Unholy Player

Chapter 436: The Growing Unease

Adyr waited on the rooftop for a while under the broken sunlight filtering through the yellowish clouds.

He let the cold wind touch his skin and cool his anger and bloodlust while his eyes watched the two bodies lying on the ground with calm stillness.

"My prison, huh..." The words slipped from his lips as a faint smile touched them.

He had clearly understood what Mad Scientist meant by that, and yes, he wasn’t so wrong.

A prison did not only need to be made of walls, because everyone had their own prisons in life that kept them confined.

For some, that prison had been relationships, making them live their lives for others while ignoring and forgetting themselves, and for some, the walls had been in their minds, turning their days into quiet misery.

For Adyr, it was both. His desire to kill in his previous life had turned him into a serial killer who felt pleasure only through blood, and now, in this life, he had found his new mother and sister, a self-made prison he had built by choice to keep himself under control.

But since Adyr was the one who had constructed this prison, he also knew how to escape it. He understood, however, that the price was so high he wasn’t sure it was worth paying at that moment.

While he fell deep into thought, a low engine hum rose from the side of the roof, and soon a hoverjet lifted into view and steadied in the air above the rooftop.

"Adyr." From the side, the cabin door opened, and Selina jumped down, followed by a group of STF under Rhys’s command rushing to his side.

She saw the figures lying on the ground and flinched for a moment, but after leaving them to the STF’s care, she walked toward Adyr.

"Are you okay?" She asked in a low tone, her voice edged with worry.

For some reason, Adyr looked so silent. There was only a smile, a faint, unreadable curve, on his face, and she could not understand what it meant.

"I met the Mad Scientist," Adyr answered without taking his eyes off Marielle and Niva, watching as the STF personnel checked their condition.

"Mad Scientist?" Selina was taken aback by the name. "He is the one behind all of this?"

They had already realized the name Lucian Cure was fake, and even the background of that identity had been planted in everyone’s memories with a high-rank skill. Only Adyr, for some reason, had not been affected by that manipulation.

But hearing that the Mad Scientist, the supposed benefactor of humanity who had opened the way to the Beyond, had done something so evil was hard to accept.

If she had known he’d just saved all their lives by stopping Adyr before he destroyed the entire Player Headquarters, what would she have thought?

"Yes." Adyr finally turned his gaze to Selina’s face and answered. "Looks like he wants something from me."

"What is it?" She asked nervously.

She was not sure, but she could see that whatever the man had asked from Adyr had changed something in him.

"I don’t know, but I will learn soon." Adyr’s smile vanished. His crimson eyes dulled, and a cold, wordless hunger tightened the air. "And when I find out, I will kill him."

Suddenly, Selina felt a chill run down her spine, realizing the words were not a mere declaration but a statement of what would happen.

—

In the Beyond, the sky was open and clean, the kind that let you taste a faint sweetness in the air with every deep breath.

The Umbraen territory, which had been shattered and torn apart by the battle against Sevrak, now looked completely different.

The ground had been cleared of scorched soil and lingering radiation. Only deep craters and jagged fissures remained, monuments to the legendary clash between Rank 4s and proof of the power a single person could wield.

Constructions were rising from the ground. Some small settlements had already taken shape with clean, human designs, their straight streets and sturdy buildings giving the region a calm, orderly look.

Around them, more structures were still being built as steel frames stretched upward and heavy machines rumbled through the dust. Workers moved with urgency, laying cables, pouring foundations, and checking their instruments to keep everything on schedule.

A little more than a month had passed since the great battle and since the Mad Scientist had met Adyr, and in that time, humans had not rested. They worked day and night to build a new colony for their race, with the noise of hammering and engines running without pause.

There were not only humans in this newly constructed city. Many short Velari could be seen, most hardly reaching a human’s waist, helping with the construction, and some were walking along the polished streets with mesmerized eyes, like tourists in a foreign land, taking in the sights.

Apart from the Velari, there were also Aqualeth with fishlike features, Houndkin wandering around like stray dogs, towering black-stone-bodied Obsidren, and even Gorathim and Lunari.

They all seemed to move in harmony with the humans who had invaded their world and region, already living as good neighbors, helping and supporting one another.

Amid all this lively atmosphere, far from the noise and bustle, Henry Bates stood atop a tall radio tower, hands clasped behind his back, looking down at the scene with a satisfied smile. "It’s really like a scene from a movie, isn’t it?"

The person he addressed stood near him. Rhys wore his black, newly upgraded STF uniform, the kind of suit that made him look like a soldier out of a science-fiction tale.

"Yeah, it is..." he answered, though his expression resembled that of a bored old man. He glanced at Henry and added, "If you called me here just to appreciate the view, you should have at least brought something to drink."

Since coming to this world, Rhys’s greatest pastime and hobby had been hunting Sparks.

Though he and his personal team were not Practitioners, with their newly enhanced suits and weapons, as well as their deep experience in combat and tactics, they were currently the best unit at locating and hunting Sparks in the surrounding regions. Their efficiency even outpaced other Player teams.

But as soon as he heard what came out of Henry’s mouth, his expression shifted to seriousness.

"It’s about Adyr." Henry turned to look at him, his brows knitting as his voice tightened. "He has been acting strange since that day and has not reported to headquarters for a long time."

Rhys’s face grew grave. He thought for a moment and spoke. "Isn’t that normal? His mother and sister were kidnapped recently. He is still a young boy. It is normal for him to want to escape from problems. Can’t you just leave him alone to rest?"

Not only a teenager but anyone who had lived through what Adyr had would feel desperate and want to get away from everything, or at least pull back and gather their thoughts.

However, Henry’s concern did not end there.

"It isn’t just that he’s limiting communication. I’m getting reports from other kingdoms: villages have been disappearing overnight, along with everyone in them."

At that, Rhys’s mind, searching for harmless explanations, stalled. "Do you think Adyr is responsible? What motive would he have?"

Even as he asked, he could already guess why.

Rhys had always sensed the blood on Adyr and had a fair idea of his nature. After the recent events, his surge in power had been so rapid and so immense that it would have blinded anyone, and the moment his loved ones faced death seemed enough to push someone like him over the edge.

Still, he had hoped for another answer that would not put the boy under suspicion.

Henry broke that hope with one more piece of information.

"Do you know what he has been doing on Earth until now?" Henry asked, then answered himself. "He has been roaming outside the cities and tracking first-generation mutant organizations. The squads I sent to shadow him and report back all gave me the same report. Every organization and even the small settlements where Adyr passed or was seen have disappeared without a trace. Not a single living thing remained behind. City Managers started to get restless."

If it had been only villages in the Beyond and alien races disappearing, they might still have tolerated it. The Twelve City Managers were pragmatic rulers and, for the sake of a greater future, could turn a blind eye to some of Adyr’s actions.

But once human lives were at stake, the situation became far more serious. They needed to know whether the man they trusted was a blessing or a curse.

"And what do you want me to do?" Rhys finally asked, accepting the seriousness of the situation. "He’s not someone I can just scold and expect to listen, you know that, right?"

The power gap was so immense that not only Rhys, but all of humanity, would be powerless against him.

Yet it seemed that Henry and the Twelve City Managers had other plans in mind.

***

A/N: Beginning of Volume IV – Path of the Corrupted God