The scent of localized ash, ozone and melted concrete hung heavy over the cratered remains of the facility. Once a multi-level subterranean fortress designed for the ultimate synthesis of flesh and myth, it was now nothing more than a split-open scar in the earth.
A man in an impeccably tailored expensive suit walked over the walked causally over. The man looked to be in his 40s with white hair with a matching white goatee,malicious hazel eyes, and a mocking smirk stretching across his face.
This man was Rizevim Livan Lucifer.
"Haaaaah… What a complete and utter waste." Rizevim sighed dramatically. "And here I thought we were getting close to something truly amusing. A few more months of slicing and dicing, and George's little playpen would have given us some wonderfully mindless puppets to cause a little chaos in the world."
"It isn't just a waste, Rizevim! It's an embarrassment!"
The sharp woman's voice echoed off the fractured stone as a tall, voluptuous woman stepped out from a teleportation circle. She had long brown hair in a bun, purple eyes hidden behind glasses, wearing a purple dress revealing a large portion of her breasts and legs.
"My facility is gone!" Katerea snarled her voice dropping into a vicious, prideful hiss. "This place was going to breed an army worthy of the Leviathan name! Sirzechs and those pathetic, false Satans would have choked on their delusions the moment my creations tore through their borders!"
Rizevim merely let out a chuckle which was devoid of empathy. He turned his hazel eyes towards her, tilting his head back. "Oh Katerea darling don't get your spectacles in a twist. Yes, yes it was your grand idea but let's be perfectly honest between us original royal babies, without me graciously sneakily smuggling little trinkets, funding and rare blood samples, your grand vision would have been a couple of humans playing with test tubes."
Katerea gritted her teeth at his statement. She really hated his childish, flippant attitude, who could this man be the son of the true ruler of devil kind, but she couldn't deny the contract they'd struck. Rizevim provided the tactical infrastructure under the banner of the old Satan Faction.
"George was supposed to have the place secured." Katerea muttered, her eyes narrowed as she scanned the remnants of the lab and the severed body parts.
Remembering when she returned for routine check up she found the whole place destroyed, at first she thought that maybe their operations were found out or the blasted local deities did something, but after seeing corpses of the dead children she ruled that out. So most likely the experiments went rouge as she heard the one who had the meteor dragon Gaasyebditha DNA was proving a bit harder to handle, though he would have been a useful weapon.
If they could find the key to success then they could have mass produced more soldiers with dragon DNA. Perhaps all the Evil dragons who have allied with them.
Rizevim threw his head back and let out a rich mocking laugh. "George? Oh, you mean lower devil. So poor, stupid and gullible. You know every single time I visited this dreary little cave, he would crawl over on his knees, practically begging for reassurance."
He remembered all the times the lower devil had sucked up to it during his visits. He kept whispering sweet little lies directly into his ear, telling him he'd be a glorious general in the grand conquest of the world, so long as he gets the finest experiments. But at least he managed to give him a few toys before this mess occurred.
But he was looking forward to getting his hands on the experiment who had psychic abilities and they were the dryad girl but Katerea had that one under lock and key for those plants.
Katerea ignored the commentator walking over to a destroyed stasis pod. "My scouts tracked for the chances for any surviving experiments but they've still yet found anything for now."
"With the things that inhabit these forests I doubt they'll find anything friendly." Rizevim began to walk away.
"Rizevim…" Her voice was laced with a mixture of suspicion and lingering frustration. "You clearly enjoy the chaos we create so why do you continue to play the hermit? Why don't you officially join the Khaos Brigade and march with us to overthrow those counterfeit Satans and claim your rightful title of Lucifer?"
He blinked tilting his head to the side as if she had just asked, then a massive, face-splitting grin stretched across his features.
"Me? Join your little club?" Rizevim waved a manicured hand, dismissively wiping a fake tear of laughter from his eye. "Oh, Katerea, darling, you are absolutely hilarious! Why on earth would I want to ruin my perfectly comfortable retirement by filling out paperwork for a revolution?"
His face instantly flattered his playful warmth evaporating into a cold, empty void. His eyes locked onto hers with chilling predatory stillness making her shiver.
"Let's be entirely honest. Your grand crusade to reclaim the underworld, your righteous fury over stolen thrones it's profoundly boring."His voice dropping. "I don't care about political tittles. I don't care who sits on the Lucifer throne. I helped you with this little playpen because it was art, predictable and hilarious!" He giggled again tapping his own chin. "But joining a Brigade led by Ophis? A literal infinite dragon who has absolutely no sense of humor and no thank you, that sounds dreadful."
He stepped into a teleportation circle swirling disappearing in a vortex of darkness leaving Katerea alone in the ruins.
The Leviathan descendant let out a small sigh of frustration looking around the destroyed lab once more. She wasn't going to give up that easily; she knew some of the experiments out there and she will find them.
With the three runaways
"Achoo! Arck dammit" Miracle sniffed and rubbed my nose a bit.
"You okay…?" Sylvia looked at him worriedly. "Cold?" She opened her arms offering a hug for warmth.
"Stop doing that, I'm fine. Let's continue moving." He sniffed a little bit looking at the map that Yeil deity gave to him.
He still didn't trust it completely, but reasoned he had little choices right now. But considered asking Sylvia to act as an intermediate with the 'forest' for him.