Most of the Allens weren't brought on extermination missions as fighters but rather as negotiators, owing to our kind nature. The problem with that, however, was simple: my kind of negotiation couldn't exactly be called negotiation. Still, no one seemed to mind—after all, we were dealing with heretics.
What I hadn't expected was that they offered me full immunity for whatever I chose to do within the cults, so long as the end goal was to make them surrender willingly. I suppose no one really expects an Allen to commit war crimes.
Before sending us to fight a cult outside of Earth, though, they tested us in groups, ordering us to strike down small branch cults hidden on Earth. The idea was to give us insight into our real enemies.
"I still can't believe Cooper was on a secret mission this whole time, and we all thought he was dead," Reinhardt said as we walked through what could only be described as a wasteland.
"There's a reason we use the word secret," Johnathan mocked with a sneer. "Aren't you supposed to be the smart one? How could you not understand that?"
"Still… it's a bit extreme to pronounce him dead," Reinhardt sighed.
"The young master must have had his reasons," Johnathan replied.
I raised my right hand, halting the group as the smell of fresh blood curled into our noses. "We're here."
Before us stood wooden walls, and upon them hung fresh corpses. Their blood trickled down the timber, pooling in the dirt below. Skinned bodies—men, women, and children alike—were nailed in place, a grotesque tapestry meant to instill fear. And they weren't just human corpses. Mahoons, Valerians, trolls, orcs, and more had been butchered and displayed with equal cruelty.
"How could the Mahoons possibly compare us to this?" Johnathan muttered, his voice tight as he stared at the walls.
"They don't know any better," I replied. "To them, we might be loyal to the Emperor, but in their eyes… a cult will always be a cult."
"I see artillery… You sure you won't get hit?" Reinhardt asked, scanning the cult's base with binoculars formed of swirling black ink.
"I'll be fine," Johnathan replied, crouching low, his posture dropping to the ground like a wolf preparing to pounce. "I'm faster than artillery."
A smirk crept across his face as his body began to change. His frame expanded, muscles swelling as claws burst from the tips of his fingers. A coarse layer of gray fur spread rapidly across his skin, his nose pushing outward into a sharp, predatory snout. His ears elongated and rose into sharp points, twitching instinctively to every sound, while a thick tail lashed into existence behind him.
His green battle suit stretched and shifted with him, adapting seamlessly to his altered form. Even his head became fully encased in the armor, a smooth helmet sealing into place.
"This thing has a helmet?" Johnathan asked, sounding almost disappointed as he flexed his jaw beneath the mask.
"Until now, you've fought only on Earth, where breathing isn't a problem," I explained, my tone matter-of-fact. "But soon, we'll be fighting on other planets. Some won't have oxygen, or at least not enough of it. You need to get used to it."
"Tch… this just ruins the fun," Johnathan muttered, ears flicking back in annoyance.
"You can turn it off later if you want," I said with a sigh.
His eyes lit up behind the visor. "Thank you, young master!" he said cheerfully, before lowering into a runner's stance once more.
"Run wild," I commanded.
And then—he was gone. A gale roared past me, tearing dust and blood from the ground as Johnathan vanished in a burst of feral speed, leaving only the echo of his claws pounding the earth.
Soon enough, multiple shots rained down on him as he closed in on the base. Dust exploded across the wasteland, shrouding the battlefield in a thick haze, while the deafening booms of artillery echoed into the distance.
All we could hear were the relentless whines of bullets cutting through the air—each one missing its mark by a hair's breadth. Johnathan dodged most of them with animalistic agility, yet a few grazed his armour, leaving shallow burn marks on it as it mended itself in the very next instant.
The cultists came into view as he neared the outer walls. They wore gas masks that distorted their breathing into harsh rasps, their bodies clad in crude armor stitched together from human skin. The alarms had already been screaming for some time. If Johnathan couldn't silence the artillery soon, we'd have far more than bullets to worry about.
Snarling, he bent low, his claws digging trenches into the dirt before he launched himself upward. Artillery fire hammered after him, bouncing off from his body armour mid-leap, but his momentum carried him through. He landed atop the wall with bone-cracking force.
The first gunner didn't even have time to scream. Johnathan's claw ripped clean through his mask and face, peeling it off in a spray of blood. The second tried to turn his weapon, but Johnathan seized him by the jaw and yanked until it tore loose from his skull, dangling in his hand before he flung it aside like waste.
"You have to stop letting him charge in like that, young master," Reinhardt complained, setting his binoculars aside as a pool of ink spread beneath our feet.
"Sometimes, mastering one strategy and executing it flawlessly is far more effective than dabbling in many. Since he's more of a barbarian, why would I waste time reshaping him when I can put his strength to use?" I replied with a smile as we sank into the pool.
Void travel was near-instant, the distance short. In the blink of an eye, we dropped into the midst of cultists pouring out of the gate—swords, blades, and spears raised high, riflemen braced at the back.
The spearmen reacted first, thrusting upward in unison, a deadly forest of points aimed at our landing spots, while the riflemen loosed a volley.
We floated just above the killing zone, telekinesis holding us aloft, as Reinhardt unleashed a barrage of ink. His inky projectiles shredded incoming bullets midair before punching clean through the riflemen behind the line.
"I can't believe they'd send us on an expedition like this," Reinhardt muttered, preparing another spell. "What exactly are we supposed to learn from this?"
"They want us to get used to the fear," I answered, Wally shifting into a handgun in one hand and a saber in the other. "For Eden's members, sweeping through horrors like this is second nature—we've seen them since childhood. But the rest of the first years? The moment they see skins of children hanging from belts and walls, they'll be too broken to stand, let alone fight."
"That doesn't really make our members fearless... Goodness, I just hope they can at least hide it," Reinhardt muttered as we carved through the cultists one by one, their bodies collapsing at our feet.
I activated my ability for a moment, flicking the blood from my blade before driving it down into the chest of a cultist struggling to rise.
They had thrown every last one of their forces at us, a desperate bid to stall for time while they completed their summoning. Normally, cadets would rush to cut them down and disrupt the ritual, but that wasn't our mission. This time, we were meant to witness the demon's arrival—and banish it. So we took our time.
Most of the cultists were nothing more than high D-rank to low C-rank at best. And at the end of the day… that was all they were. With their crude scare tactics stripped of power against us, they posed little threat.
As we cleared the gate, leaving heaps of corpses piled at our feet, a gut-wrenching scene unfolded before our eyes.
The cultists had gathered at the heart of their encampment, clustered around a vast summoning circle scrawled in fresh blood. A cauldron boiled at its center, filled to the brim with severed limbs and raw organs that steamed and popped in the bubbling muck.
Five hooded figures stood in formation around it, their arms stretched high as though beckoning something down from the heavens. Their faces—those visible beneath their hoods—were etched with an ecstasy so deranged it bordered on grotesque.
And before we could even move to stop them… they hurled themselves willingly into the cauldron.
As their bodies sank beneath the surface, the cauldron churned violently, flesh and bone dissolving into a grotesque slurry. Their last gift to the ritual was not silence but laughter—high, broken, and utterly mad—that lingered in the air even as the last traces of them were gone.
Then the sky itself darkened above us. Clouds rolled in unnaturally fast, smothering the wasteland in shadow. A deafening crack split the air as bolts of red lightning crashed down, striking the cauldron with a force that made the ground tremble.
"Uh…" Reinhardt stumbled back, his expression tightening as the realization hit. "That… that isn't right. A C-rank demon shouldn't be able to do that…"
"You scared?" Johnathan asked as he leapt down from the wall, claws flexing but voice laced with unease.
"Very much so," Reinhardt admitted, his tone flat but his eyes betraying unease. "Red lightning only appears when an A-rank demon is summoned…"
The three of us fell silent, exchanging grim looks as the truth settled like lead in our stomachs.
Then, through the thick veil of smoke rising from the cauldron, a silhouette began to take shape—a man's figure, broad and upright, stepping forward from the flames.
"Oh… bloody hell…" we muttered together, the words slipping from our mouths as one.