored on the Mothership, awaiting Void Worm Season. But soon… very soon, they will be dead."
"Husks? A Mothership?? Void Worms???" Luna asked, hearing unfamiliar terms for the first ti. "Are you saying that there are more of you in so sort of spaceship??"
The Battlemonger's Kaiju brows furrowed angrily. "Do not refer to the Great Mothership in such a disrespectful way," he growled, his overwhelming aura rolling out in waves that neared the SS-Rank. "Our Mothership is not rely a ship. She's our guiding light, our mother, our future, our god! Though, I doubt that an insignificant human like yourself would be able to comprehend the grandiosity of what all we Dissonants worship."
"As for your question," the Battlemonger continued, his presence becoming overbearing. "There are more of us… so, so many more of us. In the Mothership, there are billions of our kind, with more than 99% of them stronger than us."
"Stronger than you!?" Luna asked, disbelief etched across her pretty face. 'Are they just trying to scare us?? Or…'
"Believe it or don't believe it," said the Battlemonger. "It won't change what'll happen to your pitiful planet and the rest of the Ascension Tower. You'll rely be the first civilization among many that'll fall to our mighty race once we get what we ca for."
"What you ca for?" Arden repeated, his hold on his sword becoming firr. "What is it that you ca here for? That you kidnapped and took on the identities of our strongest? Why is it that you did all this—to go through so much effort when you're clearly more powerful than us… What is it that you want??"
The Battlemonger looked away from the concerned and astonished group of humans. "You ask what we want?" he parroted, his abysmally swirling gaze peering into the layers of the mystical Gold-ranked Gate. "What we want is sothing beyond your understanding. To explain everything here and now would require too much ti; it's far too troubleso.
Instead… just die!"
"!!!" "!!!" "!!!"
The lives of Kaida and the other humans flashed before their eyes as a large building-sized claw cut through the air. In their dilated pupils, the claw looked so big that the entire sky was blotted out. The power infused into the claw, however, was a whole different story. It was at such a level that even the strong-willed Kaida couldn't even so much as move an inch to fight back or evade.
She, along with the others, froze like statues—immovable and subject to the whims of others. In this case, the whims of an extraterrestrial whose purpose for being here still remained a mystery.
'Am I going to die!?' The Japanese S-Rank Hunters seed to think in unison as the massive claw plumted toward them. 'I don't want to die!!'
As if their intent was heard by the very universe itself, the gems that they were holding erupted in large bursts of light!
From that light materialized what looked to be copies of Lilith. Those copies were ford from the light, and in an instant, they multiplied until there were hundreds of them. Then, without any of the Dissonants being able to even so much as blink, the light swords used |Void Port| to teleport behind the necks of the big and small Dissonants.
SHING! SHING!
SPURT! SPURT!
Simultaneously, the head of every single Dissonant was chopped off. Blood sprayed the air for thousands of ters as freakish heads sailed through the skies.
Then ti resud.
"!??" "!??"
"What was that!? They're… they're all…"
Kaida, Luna, and the other four Japanese S-Rank Hunters stared at the scene before them—shellshocked. Every other 'human' in the area had been cut up into tiny pieces—deader than dead. Even those they once considered colleagues and friends had died.
"Those gems," Arden said, wide-eyed. "What exactly were they…?"
Kaida's brows furrowed as she rembered who it was that gave the gems to them. She wasn't sure how she was supposed to feel, but she understood just how foolish she was for provoking him.
"That Cassius… just what is he, really…?" Luna asked, her starry gaze fixed on the swirling gold Gate. "And why did he appear now of all tis? Is sothing big about to go down…?"
"I have a bad feeling about this," said Arden, his unease growing. "When Gates first appeared in the world—with monsters rampaging everywhere—Awakeners ca to be. Now, with this second calamity—an alien invasion—there appears this man whose strength exceeds any pre-recorded paraters."
"But for him to take care of the problem so easily—and without even personally making a move—I wonder what he's really ant to do," Arden continued, his tone dramatic. "Is there… sothing even more dangerous awaiting our planet…?"
Arden's quandaries put the entire group in a complex state. And as they watched chunks of Dissonant Kaiju at fall from the skies, all their thoughts seed to veer back to that nonchalant man.
After a few seconds, they unanimously decided not to enter the Gold-ranked Gate. They knew that in doing so, they'd only be sending themselves into the maws of the lion.
Instead of being so foolish, they focused their efforts elsewhere.
With the vast majority of the world's S-Rank Hunters having been turned into husks and bead up to the Dissonant Mothership, Earth was left mostly unprotected. And though the world wouldn't be reduced to shambles overnight by a couple of Gate Outbreaks, if no one was there to handle them…
Well, it certainly wouldn't be long before such a catastrophic scenario ca to pass.
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