Blacksmith of the Apocalypse

The being that called itself Dr. Cromwel started spilling his information. Despite seeming a little intimidated watching Seth take care of the impersonator, he kept his thoughts together and was able to hold a calm conversation.

"Let's start with the obvious, why do you have no soul, like the infected and how did you keep your sanity?"

Cromwell readily explained his own studies and modifications he had done to create the immortal serum and how everything lead to the Scene back-stabbing him and his colleagues. And that he was now here because of his quest for revenge.

"But what exactly did you come here for?" Seth asked after listening to the man's summary.

"Didn't you mention that Mount Agra was being besieged by immortal soldiers? I'm sure they were given a dumbed-down version of my immortal serum. Another thing I'm sure about is that the Scene is behind it, just like they are behind most big things that happened here and in Y-City."

Seth stared at him, gesturing for him to continue.

"The sloppy treatment of the refugees? The import of highly addicted drugs? The abolishment of guilds and the confiscation of property? It's all the doing of the scene destabilizing established power structures, re-instating their own, and centralizing the power. I personally pressed that out of an executive of Zeontech. With Ypsilon already in their hands, and Delta was almost gone, too, you are my only hope to find an ally against them in this world," he painted a very bleak picture of the world.

Seth stared at him contemplatively. The blacksmith was never someone striving for power. At least not in the sense of ruling over others. He just wanted to carve out his own little piece of the world and protect himself and his friends from the throws and turns of the apocalypse.

He couldn't really understand why someone would bother to go that far, but the bad thing was that Cromwel was right. Minas Mar had inadvertently taken a stance against the Scene and actively hindered their plan of uniting humanity under their rule.

Now that kind of big organization was not only against it, but it seemed like they had already taken their first steps of declaring war on them. With someone trying to lure in away from Minas Mar by bringing up Mark Baker at this time, the likelihood of the Scene being behind the attack on Mount Agra was almost certain.

Since Cromwel came looking for an ally in the fight against a common enemy, Seth decided to treat him as an asset.

"Since you made the serum, you should also know its strengths and weaknesses, right? Can you explain in more detail?"

"Does that mean you will help me take my revenge?" Cromwels asked with a burning ember in his eyes.

"...No. You will help us stop the siege on Mount Agra and THEN we can discuss our next steps. That is all I'm offering."

"..Good enough for me," the doctor agreed. As Seth asked, Cromwel proceeded to go into more detail about the serum.

"So it's not that you have no soul, but your soul is split into billions of specks that each inhabit a cell of your body?" Seth interrupted.

This explained why Seth couldn't see one soul. It was only after Cromwel explained that Seth could make out something like a weak shine of soul aura around his body, but only if he concentrated on it.

"Exactly. The original virus we found in Gamma eats away the soul of the souls of the infected to multiply. After the host dies, the virus proceeds to inhabit the host's dead cells and control the body to spread further.

This makes these undead effectively a cluster of souls, each soul inhabiting a single cell of the body. All of these virus bodies are hooked together through a rudimentary hivemind allowing it to solve simple tasks and learn with time."

A being with a decentralized soul that is controlled by a hivemind. Seth wasn't stupid, he quickly understood the conclusion.

"So, you found a way to instate your original ego onto the hive mind?"

"Yes, it was thanks to the creatures we managed to catch and study at the borders of Sigma. We found that a similar virus turned people into mindless drones controlled by a terrifying entity using some kind of soul sorcery or running on autopilot if not directly controlled.

It took a lot of research before we were able to copy a crude version of this power that allowed us to preserve and instate the original ego as the persona of this hive mind that controls the soul cluster.

However, it took even longer before we were able to create the immortal serum which lacks the physical disadvantage I am suffering from."

Seth gave the old man a questioning look. Although he was not the prettiest, he seemed like a normal old man.

"I'm 35 and I'm stuck looking like a 90-year-old for the rest of eternity. Also, when I start circulating my power I turn into a giant, hairy monster," the doctor explained at Seth's doubtful look.

"... I see. So this immortal serum won't turn you into s beat without the beauty?" Seth didn't poke any further into the man's emotional scars.

"No physical ones, no. Apart from that it shared the same drawbacks as my version. Besides the feeling of an excruciating literal death, the receiver also loses any contact with the system and other gods of they were a chosen. Their powers are preserved, but it becomes a lot harder to grow without the passive help of a god," the doctor explained.

"So they have a slow growth rate?" Seth asked interested, finally hearing the weakness of the perfect serum.

"...Not necessarily. Their technical skills, yes. However, I am able to absorb the residues of the souls of the prey I killed to grow stronger. Someone who took the finished serum would benefit even more from that. So, even if the skills don't grow as fast, mana, mana recovery, magic resistance, and survivability grow very quickly as the virus souls consume and grow."

Seth felt like slapping the old man across the face. Why in the world did he make something like that?! Scratch that. Seth knew exactly why he, or rather anybody, would do it. The bigger problem was-

"Didn't you ever think of putting a fail-safe into it, in case this happened?"

"Who do you think you are talking to? Of course, I thought of putting in a fail-safe." So?"

"What?" "What is it? How can we defeat them?"

"...I thought of making one... In the end, they interfered before I had the chance to do so..."

"So you created an absolute bullshit power with almost no drawbacks, immortality, and a technically unlimited growth potential?"

"...Yes?" the mad scientist asked confused as if he couldn't quite understand why Seth was praising his work so much.

Seeing the man's inability to even understand why that was bad, Seth gave up with a big sigh.

"Fine. Do you have a way to defeat them? An antidote to the serum, or maybe a counter-disease? Any kryptonite to make them mortal?"

"I might be able to make one with the right facilities, but I have none on hand, no. There is little you can do to someone that drank the perfected serum. Restraining, Petrification, complete Incineration...Transmutation," he mentioned with a glance at Wolfram.

"Anything that permanently stops them from moving or destroys their bodies completely and instantly. But I doubt that the army you mentioned is made up of people that took the perfected serum. I doubt they would share this kind of power with random soldiers."

"What would it mean if it isn't the perfected serum?" Mary threw in.

"Well, if they gave them a dumbed-down version there should be an easy way to deal with them."

"Which would be?"

"beat them until they stop recovering."