Chapter 777 Evoking Empathy
Rex laid back on his throne once more, seemingly nonchalant about the situation.
Despite the fact that Adhara and Evelyn are confronting Giana as of this moment, he doesn’t seem to be concerned about it. First of all, he’s quite confident that Giana wouldn’t try to hurt those two, considering the damned mistake that she did.
Even if she did tries to hurt them, he will know instantly and can reach there in seconds.
Second, the fact that Giana came here in search of him obviously indicates that she wanted something. Putting that into consideration, the chance that Giana would hurt Adhara and Evelyn is extremely low.
Of course, Rex can’t also deny the fact that Adhara and Evelyn might try and kills her.
But then again, knowing those two, simply killing Giana would not be satisfactory for them. In a sense following their emotions, they would definitely want to hurt her to the point of breaking her without actually killing her.
At least, not for this encounter, the next would probably spill Giana’s death.
Knowing that fact, Rex has a relaxed expression on his face as Flunra nodded his head and quickly turn around to carry out his order. Unlike Rex that expects Adhara and Evelyn to not kill Giana, Flunra thought otherwise as he tries to increase his pace.
Like earlier, the entrance to the castle opens and closes again with a heavy ringing thud.
Prof. K feel his body tense when silence engulfed the entire place, there was no sound whatsoever. It was so quiet that he can even hear his own rapid heartbeat, he was now alone with Rex.
In the back corner, Gelmar is still there. But Prof. K doesn’t realize his presence.
Not that he can’t sense Gelmar, but glancing to the side alone feels like a heavy burden for him, much less turning around or even expanding his energy. Although the situation somewhat worked out, it’s still not over yet.
Completely disregarding Prof. K for a moment, Rex decides to check the memory drive.
After arranging his thoughts about a plan that can potentially finish many of his problems, it’s time for him to satiate his curiosity about the intel stored inside the memory drive. ‘I hope there’s information about the attack inside this thing’
With that, Rex clicks on a button on the side before a hologram came out.
Just like the interface of a document in computers, he finds that there are a couple of unnamed folders. There were three to be exact. Clicking on the left-most folder, he finds that there’s a document and a folder inside.
Opening the document, he was presented with some sort of official report from the UWO.
Rex’s eyes squinted as he reads through the entire report, there are about 15 pages and skimmed through it in a matter of seconds thanks to his high mental stat. Screening through these pages and capturing the content is easy for someone like him.
‘Hmm… is that what you’re trying to go with this, Prof. K’
Giving a glance at Prof. K that is still putting his head down, a smile can be seen on Rex’s face as he knows exactly what Prof. K is trying to do. It’s clear that Prof. K wanted to ignite some emotions inside of him.
No matter how much he trails off of humanity, he’s still a human by birth.
Prof. K is using that to make him feel bad and evoke empathy within him. But sadly, he has never been a man that follows his emotion much. At least not when the other side has disappointed him beyond measure.
The report stated the increase of the Awakened quota to be brought to the Executor.
As the UWO and SCO have become a united ally, the burden to satiate the Executor is shared among them. Inside the report, the quota was increased to 20 Awakened a day, preferably Fire Elementalists.
Due to that, the quota has been divided into two, ten for the UWO and ten for the SCO.
It’s called the White Sheet Recruitment, essentially a program to pick 20 random Awakened to be sacrificed to the Executor. Scanning the report one more time, there was no specified reason why the Executor demand this.
Rex wanted to believe it was because of the Executor’s evil nature, but he can’t be hasty.
‘As much as I wanted to believe that, the Executor is very smart if he can pull off what he did to me. Surely, there’s a reason for this demand, he shouldn’t be only doing this only out of the fun of it’
Maneuvering out of the document, he then went over to the folder beside it.
Upon going inside the folder, Rex was presented with almost a hundred pictures. For a moment, he was trapped in his thought, trying to decipher what the picture is about. But then he realized that it was the state of Ratmawati City.
Looking at these images, Rex clenched his hands and quickly went out of it.
Gritting his jaw tightly, his aura riled up as he glared at Prof. K.
But Prof. K who still has his head down seems to already expect this kind of reaction, his goal was to evoke empathy and make Rex help humanity once more. Extreme measures are necessary, such as showing the aftermath of his rampage in Ratmawati City.
It was a state of berserk, and Rex can’t control it back then.
Although he already knows deep inside that he has caused innocent deaths, the fact that Prof. K smeared that fact to his face angers him. One of those images contained the death of young people, innocent lives were spilled.
Rex, still influenced by his past, feels guilty about what he did to those people.
Even though he doesn’t consider Edward a friend anymore, of the side that he has taken, the fact that he believed that people below age shouldn’t be dragged is still there. And now, that belief influenced him greatly.
𝑜𝑣𝔩𝒩xt.𝐜𝑂𝓂
‘Tch! Don’t blame those deaths on me, it was the doings of all of you’ Rex thought in spite.
Knowing that the death of his foster parents would put him to the breaking point, Giana and the other higher-ups should think that first. Although he was the one that did the killing, the blood was shared with them too.
Averting his gaze away, Rex then suppressed his emotion and went on.
If he becomes angry and frustrated by the mistake he was forced to do by them, then Prof. K’s method will work and he would lose his position of power under the influence. Due to that, he decided to keep his composure.
Going back to the main interface, he then opens the center folder.
For the center folder, there was only one video inside of it which Rex clicked to view it. After a brief load, the video played showing what seems to be the inside of a building, the SCO headquarter probably due to the man sitting on his own black throne, King John.
During the length of the video, there was something different about King John.
Since it was a video, Rex can’t properly sense the change in the surroundings, but his eyes can see a slight distortion above King John’s skin. Moreover, King John now has a weapon, a black great sword the size of his body.
Considering the size of King John, the great sword is very big if it can match him.
While watching the video where King John seems to tell a plan for an attack which Rex refers to as the attack the humans are launching right now, his frown deepens as there’s even an inexplicable powerful pride inside King John’s tone and bearing that doesn’t seem like him.
Rex has met King John a couple of times, and he does have a bearing of a leader or a King.
But the way King John presented himself in this video, his tone, and the portrayal of his eyes is more as if he was not seeing those in front of him with respect. And all of the ones inside the room are the SCO messengers, clad in their own respective colored robes.
Clearly, he changed, immensely for a fact.
Prof. K then suddenly gathers his will and opens his mouth regarding the video, “I don’t know why he acted like that, I don’t know what happened, but he changed in a matter of hours. It happened right after he was called upon by the Executor. Something about him changed, not just his aura but also himself as a person.
“Is this why you are here, this is what pushed you to act?” Rex asked with his probing eyes.
Although he knows Prof. K ever since he was nothing but a simple Werewolf, he doesn’t know much about him. But now, he can slowly learn more about Prof. K’s true self, without the mask and everything.
Upon hearing this, Prof. K nodded his head slightly.
“I’m one of the founders of the SCO, and Jax is a friend. Seeing him change like that, forgetting the vision we shared, I fear that he might be influenced by the Executor. Power is anyone’s bane in this world”
Leaning forward a bit, Rex then asked, “What is the vision you shared with him?”
Prof. K seems to be hesitant in answering this, it’s important for him after all. But he eventually sighs, he needs to be transparent if he wants Rex’s help, “SCO has two objectives, the core tenant of the organization. One is to help humanity win the war against the Supernaturals, and two is to become the strongest human organization”
“But now, King John doesn’t even regard his subordinates’ safety. The attack’s motivation is unclear. Not only to you, but it’s also unclear to us. I tried to ask, yet he kept it a secret to himself. I know winning against Supernaturals is a must, yet there’s no point in winning if the innocent humans and our members were not there to experience the end result”
Rex listens to Prof. K’s reasoning with open ears, he doesn’t seem to be offended.
Despite him being a Supernatural himself, he didn’t mind finding the fact that Prof. K wanted to win against the Supernatural. It was not his concern, he doesn’t consider himself a part of the Supernatural anyway.
At the end of the day, the motivation for the attack is still a mystery.
Although that is the case, Rex can learn from this that King John and the Executor are the ones that orchestrated this attack. Now he only needs to link the two to find what they were trying to do.
‘I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that cracking their motivation is not that hard…’
~
Meanwhile, back to the edge of the forest.
Adhara and Evelyn are both looking at Giana before the two exchange glances, her declaration caught them off guard as it’s something they didn’t expect. If Giana is brave enough to come here, then she should have something big to offer.
One such thing is the way to beat the Executor as she said earlier.
“I don’t want to bring her back, I don’t want to give her hope” Adhara mutters, biting her nail while looking at Giana with hatred. It was a moment of immense dilemma, she really loathe this woman to her core.
But on the other hand, the intel is too good to pass up, and she knows that.
Similar to Adhara, Evelyn also seemed to be troubled, she also has the same thing in mind. “I think we’ll have to bring her back, there’s no other choice. We’re talking about the Executor here. I also don’t want to, but we can’t be blind like that…”
Gritting her teeth, Adhara is hesitating so much that her body trembled.
Just then, both of them sensed two of the supposed ‘corpses’ from the human army that Adhara slaughtered moving. Upon sensing this, the two glanced back and finds that there are some that survived Adhara’s onslaught.
Looking back at Giana, Evelyn then shakes her head, “Don’t worry, I’ll deal with them”
Swoosh!
Evelyn then re-activated her Gladiator Form again, changing her outfit and also turning her hair into blazing deep red flames before she dashed at the two figures that are trying to run away.
‘It’s the weird Black Hands, I need to take them out quick’
Remembering that the two should have a way to teleport out, she picks up her pace.
In a few seconds, she managed to reach one of them and cuts his body in half using a slash of her hand. After killing one, her eyes then went to the other one who is already holding an object in her hand.
Pointing her hand toward the last one, Evelyn threw a flaming spear at her.
Swish!
Since the last one is only in the peak of the sixth-rank realm, Evelyn didn’t bother to follow up knowing that she would definitely die from that attack. But then, her eyes completely widened when she saw the spear bounce off of her body.
Crash!
Under her surprised gaze, the flaming spear stabbed the ground not far from them.
Tensing her body once again, Evelyn wanted to quickly grab the woman but she already breaks the object in her hand before a green smoke covers her entire being. Quickly, Evelyn tries to grab her but she touched nothing but smoke.
Just then she realized that the woman has already teleported away.
Evelyn stands in her spot motionless, a look of stunned disbelief is on her face. She doesn’t know what’s going on. “W-What just happened? Did my elemental weapon actually got deflected by a sixth-rank realm…?