The God Virus

"SHUT UP! He's not a bastard, you are! Don't curse him again! And I'm going to help, whether you allow me to or not, I don't care!" By the end of her sentence, she was obviously clenching both of her fists as she continued staring at Reign like a cat that had been just greatly offended.

This forced Reign's eyes to go wide open in utter disbelief since he truly hadn't envisioned Ella to not only be so headstrong about it but also curse him along the way too. 

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Reign had never seen her act this way before. And considering that, his startlement was frankly well-justified.

In the past few years since he had recruited and known Ella, Ella had always kept a professional distance from him while obeying every single one of his guild-related orders to the best of her capabilities without undermining his authority in the least, not even once.

But now, all of a sudden, she was behaving in this odd manner, which only made Reign feel speechless and lost.

On the other hand, even Thread-Mistress was slightly startled by this decision from Frost because she hadn't anticipated her to react this way either.

Nonetheless, this resulted in an amused smirk forming on the corner of her lips as she also found even more courage to disobey their leader. "We're going to help, Reign. Whether you help us or not, that's your decision. But whether we help him or not is also up to us, so please don't be so naïve to think you can interfere with our will."

Following that, turning toward Virus again, she opened her mouth again, "We just need you to give us your verbal consent to assist you, that would make our interference legal. What do you say, DS?" With that, she impassively waited for Virus's response.

Of course, following that, it also didn't take long for Virus to provide them with the reply they were seeking. To be honest, he wanted to reject her offer at first since he didn't need it in the first place, furthermore, every bear was going to increase the unification percentage of his Pathways even higher, so why would he even consider accepting the offer?

However, after seeing how unwilling and hurt Reign looked at the concept of them disobeying him and going against his orders so as to aid him, he decided to change his mind.

Moreover, there was something else he wanted to check for himself from a closer distance. Hence, he agreed. "Alright, you two can kill those four Five-Eyed Bears for the moment, leave the rest to me until I tell you otherwise. Oh, by the way, you can carry on with keeping them restrained since I'm trying to do a little experiment here."

The moment he was finished with his words, before anyone could even react to it, his figure vanished from the trio's eyesight as it seemed to come into existence once again right beside one of the Five-Eyed Bears.

"Shall we begin?" Directing this question at the Five-Eyed Bear, the only answer he received was the angry growls of the beast.

"Will take that as a yes." Having no thoughts about wanting to delay this any further, directly grabbing the bear's head under the watchful eyes of the trio, using his two palms, he directly went ahead to squeeze it with all his might pushed behind it.

ROAAR-

P-TAFF~

A popping sound of watermelon bursting open reverberated around the area next. That was the gruesome noise of the bear's head as it directly exploded and shattered into many pieces.

Watching this gory scene of the now headless bear and the disgusting brain matter splattered all around, the trio became dumbfounded since none of them had seen this coming. This was their first time seeing someone actually killing a monster in this way.

Still, knowing this was not the time, Frost and Thread-Mistress were quick to go in motion as they rushed at their own portion of responsibility.

'H-He's that strong?' On the other hand, a quiver went down Reign's spine at the mere imagination of his head being in Virus's grasp instead of the bear's. He couldn't stop himself from swallowing hard either.

In the meantime, still frozen up in his previous location, several lines of deliberation were storming through Virus's anxious mind.

'Hmm, why am I not feeling anything yet? Something should've happened by now.' Narrowing his eyes, Virus truly felt confused by the entire situation. Too much time had passed but he was perceiving no reaction from the Origin whatsoever.

He had been pretty confident that Origin would definitely suck the monster's energy into him, however, the next moment, he was proven otherwise. 'Could it be that I was wrong about the entire thing? Could this only happen when I'm murdering butterfly-type monstrous beasts? Or perhaps it was indeed a one-time thing?'

Every possibility that was passing through his brain now could only add to the feeling of disappointment growing within Virus. In fact, he had been so excited about this entire situation last night that he could hardly sleep. 

But now, it looked like that had been just wishful thinking from his part, which honestly made him sad. 'As they say, the higher the expectation, the greater the disappointment.'

'But… I feel like something's wrong and I'm still missing a detail. Origin should've reacted the same way as yesterday… but why?' At the same time, increasing his calculative speed many times over, he tried coming up with the possible reasons as to why this was happening.

'What variable changed since yesterday?' 

'Hmm, the only different variables from yesterday should be respectively the type and grade of the Rifts, the type of monstrous beast I just killed, and,' his eyes quietly landed on the almost invisible threads restraining the corpse of the dead beast as he completed his train of thought, 'outside help.'

This promptly sent a shiver of possible comprehension down his spine as he didn't hesitate to request the Thread-Mistress while pointing at another bear, "Free this bear for me."

Although it was a long shot, it had been successful in flaming up some hope within Virus. 'As long as there's some tiny hope…'

Thereafter, as the next bear was finally released from its confinement, letting out a roar of rage, it charged at it's the closest target, Virus.

Of course, having already expected this, Virus didn't falter in rushing at the bear beast as he grabbed its head once again before squeezing it into countless bits.

POP!!!

'Please… please… react.' Afterward, without even noticing, he found himself pleading the Origin to react the same way as yesterday.

Hua~

Abruptly, as if his pleas have been heard by it, the same strange energy started to be sucked into his physique as it then stormed into his still separated third and fourth pathways.

12%, 13%, 14%...

Subsequently, as the absorbed energy began to assimilate itself into the connecting bridge between the 3rd and 4th passages, the fusion rate began to shoot up once more.

In fact, Virus was literally seeing a percentage bar getting filled up at every passing second. This was because he had configured his consciousness in a way so that the unification degree of his next pathways would be reported and displayed visually.

20%, 21%, 22%...

Even as the synthesis rate hit a solid 22 percent which was twice the amount as the previous time, it seemed the process of fusion had no intention of wanting to stop as it continued soaring.