Subject Seven

Fate dispatched the Advanced almost too easily, the white ground and sections of the houses around him painted red from blood.

Not a single one of these men was above the psychic Level, much less a Prodigy. Slaughtering the lot of them was child's play, and their weapons couldn't even pierce his Divine Reach and scales.

He flicked his hand, the crimson flying off of his claws as he stalked toward the only survivor, a panicking scientist Fate had spared for information.

The man backpedaled at the same speed Fate walked forward, eyes widening with fear when his back hit a wall. Fate closed the distance and put a scaled hand on the scientist's head, black-sclera eyes boring into the frightened man.

"Where's Subject Seven?" Fate asked.

"For science!" The scientist's expression hardened as he bit down on his own tongue, severing the appendage and spitting it into Fate's face.

Fate, unamused, used his Divine Grasp to clamp the wound shut, earning a muffled scream from his hostage as he did so. "You don't die until I say so. Now answer my question. Where is Subject Seven?"

He had no clue who this Subject Seven was, but she was obviously important. Why else would they automatically assume he was here for her?

Of course, all of this was conjured by Kravoss' ancestor, so this could have been a hint from the mountain-sized Dracok on his objective. The Magical Beast hadn't said anything yet, after all.

"A'll neyer talk," said the scientist, struggling to make words without a tongue.

"We'll do it the hard way, then." Fate stabbed forward with his other hand, digging out the screaming scientist's eyeballs and severing his hands.

He tore the man's coat off and fashioned a bag out of it, tossing the body parts inside. Then he picked a random direction and started walking, leaving the bloodied scientist to his fate.

Pain builds character, after all.

'Am I being timed?' Fate thought. He really didn't know. He didn't even know what he was supposed to do with this Subject Seven when he got to them.

"You going to tell me what to do or just let me stumble around blindly?" Fate called out.

Silence.

"I'll just do it myself, then," he grumbled.

It didn't take long for him to stumble upon another group of Advanced. These men and women were much more forthcoming with their information.

Fate learned he was on the planet Htrey, an Advanced-made celestial body. The Advanced on this planet were assigned with giving divine power to mortals, of which Subject Seven was their most successful result.

He thanked the woman for her kindness and helpfulness before cutting off her legs and arms and following the direction she pointed out.

'I am impressed,' Fate thought, the wails of the scientist behind him continuing in the background. 'He got pretty much everything right. I know he drew on my memories, but many of these details I've completely forgotten.'

The biggest of these was the atmosphere. Advanced labs and planets all had that stale, sterile feel to them. The air itself smelled of almost nothing. But what Fate had forgotten was that this near-nothingness came with the faintest hint of grape.

This atmosphere was much easier to breathe than most other places, allowing Fate to run for thirty miles without losing his breath. He knew the exact number of miles, because the Advanced had often made him and his family run for days at a time.

The other big detail was the sky. Fate hadn't even paid attention to the skies of Advanced planets before, but he knew for a fact that this sky was spot-on.

The sky was a window into the void of space, showing off the stars and planets of the universe without a single cloud to obstruct the view. Even with the sun hanging in the sky, this somehow didn't change.

The result was a perpetual mix of day and night, something Fate had to admit was quite pretty. It wouldn't stop him from massacring every single one of these low-life Advanced, but he had no choice but to praise their aesthetics.

From what he was told by the woman from before, the highest-Leveled people on this planet were Personifications, of which there were eight. Not too troublesome for Fate, but enough to keep on his guard.

He still remembered what that Living Lightning did to him. The Advanced's tech was something he couldn't prepare for in a conventional sense. He'd just have to deal with them as they came.

He murdered his way through another three groups of people, surprised that foot traffic was so low. Then again, the Advanced scientists liked to stay cooped up in their labs working on their experiments, and the guards were typically stationed to a single position or person.

He always made sure to grab the eyes and hands of whoever looked most important. They loved using these two things for locks and services, so carrying a few in a sack was worth it.

He bundled the eyes and hand together by the person using more scavenged lab coats and slung the sack over his shoulder. An hour and a half later, he arrived at his destination.

He used the bag of assorted body parts to get inside a sprawling rectangular building, big enough to see from his starting point where he first arrived on the planet. It was at least a mile wide and long, with a roof that stopped a hundred feet up.

Having tried to phase through the walls to no success, he tried each eye and hand on the scanner nearby before the door dinged open and he went inside.

The room was large, easily taking up almost all of the building's space. There was a massive glass door across from him with thick chains and thicker locks, reinforced with steel bars. Guarding this door were the eight Personifications he was warned about.

Three had hair that crackled with fire, but the other five appeared relatively ordinary – except for their arrogant smirks. Each one wore the same white armor as the usual Advanced guard, minus the helmet, and practically radiated arrogance.