Masteria Online: Shattering the Dark God's Grand Scheme

Then, responding to the presence of nearby lifeforms, a portion of it extended outward and began to take shape. The blood condensed into a scythe, and shards of broken glass embedded themselves along its edge, forming a serrated blade. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Without hesitation, it swung itself towards a nearby researcher.

The man hadn’t even fully processed what was happening. His body was turned halfway toward the exit, his expression frozen between confusion and terror, completely unprepared for the attack that was already upon him.

Entirely silently, the scythe was erased. A sphere of darkness had manifested in its path, swallowing it without resistance. Renan lowered his wand slightly, his expression returning to calm.

He had seen enough, there was no need for further observation.

Allowing it to continue acting freely, even for a short period, would be a mistake. The fact that it had prioritized absorbing additional blood and immediately weaponizing itself suggested two things.

One, the ability to grow stronger.

Two, intelligence, or at least good enough instincts to seem similar.

Three, aggressive behavior. Regardless, he couldn’t let it just go on a killing spree.

"Void Sphere."

For something like this, it was the most appropriate solution. If it had no vital points, then the answer wasn’t to damage it. It was to remove it entirely from existence. Of course, darkness spells were the answer. What better to destroy a target with no vitals than with an element that would destroy matter?

The sphere shot forward. The blood mass reacted immediately, its form shifting as though attempting to evade or disperse, but the effort was futile. It was nowhere near fast enough, and the void sphere hit directly.

Within a second, there was nothing left.

Renan exhaled quietly. Well, that was that.

As if the laboratory hadn’t fallen into enough chaos, it was only worse now after the fight with their experiment. The researchers were panicking, and others still were attempting to flee. Renan had to note that some of them were extremely bad at fleeing. It had already been around a dozen seconds and some people were still looking around for the singular exit?

While others, still, remained frozen in place, unable to process what they had just witnessed. The sudden death of the director had already been enough to shatter any sense of order, and the appearance of an unseen force capable of both killing and speaking only made things worse.

Renan turned his attention toward them and began speaking. After all, his voice was not something he would be personally identified by.

"Nexarch is evil. There are no benefits to working with them."

Immediately, several of them flinched, their heads snapping around as they tried to locate the source of the voice. Renan didn’t bother trying to hide his location, nor did he bother actively trying to reveal where he was.

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that they heard what he had to say.

"They are funded by aliens to wipe out humanity."

It wasn’t entirely accurate, but it was close enough. The truth would be far more difficult to comprehend.

A video game was real, and trying to invade the planet? Yeah, right.

Framing Nexarch as a puppet organization under aliens was far more digestible by the average human. Plus, framing it as an inhuman force being behind it was far more likely to provoke the desired reaction.

There were always those with dark hearts. Whether they were evil themselves, or didn’t mind working with evil, or their morality was warped, there was little difference. However, how many people would be willing to work with hostile aliens?

Why would an alien ever hold feelings of loyalty or friendship to a human?

Even the evilest of men would still prioritize their own lives, which rendered working with genocidal aliens impossible.

Of course, this assumed many things. The point, regardless, was that this was an excuse he cooked up on the spot and there were reasons for it.

He didn’t linger on it. His objective here wasn’t to educate them, only to ensure that whatever influence Nexarch held over these people was weakened as much as possible.

Moving quickly, he began collecting documents from around the lab. As he passed them, he swiftly stuffed papers into his coat. He prioritized anything that appeared to contain research data, experimental notes, or internal communications. Tablets were ignored, given that they likely had trackers. Something he absolutely could not bring back home under any circumstances.

At one point, he paused briefly in front of a set of storage cabinets, considering whether it would be worth searching through them.

It wasn’t.

There was only so much he could carry, and if it wasn’t a document actively being worked on, it was likely to be useless. Or at least, less likely to be useful than what was being used. Regardless, what he had already gathered would be sufficient to gain a general understanding of what had been happening here.

Once he was satisfied, he turned toward the exit.

His mana reserves were running low.

The Void Sphere had taken more out of him than the previous spell, and maintaining his invisibility wasn’t free either. While he still had enough to leave without issue, that margin was shrinking, and he had no intention of pushing it further than necessary.

Without another word, he slipped out of the laboratory, leaving behind nothing but panic, confusion, and a trail of unanswered questions.

Whatever Nexarch had been attempting to create here was gone.

He made his way back up the stairs. His mana was low, lower than he preferred, but it was still more than enough to leave. When he made his way back out to the wider offices, it was clear that nothing which had happened below had been found out by the common employee. All the men and women were going about their day, looking only mildly perturbed.

That was because just a moment ago, a couple panicked looking researchers had ran through the offices and left. It was, admittedly, concerning. A couple of them had imagined there was perhaps an active shooter, but upon further investigation, there was not.

Plus, when asked, the researchers didn’t warn them of anything. They just replied to everything with a non-committal attitude as they rushed to simply leave.

After Renan left, behind him, even those who were shocked into stillness began moving. The rest of the researchers made their way out as well. No one wanted to stay in that room any longer than necessary. Within a short time, it was empty.

At least, that was how it appeared.

One of the monitors flickered.

A faint red smear appeared across the screen, subtle enough that it could have been mistaken for nothing more than a lightly damaged monitor. Then it began to spread. Slowly at first, then faster, bleeding across the display.

A shape began to form within the screens. A blood red face, grinning maliciously with an unnaturally wide smile. Pitch black fluid dripped from where its eyes and mouth should have been, pooling at the bottom of the displays without ever falling off.

Its head moved side to side, its eyes scanning the room. Its grin somehow spread even further.

It didn’t stop there.

Nearby monitors followed, the same red distortion appearing, growing, connecting.

"Hah... hah... hah..." It gave a low, slow laugh. The sound that came out was crunchy, coming out suspiciously low-quality considering the high quality equipment.

It was contemplative for a moment, then every screen collectively blinked, turning black.

...

Renan left through the front door, watching the confused employees. Police had already been called, though they were not very panicked. Soon, everyone would know that a murder had taken place. The researchers were sure to tell the truth, and be laughed out of the police station.

Who would ever believe a story about a secret experiment regarding a sentient blood creature, and then an invisible force using magic?

No one sane would believe it. Not that it really mattered if they did or not. He came prepared. He didn’t just make sure not to leave fingerprints, he made sure not to leave behind any potential cells from scraping against anything.

The aftermath was not of his concern. He made it to his predetermined spot where he could dispel his invisibility, which he had chosen after making sure that it would be entirely free of surveillance or any stray civilians.

He broke his invisibility, and lightly sighed. He was getting to the point that after everything, he lightly told himself, ’well, that was that.’ before moving on.

It felt familiar, yet also not? He didn’t quite remember doing this in his past life. He didn’t know why he was doing it now.

It didn’t matter. It really didn’t. Was he seriously about to debate his internal thought process? Please.

Giving himself one last check to make sure he didn’t have anything suspicious on him, he left, making his way to his car. He began his drive home in silence. He supposed he should fill his empty mind with some plans, but he wasn’t feeling it.

He just focused on the drive.