"..."
Amaya looked at him with eyes that didn’t understand where his words were coming from. Raymond and the rest only just stumbled upon this fact, so it was natural that Amaya hadn’t been briefed yet.
She was aware that Raymond and Natalia suspected the Apocalypse Church’s cooperation in Bloodrend’s activities, but what was Gio talking about?
He frowned.
"You aren’t chasing the Apocalypse Church?"
Amaya shook his head.
"Bloodrend, then."
In the Wasteland, only Bloodrend was active enough. They were also followers of the Apocalypse Church at this ti.
Bloodrend lost all of its power due to a war that happened in the past. This period was their revival. They stood behind the Apocalypse Church until they’d amassed enough strength to stand on their own.
’I heard there were operations to take down Bloodrend before they got big. Everyone would always criticize those operations for failing.’
It wasn’t their fault at all. They tried and failed. It was the fault of those who sent them for giving up after hearing news of that failure.
Gio shook off his thoughts and returned his attention to Amaya. If she was only aware of Bloodrend, there was a lot of explaining to do.
"Bloodrend, at the mont, isn’t gathering forces for its own sake. They’re acting under the orders of the Apocalypse Church. They’re receiving help...yeah, the bombs from last ti were probably created by the cult. Any other technologies you’ve faced are probably the sa."
There was a lot to consider about the situation. It went much deeper than one or two things.
Gio focused on only what Amaya needed to know currently. He could explain the rest after properly gaining her trust.
"The sacrifices in these villages have been prepared as a power reserve. Whenever the machine is activated, their blood is activated as well. The human Essence Blood inside them is extracted and they’re left to turn into grotesque chiras."
The most rudintary form of beast control was to guide their thoughts, but they were too unintelligent to follow more than simple commands. So species were better than others and could be trained, but there was never a guarantee of how long they’d stay docile.
Beasts had a primal instinct to go berserk around humans. It was never a good idea to use ntal control alone to interfere with them.
The Apocalypse Church looked for ways around that. With their thods, the first one they found was essentially reversing the process of giving humanity Sequences.
The Essence Blood of a human was the fluid inside the Gene Housing. It wasn’t the sa as the Essence Blood of a beast and could not transfer abilities, but it was the core essence of the human geno.
When they extracted it from their sacrifices, the essence was then channeled into wherever the main operation was taking place. It was infused with a variety of chemicals and treated to beco sothing like a Sequence before it was injected into sedated beasts.
Over and over again, this process took place. Captured beasts had their bodies forcefully nded to adapt to the human genes.
Their bodies were changed until their aversion to humans beca submission. The chemicals in their bodies influenced their physiology to obey the commands given to them using special devices the cult created.
This technology would eventually be improved until it was a bane of humanity, a true threat to its existence.
"Right now, they must’ve only started testing the completed product. That’s why they’re using a facility this deeply hidden in the Wilds. If we can catch them now, it might be possible to delay the creation of a real device long enough to do sothing about it."
It was too late to stop them from developing the technology. Gio didn’t even know that its origin story was here.
Now that he did know, the best he could do was destroy what they had so they were forced to rebuild.
"So, according to you..." Amaya said, rubbing her forehead as she sumd up his words.
"Everything we’ve been doing to chase Bloodrend was actually going to lead us into what you’re talking about now. If you’re right, Captain and the rest must’ve also figured out sothing along those lines, right?"
"If they’re doing missions around this area, they must’ve discovered it too."
"Hmm... Those villages..."
Gio explained about them a little more, telling her the traits of the sacrifices. Once he’d perfectly described what she experienced when she approached them before, she had a hard ti doubting his words.
Amaya tried to fight them to see if they were hiding their strength, only for them to turn into beastly creatures and attack her. She didn’t expect it at all, but when she’d confird that they really were weak, she beca more curious about how Gio would react.
She wasn’t able to see the scene she wanted, but this couldn’t be considered a worse outco.
"How do you expect to prove what you’re saying?" she finally asked after hearing him out.
Gio motioned back towards the village.
"You said there were around a dozen of them, right? All of them are connected to the machine, but only so of them will be connected to tunnels that we can move through to find the main facility. We have to find the central village that the gathered essence moves through before it’s processed and sent to the main facility."
There would be a processing station under that village. Gio didn’t know if they’d find enemies, but they’d definitely find evidence.
"Hmm..."
Amaya humd again with furrowed brows.
She was a bit troubled by it, but she promised to not throw away his words until they’d investigated properly.
"I already know where that village should be."
But she had the information they needed. She had the ans to check if he was telling the truth.
’And if it’s a trap of so sort...’
Her eyes narrowed imperceptibly.
Well, she was prepared to respond in whatever way was necessary.
***
Amaya had already done a sweep of the entire area to find every camp. It wasn’t hard for her to make a ntal map and determine which ones were most likely to be the target Gio spoke of.
He said too much for her to take it like nothing. If he was telling the truth, this was a real concern they had to address.
She moved with him in tow. No, now that they had to move faster, letting Gio run was nonsensical.
Their current position...
No matter how embarrassing it was for Gio as an old man to be getting a piggyback ride, there wasn’t a more convenient way to travel at the mont.
He was on Amaya’s back with his hands tightly clutching her shoulders as she breezed through the jungle. The world turned into a blur. The only sound he could hear was the wind roaring in his ears.
He didn’t know where they were going, only that it was another village and one Amaya suspected to be hiding the plant.
’If she’s right, we save a day of snooping around.’
If she was right, they could go down there today and unveil the sches that had been progressing in the dark for so long.
Gio put his faith in Amaya’s hunch, waiting patiently to arrive at the village.
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