Chapter 166 – Corridor Three (1)

It had been around six hours since Ashton went missing and Mera and Jonathan formed a temporary alliance. yet even after that, locating Ashton was proving to be a herculean task. Soon, everyone under Jonathan's command was on the case.

It took them some time, but with the help of the brightest minds in Deja, they were somehow able to find the coordinates of the portal Ashton had travelled to. But there was a slight problem… the portal had been deactivated from the other side.

They could have travelled there on foot, however, it wasn't possible. Because… Ashton had been teleported on an island infested with undead creatures… well, not completely undead creatures. Something between undead and night creatures.

A human research facility was supposed to be there. back when the humans and the mutants were fighting each other, the humans in their desperation started doing lots of… unconventional experiments.

All in hopes of finding a way of defeating them mutants. Primarily the werewolves and vampires as they were the primary occupants of the eastern hemisphere. It goes without saying the humans were defeated shortly and as werewolves did not have any interest in the human science project, the vampires took over the island.

They were the only ones who 'valued' humans for more than food. But one day, approximately 80 years ago, the vampires living on the island fled back to their main kingdoms. At least those who could escape did so.

Jonathan had been worried about why the vampires were fleeing the scene. To which the only reply he received was 'Venom'. The humans were pricky bastards and had set up traps all over the island before escaping to space. Almost as if they didn't want anyone to get their hands on whatever that was hidden there.

'I have been thinking of visiting the place, but this…' Jonathan was clearly worried about Ashton.

While he didn't want to believe about 'Venom' spillage, when the vampires informed him about it, he couldn't take the risk either. On top of that, the Conundrum had been oddly insistent about not visiting the island which now made Jonathan wonder if they had some sort of special operation going on there.

"Everyone is scared. They won't say it on the face but it's clear none of them wants to visit the Island of Doom." Mera spoke slowly, "I would usually whip them up till they begged to visit the island. But I don't think even that would work."

"There's no need to force anyone to tag along." Jonathan set his gaze on the horizon, "The two of us will go. If you're afraid of your wellbeing, you can either stay back or force some of your… bodyguards to follow us."

"You'd like that won't you?" Mera scoffed, "What is it that you want? A golden opportunity to prove to the kid that you care more about him or to show the kingdom your strength while staining my reputation?"

"As much as I would like to do both of those things, right now, I don't have any such intentions." Jonathan found himself almost smiling with bickering with his 'daughter', "You do know that even with our abilities, we are just as susceptible to venom as the rest of our kind right?"

"I was afraid of dying, I would never have stood up against you in the first place. Enough talking now, we should head over to the island ASAP." Mera turned her back towards Jonathan, "I just hope that moron is still alive somehow."

***

While back at the hidden palace…

"Pathetic, pathetic! I was promised a strong body, not some fragile one who couldn't even beat robots created by tier 2 beings?! How the fck am I supposed to fight tier 7 or even tier 5 creatures like this?"

Astaroth was disgusted by how weak his body was. He had been lying dormant for over a decade, in hopes that when he woke up he would have a strong enough body to exact revenge on the ones responsible for his downfall.

At least that was supposed to be the plan when the humans found him inside the meteorite that caused the mutation of the planet itself. Evolving the inhabitants of the planet from tier 1 to tier 2 beings.

The tier of beings was evaluated by the number of times a species had evolved in terms of genetic as well as technology. Right now the planet known as the earth was only at tier 2 out of the 7 tier list. That too was thanks to Astaroth's former species, who were already on tier 6 when he was betrayed by his most loyal subjects.

"To imagine I woke up like this. Without enough intelligence to even comprehend the basic concepts of transcendence. This moron has never even been to space for fuck's sake! What a pathetic excuse of a… never mind. Now that I am in complete control, maybe I could change some things."

Astaroth sighed and traced the battlefield for any surviving robots. But there were none. All he could see was a scrapyard with various robot parts scattered around. All of them had been taken care of by his hands and a few administrative privileges that he still had despite being 'dead' for a while.

Astaroth was confused why he still had those privileges. But if he had to take a guess, he would say it was either the work of 'Lucifer' or 'Beelzebub'. The only two among his kind whom he could still trust.

After all, they were the ones who helped him escape certain death and even influenced the humans to save his 'remains' after the meteor containing him crashed on the planet. All in the hopes of resurrecting him through transplanting his organs into an unsuspecting host.

"There is one way to confirm whether Lucifer was helping this brat or not."

He opened the missions tab, and there it was. A mission had been issued to the boy by Lucifer. Apart from that, the kid had a couple of incomplete quests.

"A priority 10 quest…" Astaroth smacked his head, "I need this bastard to stay alive and for that… I'd have to help him finish the mission. Great… I just got back alive to babysit a kid. Nice.. Very nice."