Butcher's Graffiti

The receptionist who was a faun, looked like a humanoid mountain goat with braided hair. He welcomed them and provided a new set of clothes for the vampire, including the furcoat.

They stood before large double doors as a wisp of light swiftly performed a scan and confirmed their ident.i.ties.

"I present to you, The Special Division of Magic Research in Primordial Arts." Phillis said as he pushed the handle forwards.

There was an immense structure nearly 300 meters in height in the middle of the underground city, almost touching the Solwick Crystals on the ceiling. They are very rare and special minerals that imitates the sun"s light and provides lighting to the laboratories.

The humongous structure was called The Heart of Gaia. A relic that the Nikolai, Phillis, and Amira acquired when they battled the Mother t.i.tan to claim the land on which the Empire stood today.

But that"s a story for another time.

Tiny people, less than half a meter tall at best, were the only citizens of this unofficial city. They had pointed noses and ears, translucent membranous wings similar to that of a dragonfly"s, and spoke a very unique language called "Faerigus".

"Pochi pa! Pillius mio mika!!" one of them yelled in a strange accent, anouncing to the others that they had visitors.

They all gathered around the newcomers and cheered here and there, handing them bizzare flowers and treats.

"Faeries! I know. Very hospitable and lively folks, extremely well-versed in magic and loved by mana. Their the perfect minions, I tell you. Though a tad pushy at times—OMPH—GULP. Mm, yes, delicious as always, Fel." the bat tried to explain as a robe of leaves was placed over his coat, a flower crown on his head, a sash of vines, and finally a cookie shoved in his mouth.

Various forms of vegetation had grown even on the rocky wall sides, with multiple carved holes used as dwelling by the adorable clan of mystics.

The elderly were mostly focused on the vampire, the children were all over the ogre like fruitflies, while the females flocked over to Amira as they were captivated by the Cristeluna by her ear.

"Director! Director Vlad, oh thank goodness you"re back!" a man in a lab coat called out.

"I"ve finished compiling the results of our experiments on specimen 04-069 and, uh...ah. OH GOOD LORD, WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING!!" he yelled as he demonstrated the four stages of panic in less than 2 seconds.

There were stripes of grey on the young man"s short, black hair. He had a little stubble and very thick square gla.s.ses that enlarged his eyes from afar.

"Oh, there he is. Now, Nikki. I would like you to meet Mr. Hendrick Jekyll, the a.s.sistant Director of the Special Division and my Personal Secretary. A young, yet brilliant mind who tends to spend all his time in research like a life-long subscription to virginity.

Henry, this is the collosus whom I described the other day. Nikolai Elliot. A man of action and two words.

Oh, and there"s the Empress." his brief introduction managed to insult both sides.

The doctor was able to somehow calm the crowd of faeries and make some s.p.a.ce for the guests.

"Oh dear, uh, Director? Don"t you think we should have a do-over for the introductions, maybe a little more proper this time? Like, how I"m barely at the legal age?" he whispered.

"What? No~." Phillis said. "Don"t mind it. I"m pretty sure they don"t. And what"s need? It"s not like you"re relatives in a reunion or something.

Come, what"s the matter with 04-069?" He said, patting the Doctor as they went on.

.

"A "tampered nucleuon"? Well, that"s certainly rare but nothing we haven"t seen before. What"re you so worked up for?" Phillis read aloud, as he skimmed through a clipboard of records.

Before them was the Queen Ghoul, half-dead after having been slammed again and again to an inch of it"s life. It was inside a ma.s.sive, cube-like container floating in a blue liquid. Each side of the cube had engraved incantations that kept the creature in suspended animation while supplying just enough Life Force to keep it alive.

Nikolai felt something different as he looked at the unconscious fiend. There were a few fresh wounds, small inconspicuous ones that looked like it had been pierced by harpoons.

They were inside the Experimentation Zone where the Empire kept it"s "Priceless Specimen" and various other collections, both legal and not.

The Zone was a long corridor that extended to endless containment cells of corresponding numerals, it"s entirety covered in a manresistant reinforced alloy and multiple Restraining Incantations that sealed the cells perfectly.

"Of course." the doctor responded as he played the hologram recording on a large platform.

"I was intrigued by the metamorphosis that it undertook from the recording that you sent me and I couldn"t help but wonder what sort of change did it undergo. So I decided to compare its physiology, both the anatomical and mystical structure, to that of the common ghoul. And here"s what I"ve found...so far."

A large, clear gla.s.s monitor that had descended from the roof automatically scanned the creature in the cell, a.n.a.lyzing it through the set of commands the doctor had inputted and displayed the data accodingly.

There were three varied representations of Queen Ghoul on screen, one was the original imaging, the anatomical structures, and the mystical structures.

"Three Mana Nucleuons?!" Phyllis exclaimed.

"Indeed. But that"s not the worst part! Here...just a second."

"Three? That"s impossible. That thing only has one Life Force as far as I can see, having multiple nucleuons would cause it"s mana flow in reverse. That would either induce the most agonizing death any living being could experience as it would slowly suffocate in its own blood or the fiend would just outright explode." Amira stated as she walked around inspecting the contained creature.

Her eyes glowed with mana as she confirmed it for herself, casting the Perception Spell that allowed her to detect the mystic signatures that mana nucleons naturally emitted. Yet again she saw just one at the creature"s midpoint.

"I only see one."

"Oh! That"s because the other two are shattered dead. Try using the Spirit Glimpse spell on the heart and brain." the doctor was very enthusiastic, like a child with a new toy.

Spirit Glimpse wasn"t a detection spell like the Perception Spell, rather it was an uncommon diagnostic spell often used to remove shrapnel and bullets from corpses while cleaning them.

"Now normally, an Abyssal Fiend is an ent.i.ty of the Abyss. The Underworld, Hades, or h.e.l.l, which we consider to be a lower realm of destruction and mayhem due to extremely high concentrations of Chaos disrupting and breaking the balance of the other elements.

As far as the studies have gone, this has theoretically caused the inhabitants to adapt and evolve, turning them into what we know. Creatures with an accelerated mana flow and affinity to Chaos Magic, allowing them to grow rapidly when exposed to the rich elements of the middle realm. Our realm, The World of Arkenheim, in other words.

However, this Fiend doesn"t have that kind of mutation. It—" Dr. Jekyll continued, prompting everyone to look at the screen above.

"It needed to consume to produce." Phillis finished the sentence, putting the puzzles together.

"PRECISELY! If it had the same accelerated mana flow it wouldn"t need to devour the citizens of Hovarin Kingdom to create an army of 7000, even just breathing the air would allow it to do so!"

The other"s grim expression didn"t match with the Doctor"s enthusiasm.

"It"s a...Proto-...-type." Nikolai clenched his fists, coming to a conclusion."That was...the first...test."

His words may be quite a stretch but it"s also the most likely, bringing the others to agree.

"I take it all of you will keep this matter confidential. We may have a terrorist on our hands or worse, pract.i.tioners." the Empress said with a serious tone, her mind racing as to what she should do to prepare for the worst.

"You haven"t explained how it has three cores yet." the vampire reminded his subordinate. "I"m guessing they used some elaborate spell to balance the mana flow?"

"No sir, though that was also my first guess condsidering the nature of nucleuons. The 4 days that you"ve given me were enough to study even the genitals on this thing, which is really interesting, by the way. They have these hook-like gonads that—"

"This is getting off-topic. Stop beating around the bush and just tell us what they did already!" Amira halted the discussion before it got anymore inappropriate, stomping her foot as the stress got to her.

To his surprise the doctor"s pen fell, scuttling down in a hurry. "R-Right."

"Mm. And you were trying to copulate like a peac.o.c.k just a while ago." the bat couldn"t help but banter.

"One more word and I will cut off you"re annual supply of cigars."

"Yes, ma"am." the undead fixed himself up.

"Gla.s.ses, talk!"

Nikolai snorted as he watched the bloodsucker get disciplined, it took a miracle to tame the rascal.

"They used some solid capsules that wrapped the extra nucleons, who on that note were charged with absurd amounts of Chaos, in a layer of pure Life Force.

I don"t know how they managed to create or even find Life force with that much purity that it was able to preserve a nucleuon that was pumped full of Chaos.

Another thing that I figured out was that there were conditions for the final nucleuon to be released from it"s capsule. And from what had transpired before these two guests got here, I"m guessing that the conditions were for the creature to be dead and for somebody to try and extract the final core." Doctor Jekyll explained as he manipulated the screen to emphasize the third nucleuon.

"It was a blessing that you were here at the time, Director. Otherwise I"m not sure what would"ve happened or if would I would"ve been able to do anything at all." the Doctor"s face went pale at the thought, clutching his arms tightly from behind. "My ignorance has placed everyone in this facility on harm"s way...I"m such an idiot."

The others turned to Phillis with a confused look.

"Let me explain." he cleared his throat." For one thing, Henry, I wasn"t there by coincidence. I was wary of a self-destruct sequence from the start. Two, saying that there were conditions was a mistake but the spell part was correct."

"What? I don"t understand—"

"SHH! I"m talking, shut up." he said, putting a finger on the doctor"s lips and forcing the clipboard unto him.

"That "spell" is actually an Original Skill called "The Poltergeist; Haunt", which I"m sure our two guests are very familiar with."

Nikolai"s eyes widened at the mention of those words, his face creating an expression of unbridled wrath as held tried his best not to smash the unconscious fiend to pieces. Memories that he"d preffered forgotten began to resurface, like a foreboding before disaster strikes.

Amira was sweating bullets and having difficulty breathing, but somehow managed to gather her thoughts.

u003c"Forget pract.i.tioners, we"ve got the f.u.c.king Devil!"u003e she inwardly cursed.

"HE IS...ALIVE!" Nikolai roared, the veins on his jaw, neck and arms looking like they were about to pop.

"IVAN—!!!"

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