Second Genesis

Chapter 564: Another Show

Grey snapped the bracelet around his wrist and immediately felt a comfortable little surge of warmth spread up his arm.

For half a second, it actually felt nice. Then the heat tried to spike through his veins.

Grey paused, looked down at the bracelet, and started chuckling. Veyrath was trying to cook him from the inside out.

"Good luck with that."

Grey finished stretching, his back cracking several times as he rolled his shoulders, then looked over toward the violet-haired Princess who had been blown away earlier. She was still recovering near the edge of her Region, hatred written all over her face, and for a few seconds Grey seriously considered walking over and putting an end to that problem too.

Then he shook his head. What was the point?

He wasn’t going to gain anything from killing every person here, all he would accomplish was getting more blood on his hands, and despite what half the universe probably thought of him by now, Grey didn’t kill people for no reason.

Usually they had to piss him off first. At worst, the Princess and most of the others here were annoying flying gnats buzzing around his head.

Apollo and his brothers, though...

Grey grinned.

The three Valdi brothers visibly recoiled as he started walking toward them, and before Grey had even crossed half the distance, he noticed something dripping down around their ankles.

He stopped and his expression became strange.

"Gross."

Grey looked from one of them to the next.

"Can you guys have a little more backbone? Some decorum, maybe? You’re the sons of a Duke, get your heads in the game."

None of them responded.

Grey sighed, walked the rest of the way over, and lightly patted one brother on the shoulder.

"There, there," he said gently. "It’ll all be over soon."

His smile became warm and reassuring.

"Don’t worry, I’ll reunite your family."

BANG.

The first head exploded.

BANG.

The second followed.

BANG.

The third disappeared in a red mist.

Grey blinked as blood sprayed across his face, chest, and arms, droplets running through his white hair and down the crystal remnants still clinging to his body.

"Whoops."

He lifted his wrist and looked at the Infernal Temper Band. "Forgot to mention, my portable oven is pretty good at heating humans too."

A faint angry pulse came from the bracelet.

Grey wiped a finger across his cheek and stared at the blood coating it.

"We’re gonna have to work on the aftereffects, though. This will definitely ruin my drip."

The attack looked ridiculous, but Grey already understood the limitations.

Perfect Temper wasn’t some magical instant-kill button that would work on everything he pointed at. In order to heat something evenly from the inside out, the Infernal Temper Band needed to infiltrate the target with its energy and Neural Pathways first, almost like threading microscopic fingers throughout their body.

Against someone whose Neural Frame could resist that intrusion, it wouldn’t be nearly so simple.

Apollo and his brothers hadn’t stood a chance.

Their Neural Frames were nowhere near strong enough to stop Grey from overwhelming them, especially now that the bracelet’s Spirit was Veyrath himself.

That was the funny part.

The Infernal Temper Band was technically only Proving Class because Veyrath was still Proving Class, which meant the Spirit was currently the limiting factor for the entire mech.

But Veyrath wasn’t exactly a normal Proving Class existence. Grey had just used him to erase three Vanguard Class opponents like they were microwaved grapes.

His eyes flickered down toward the bracelet.

’And if I feed you properly...’

Grey’s grin returned.

There was no reason Veyrath had to remain Proving Class forever. Spirits could grow. Normal Spirits had a hard time of it, but something told Grey that elementals didn’t have that sort of limitation.

If Grey kept strengthening the bracelet while feeding the Elemental enough energy and compatible materials, he was willing to bet Veyrath could advance along with it.

By the time the bastard reached Vector Class...

Grey almost laughed.

A Vector Class Veyrath embedded into an Ascended mech might be able to instantly cook Dominion Class existences just as easily as Apollo and his brothers. At least Dominion Class existences at this level.

"Alright, everyone," Grey said, turning around. "Time to head back."

He glanced across the remaining Regions and grinned.

"Good luck, I guess. Survive, don’t survive, not really my problem."

Nobody answered.

Grey hadn’t seen a single human from Earth among any of the competing groups, and after thinking about it, that probably wasn’t surprising. This Instance had never felt like something directly tied to the first arc. If anything, everything about it screamed preparation for Arc II.

Which meant Grey had probably just made the beginning of the next Arc significantly more annoying for himself.

He didn’t care. The payoff would almost certainly be a hundred times better.

More importantly, he wasn’t going to be the only one suffering.

Without the Holy Energy these so-called Gods had been feeding into their territories, the surrounding Empires would have far bigger problems than Grey Temolt.

The Dark Kin were already pressing against their borders, and now several of those territories were going to have to deal with that pressure without the support they had been expecting.

Then there was Veyrath.

Judging from the way his chat had reacted, an Infernal Prince wasn’t some random Fire Elemental who happened to be talented. He was a major piece of the Infernal Arc Clan’s future, and if the Fire Elementals had entered Arc II with some coordinated plan involving their Four Princes and Infernal King.

Well... They were down one.

Grey looked at the bracelet again. A tiny spark flickered angrily beneath its surface.

"Yeah, yeah, cry about it."

Grey chuckled.

If he wanted to survive what came next, he already knew there was no point playing by whatever rules everyone else expected him to follow.

He was going to flip the table over and slap his meat down on top of it.

The entire world had already seen his balls anyway. Might as well give them another show.