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MAZE - Chapter 985 - Morgan Wabeeri
🕑 Added 2024-12-21 10:20:56 +0000 UTCMorgan Wabeeri. That was the name of the person standing in front of Hera. She knew the name but didn’t know the man. Everyone assumed he was deeply involved in the Soldier of Strength project. After all, all the intel they had revealed that the New Dawn was the one paying the bills for the various facilities working with the Strength Spirits. The Empress had expected the CEO to be involved somehow, but meeting him here wasn’t something she had on her bingo card.
And his presence was unsettling. He was too calm about her being there, almost as if she wasn’t a threat to him. But as far as she knew, the man was barely level 40, although he might have increased that since the last time that information became public. Even then, he shouldn’t be above level 50. Unless he’d been power-leveled, in which case his attributes shouldn’t be as high.
But there was one good part to this. The man was clearly willing to talk, and having someone live-stream this conversation could help with the plan. Without saying anything, the Ophidianite sent her snake to get closer to the CEO of the New Dawn. She told the construct to try to get a shot that included both him and Insomniac on the monitor behind him. And to try to keep the trapped humans on the shot whenever she could.
"I know your name, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen how you look. You’re exactly what I expected," Hera said.
"And what were you expecting?"
"Just the stereotypical CEO who only sits behind a desk and never actually does any work. The type of person who thinks wearing a suit makes them better than everybody else," Hera replied.
Morgan chuckled. "It’s not my position that makes me better. It’s the fact that I got here. Although, even a criminal, a human criminal, is better than you."
"You already said that. I guess you’re starting to go senile and forget things, right?" Hera scoffed as she summoned Viper and Crimson directly behind her. The twins were in their weapon forms and used [Hidden Frontal Screen] to approach the man without being noticed. Hera wasn’t entirely sure if this was going to devolve into a fight, but she wanted to be ready for anything, which also meant it was better to distract him.
"But if humans are so much better than the rest of us, what are you doing with them? Shouldn’t they have better rights than us? To me, it seems like you’re treating them worse than you’re treating my people."
"They are traitors to our cause. But even then, they are more than the cattle that you are," Morgan replied.
Hera gestured to the screens. "I hate to break it to you, but they’re trapped like cattle. In one of those farms that keeps animals penned up and overfeeds them just to get more meat. The people I saw in the other facilities were in cells, free to do whatever they wanted when they weren’t being used as guinea pigs."
"That proves how short-sighted you are," Morgan waved his hand toward all the monitors. "These people, despite being traitors, are the future of our little program. You see, your kind is too weak to hold on to the power of a daemon for too long. Eventually, they break, which forces us to recreate the connection with another battery. The pile of corpses was starting to become a problem. There’s only so much we can do to get rid of them, and the smell is frankly disgusting. That’s why I came up with a new way of dealing with this."
Morgan stepped forward, removing his suit jacket. It was clear he was bulky underneath it. His shirt clung tightly, and his muscles could be seen even through the dark blue cloth. He slowly started to roll up his sleeves, revealing various tattoos covering his arms. Some were pitch black, others more colorful, and one on his right forearm was red like a ruby. Almost all the tattoos were very complex and depicted detailed pictures Hera couldn’t make out from this distance. But that one was different. It was a set of red teeth, as if they were about to bite and devour something.
"We, actually, I, was able to create a new way of connecting my soldiers with the daemons. Instead of having one daemon filtered by one of you monsters and its power diluted to a group of warriors, I’ve now connected them all. All Strength Spirits are now linked by the same tattoo. Of course, we’ve just completed this experiment, so mass production will have to wait."
"You connected all the Strength Spirits together? Into one person? Do you really expect them to survive that?" Hera frowned, unable to believe what she was hearing. Everything about the Soldiers of Strength was already utterly insane, but this sounded even more deranged.
"A human is more than capable of surviving that. In the future, we’ll have a network of people who can handle that kind of power, filtering it to our soldiers. It means every single Soldier of Strength will be able to hold much more power from the spirits. Of course, this strain will be much higher for the filter, which is why, unfortunately, I had to use a human. Since we are clearly superior to you, it’s only fitting. It’s a real shame that some humans insist on treating you like people. But this is a punishment that fits such a horrible thought."
Hera felt her heart pounding in her chest, the memory of Silah creeping into her mind. All those people were still trapped, they were still in cells. But there was one person who was in a different state. Blue was the only one who looked like she’d been part of any experiment. And right now, Morgan was saying that he’d done something to her even worse than what had been done to Silah.
"How many?" The Empress held back, trying not to spit the words.
"What?"
"How many spirits did you put on Blue?"
"You know her? How funny. I remember she had a friend who shared your name. Of course, that traitor died after betraying us."
"How many?!" Hera shouted, her anger boiling over. She didn’t care if it was coming from her or partially from her court.
"And why would I tell you anything?"
"Because she’s my best friend! You did the same thing to my girlfriend, and I’m not letting you take someone from me again!" Hera snapped. She didn’t care if the secret came out. She wasn’t losing someone she loved to the New Dawn again.
"You… Are you that Hera? I must say, that’s a very convincing costume."
"Answer me!" Hera shouted and whipped her tail, cracking the ground underneath her.
"That… it’s not a costume, is it? What have you done to yourself?" Morgan frowned, staring at Hera properly for the first time since he appeared.
"If you want to know, tell me what you’ve done to Blue," Hera replied.
Morgan chuckled. "I can appreciate a transaction. Blue is currently filtering all Strength Spirits we have available. And All that power is going to a single soldier. The spirits are also still being used by the old models, which lowers the output a bit, but that will change soon. It is quite painful for her when the soldier uses their power, but she’s a human. She can take it. Now, how did you become… this?" The man gestured to Hera.
The Ophidianite wanted to attack him right now, but Viper and Crimson were still approaching. She also felt that she didn’t have enough. She had to make him say something truly awful so the people watching the live stream would break free from the mind control. That meant, unfortunately, she had to keep him talking.
"I got an offer from the MAZE. Stay human or become the descendant of a long-lost species that is now extinct. I refused at first, but once people started accusing me of being a terrorist for saving a bunch of people you trapped, Hera Kingsley had to die to protect those I care about."
Morgan scoffed. "You expect me to believe that? The MAZE wouldn’t create something like that. It gives you one or two quests at most and then you are on your own."
"That might be your experience, but it was far from mine. I got several quests from the MAZE, and I don’t mean just the ones in the dungeon."
Morgan rolled his eyes, "Of course, because you are special. The system pays attention to you and no one else. A god complex doesn’t suit a creature like you."
"I’m just saying that my interests align with the system’s, so we help each other. But I suppose I should take your advice. You seem an expert on having a god complex."
Morgan smirked, but his eyes were full of anger. "I am no god. I am simply someone who’s understood how things really are. How vicious and heinous your kind can be."
"Why? Why do you hate us so much?" Hera forced herself not to glance in the twins’ direction, especially since they were getting so close to him. They had to move slowly to make sure the man didn’t notice anything wrong.
Morgan slowly removed his tie as he started to speak. "I suppose I could tell you my story. A final courtesy since you’re not leaving this room. You see, my great-grandfather founded the New Dawn. Back in his time, things were much simpler. A merchant only had to purchase goods from one place, travel to another, and sell them. My grandfather was the person who started expanding our business. "
"Later, he had a son who slowly started to follow in his footsteps. Eventually, my father met my mother inside the MAZE. They fell in love and had me, as an unplanned pregnancy. Which also meant they were stuck in the room they met until I turned eighteen and could cross to a different place. The room itself was the size of a small African country. My father could only talk to my grandfather through letters that took several weeks to reach their destination."
He folded the tie very carefully and placed it on the ground of the stage before walking toward the Empress. "That wasn’t much of an issue. After all, my grandfather was a very pragmatic person. He believed that for you to truly understand your line of work, you needed experience in all aspects of it. My father agreed with that, and during the years we lived there, he did his best to work all manner of jobs in the company."
"Eventually, the time came for him to lead a caravan traveling across the room to a different city and sell his products. He believed it was a good idea to bring me and my mother, even though I was just a child. Not even thirteen at the time. During our journey, we were attacked by a group of bandits who killed everyone and took me captive. Apparently, they had a buyer for a human child."
Morgan stepped down from the stage, now standing on the ground about ten meters away from Hera. He removed his watch and emptied his pockets, placing everything on the stage beside his tie. "Before they could reach their buyer, their hideout was raided by guards from a nearby city. It wasn’t the one my father was traveling to. It was a backwater, run-down place that didn’t have a single human inhabitant. Those guards took me from the bandits and dropped me off at an orphanage. There, I lived for the next five years, if you can call that living. I was treated like a slave."
"Every morning, I had to clean the beds, wash clothes or dishes, and even cut potatoes and serve the other children food. In the afternoon, I was forced to walk the streets of that city begging for money. They gave me flowers from random gardens, trinkets they’d found or made, and food I wasn’t allowed to eat. All that so I could sell to the people of the city. Every day when I got back, they took almost all the money away."
"Can you imagine what that’s like? Being forced to toil for hours on end, earning a pitiful amount of money, only for someone to take most of it away, leaving you with scraps? It was torture."
"And I wasn’t the only one suffering. Every other child had to do the same, but they didn’t have to do as much. They could play around and relax. I was the only one who had to work myself to the bone. It was the only way to get enough money to buy passage back to my home."
"Only when I turned eighteen did I manage to go back and found my grandfather waiting for me. During all those years, he never gave up hope. But no matter how much time passed, that memory never faded. I knew your kind were nothing but monsters, and I swore on my father’s soul that I would rid the MAZE of all of you."
Hera did her best not to get even angrier, but hearing that story, she couldn’t take it anymore. "Retail? You started a war, killed thousands, if not millions, because you had to work retail when you were a kid? Part-time at that?"
Morgan shook his head. "I knew you wouldn’t understand. You killed my parents."
"Oh, I know. And you’re clearly upset about that. After all, you spent a grand total of two sentences talking about it before rambling about how awful it was to work part-time during the afternoon. According to you, the only reason you worked so hard was that you wanted to buy a ticket out of there. No one was mistreating you. No one was physically torturing you. No one did anything except treat you like a regular kid who just wasn’t rich. Five years of living like someone working for minimum wage was enough to get you this angry? Angry enough to do these horrible things to everybody?"
Morgan sighed. "I knew it was a waste of time to try to make you understand."
"My thoughts exactly," the Empress replied as she summoned the entire court.
Comments
Pletter
I make people orphans and threaten their families because life as an orphan is hard and bad people who orphan others need to be punished. Now, who wants to gass a city?
Personssess
😂😂😂 retail!
