Chapter 50 - EP.2 Mountains of Corpses, Seas of Blood 4

Blue emergency lights blinked inside the hideout. It was certainly a suitable place to lie low, but rather cramped for six people. Three of them had yet to regain consciousness and had to remain lying down, making the space feel twice as crowded.

So Ash stepped outside and wandered alone through the ruined water treatment facility.

Now and then, he caught glimpses of Underland through the steel beams jutting grotesquely into the air. It was a far cry from Sanctum's dazzling nightscape. This underground city, steeped in gloom, possessed a strange power to infect even an onlooker with an inexplicable melancholy.

How long had he been walking?

Suddenly, Ash stopped and turned to look behind him. A man stood there: Zero, the ninja in the tiger mask.

"Your siblings?"

"They've regained consciousness. And... they recognized me."

It seemed the kill switch had worked properly.

"Good. What a relief."

At Ash's quiet electronic voice, Zero stepped forward, then bowed so deeply his face almost touched the ground.

"Thank you, sir."

A brief expression of thanks, yet it held so much: the joy of having his siblings back, gratitude toward the man who had helped him, and a sense of relief that encompassed it all.

"Truly... thank you."

Zero remained that way for a long time.

"Hmm."

Watching him, Ash suddenly gave a quiet chuckle.

"You really are oddly well-mannered."

"Pardon?"

Ash looked away as he spoke.

"If you don't mind, how about walking with me for a while?"

Only then did Zero raise his head and move to Ash's side.

"I will accompany you."

* * *

For a while, neither spoke. They simply wandered through the ruins, occasionally taking in the lights of Underland through the skeletal steel framework.

Then, at some point, Ash spoke.

"You gave me quite a fright earlier. Even though I knew what to expect to some extent."

"What do you mean?"

"When you stabbed your brother through the heart."

Zero briefly recalled that moment.

"That, too, was thanks to you. If you hadn't shouted at me, I probably would have kept hesitating."

"I don't recall telling you to stab him in the heart."

"Heh. True enough."

"It was a clean thrust. A sharp strike that fully embodied the principles of Parting the Sea of Clouds. Your center of gravity was stable, too."

Not knowing what Parting the Sea of Clouds meant, Zero tilted his head briefly, then bowed.

"Thank you for the compli—"

"Which brings me to something."

Ash stopped walking.

"Don't we still have something to discuss?"

Zero stopped as well. For a moment, the two swordsmen faced each other.

"Do you mean Kunlun-Combat?"

Ash gave no answer. He merely regarded him in silence.

"... It may be a rather long story. Would that be all right?"

"As you can see, I have plenty of time at the moment. And now that you've rescued all your siblings, so do you. Could there be a better time for a long conversation?"

"..."

After a short pause, Zero nodded.

"You're right."

Then he removed what he had been wearing all this time: his tiger mask.

PSSSH...

As a sound like a gas mask's filter being replaced rang out, Zero lifted his now-unmasked face.

"Oh...?"

There was something strange about Zero's revealed face that made simply calling him handsome inadequate. His grayish-white skin was so pale it resembled a corpse's, with blue veins faintly visible beneath it.

But what drew Ash's gaze above all else were his dark red eyes. Burning crimson irises sat within pitch-black sclera. They were the very eyes he had seen in the Grotesques of the Outer, those creatures that screamed mindlessly.

"... A Grotesque?"

At Ash's words, Zero smiled bitterly.

"I can't say you're wrong."

"Could you... explain?"

"Of course. That's why I took off my mask."

His dark red gaze turned toward Ash.

"My siblings and I are test subjects. Test subjects who escaped from an Omni-Cell Biotech laboratory."

He ran a hand over the tiger mask he had just removed.

"More precisely, we're lab-grown humans created by mixing human and Grotesque genetic factors. Yes. We were born in a laboratory."

"Good heavens..."

Ash sighed at the shocking revelation.

"So there are many differences between us and ordinary humans. For instance, this ability that surprised you?"

Finishing his explanation, Zero drew the blade at his waist slightly from its sheath. He placed a finger against it and swiftly sliced it off. His index finger fell to the ground.

Without the slightest change in expression, as though he felt no pain at all, Zero held out the hand with its missing finger.

"In truth, this much is nothing."

Already, muscle fibers were intertwining at the severed stump with an eerie sound, forming new skin and bone.

Had even a minute passed?

Zero's finger had returned to its original state as though nothing had happened. For a moment, Ash was speechless.

'What an incomprehensible world this truly is.'

As though replacing an entire body with machinery wasn't enough, they had combined humans with Grotesques. Ash had seen and experienced so much since coming to this world that he thought he had grown accustomed to it, but even he had never encountered anything like this.

Then a question suddenly crossed his main core, and Ash spoke.

"... You were born to a cruel fate. I doubt your life has been all pleasant, either."

"You're not wrong."

"But I still don't see what any of that has to do with swordsmanship."

Zero shrugged.

"As I said earlier, we're test subjects."

"I remember."

"Then what do you suppose they were testing on us?"

"The fusion of humans and Grotesques, of course..."

Zero pointed at himself.

"Hadn't they already succeeded at that?"

He was right. Zero, standing before him, was living proof.

"... You're saying there was a higher objective."

"Yes."

Zero swept back his long hair and slowly began to speak.

"We were born for the purpose of fully realizing Kunlun-Combat."

"...!"

"Omni-Cell tried countless approaches. They created lab-grown humans mixed with Grotesques, like my siblings and me, and cyborgs whose entire bodies had been replaced with machinery until even their sense of self grew faint. They even experimented on ordinary humans without so much as a data implant slot."

Despite his confusion, Ash listened closely as Zero continued.

"Perhaps it was thanks to all those sacrifices. Omni-Cell achieved a measure of its desired results. They succeeded in realizing Kunlun-Combat to some degree."

"Like you?"

"Yes. But the researchers were always saying it wasn't enough. That this wasn't true Kunlun-Combat. That it fell short of the results shown in the data."

Ash's optical sensors flashed. He had caught something in Zero's words.

"The results shown in the data, you say. It seems this Kunlun-Combat you speak of wasn't originally Omni-Cell's?"

Zero's eyes widened. Apparently, he hadn't expected Ash to pick up on that in such a brief exchange.

"... Yes. That's correct. Omni-Cell didn't create Kunlun-Combat. It's data from an ancient civilization, discovered in the Outer."

"The Outer...!"

Ash was stunned.

"Can you tell me more?"

Seeing Ash press him urgently, Zero shook his head, looking troubled.

"I was only one of the test subjects, so I don't know very much. Only that Omni-Cell discovered ruins called 'Kunlun,' extracted the Nexus there, and obtained 'Kunlun-Combat,' which possesses tremendous destructive power."

Ash's teal optical sensors blinked rapidly. He stood in silence for a long time.

Eventually, he raised his head and spoke to Zero.

"May I ask you a few questions?"

"Of course. Go ahead."

"Are there many others like you?"

Zero nodded.

"If you mean test subjects, yes. There are many. The laboratory I escaped from was truly enormous."

"Did all of them learn this... Kunlun-Combat you speak of?"

"Yes. Though what each of us learned differed. Kunlun-Combat is divided into levels according to difficulty."

"Levels... Then what level was the Thirteen Swords of the Cloud Dragon that you learned?"

Unfamiliar with the name Thirteen Swords of the Cloud Dragon, Zero tilted his head briefly, but answered Ash's question earnestly.

"One."

"One... Very well. Then my next question."

Ash's optical sensors gleamed as never before.

"Have you ever heard the term 'internal energy'?"

"Internal energy?"

Zero's eyes shifted as he searched his memory for a moment, then he shook his head.

"I've never heard of it."

"... I see. So that's how it is."

Ash's main core worked rapidly, piecing together the scattered fragments of information one by one.

'First. Omni-Cell extracted a Nexus from the ancient ruins of Kunlun.'

'Second. They obtained the Kunlun martial arts lying dormant within that Nexus.'

'Third. But they don't know internal energy exists. That's why they conducted all those experiments. To find another power that could fulfill its role. To reproduce Kunlun's martial arts in their entirety.'

His thoughts delved ever deeper.

'But how? How could Kunlun's martial arts exist in this world? And stored in a Nexus Port in some ruins, no less? That shouldn't be possible...'

Suddenly, a memory flashed through his main core.

["Hehe. Don't be surprised, okay? No, you can be surprised, but not too surprised, okay?"]

["Hee-hee! I prepared a present!"]

The girl named Nangnang. She was the one in that memory.

["Ta-da! It's Koon-loon, Mister! The place you missed every day!"]

She had clearly said it was a present. That it was for him.

'Could it be...?'

Ash was aghast.

'Was meeting Miss Akina not the first time I awoke in this world?'

His optical sensors blinked furiously. It was a possibility he had never considered.

If so, the ruins called 'Kunlun' that Omni-Cell had discovered...

"Sir?"

The voice calling to him snapped Ash back to his senses, and he looked up.

"Are you all right?"

"... I'm fine."

"I see. In that case..."

Zero turned his dark red eyes to look Ash squarely in the face.

"Now it's your turn to answer."

"Answer?"

"Yes. Don't you remember when we first met? You clearly told me then that you were the true owner of that sword art."

"..."

"May I ask why you said that?"

For a long time, Ash could not answer. His optical sensors blinked fiercely as he went over their conversation again and again.

Only after a long while did he finally manage to raise his head.

"I can tell you. But you'll find it hard to believe. I can scarcely believe it myself."

"That doesn't matter."

"... Very well. Then I'll tell you."

What emerged in Ash's electronic voice was every bit as unbelievable as he had warned.

"Those ruins Omni-Cell discovered. Kunlun, I mean."

"Yes."

"I think I may have been the owner of that place."

"... Pardon?"