"Save us? You... You think this is saving us? Our world might have been horrible before, an absolute shit show in all honesty. But compared to this... this... hell of murder and death around every corner. How in the hell could you call this saving?!"

Seth shouted towards the titanic dragon that filled half the room, spittle flying from his lips as he spat out every anger filled word. He didn't care that this thing could kill him with just the tip of its claw, or that it was a being older than he could imagine.

He shouted and screamed, venting his boiling blood onto this giant lizard while it simply stood silently, watching him with an unreadable expression on its scaled face.

"People have died because of you! Countless people. More than half our population was wiped out in the first fucking day, and even more have died after that! And that's not even counting the ones who turned into horrific monsters.

They died because of you!"

He swept his arm towards the Dead Men, his spiritual members controlling armoured bodies that were specially designed to contain them. The young girl in the front shrunk slightly as the conversation was directed her way, letting out a soft whimper as she lifted her hands to the side of her head in a futile attempt to cover ears that didn't exist.

Seth lifted his own arm, showing the metallic prosthesis to the god-like lizard.

"I... I lost my arm because of the creatures you unleashed onto the world. Good people lost their limbs, their lives or their family. Because of the monsters you unleashed, we had a war and lost more than I could have ever hoped. Because of you their blood... is on my hands.

How can you call that saving."

Astra stepped in beside Seth, placing a hand on his shoulder. Her touch quelled the boiling rage inside him, taming the thundering storm of emotions. His hands, which were clenched into trembling fists, finally relaxed as he let out a deep sigh.

His emotions restrained, his murderous rage poured into his eyes as he cast a chilling, deathly glare towards the Dragon and waited for it to answer his questions, finally giving it a chance to explain itself.

Behind him, completely forgotten by the gods and wondrous beings within the room, Director Zero was having his own storm of emotions. His eyes trembled as he stared at the floor, taking in the words of the young man's defiant speech.

The Director had fought in enough wars, watched enough people being blown apart in worthless battles or hopeless combat for ideals, money or patriotism. He would have been able to find the deception or falsity in that speech.

But he could feel the raw emotion in the young mans voice, because he too had felt those same emotions more than once in his life time, when he cursed out the idiots in charge of the wars he had fought in.

There was no doubt in his mind that everything the boy had said was true. Which meant... More than half the world was dead. It wasn't just an issue with their outside contact. It was everywhere. Everyone.

He dropped to his knees, his arms hanging limply by his side as he stared blankly ahead.

With a flash, the dragon's body erupted into flames and transformed back into his ten foot tall human form, which was still clad in a crisp black suit with a bright red tie. The tail of his coat flickered and danced like it was made of flames, as did the collar of his shirt which was flicked upwards.

His face was filled with remorse and a sadness dwelled in his crimson eyes as he spoke softly.

"I have lost my own share in this cruel universe. A long life like mine is nothing but a life of misery and loss. So know that when I say I understand what you are going through, you can believe it.

But I really did do this to save you. Not from the cruelty, not from the monsters. Not from the evolution. That was inevitable. What I did is save you from what comes after. You may not realise it yet, but what I gave to you was freedom."

"Freedom from what? If you want us to understand, then speak clearly. Explain it, without riddles."

Astra's words cut straight through Prometheus' waxing poetics without a care, her tone cold and emotionless like always, with a hint of danger lingering behind it.

The Dragon of legends smirked in response, letting out another soft sigh before nodding.

"Very well... Tell me, you knew my name. What is the Legend of me on this planet. Before you bite my head off, this has a point, I promise."

Astra narrowed her eyes, enhancing her already piercing death stare, but answered nonetheless.

"It comes from the Greeks. They say you stole fire from the Gods, gave it to humanity. Gave us civilisation and such, and fell from the God's grace in the process."

"Hmm.. It's close. But mixed up a little. I guess that's what happens to legends over the years. It's true I gave fire to your ancient ancestors, but that was not my gift to humanity."

Prometheus played with a ball of fire in his hand, rolling the ball back and forth as Astra frowned softly.

"So then what did you... The system?!"

The Dragon let out a small laugh as realisation dawned across her face, her scowl loosening and eyes widened as she hit the nail on the head.

"Precisely. The System, as you call it, stems from a collective of beings known as Apotheosis. At least that is the closest translation in your language.

You see, many races in the universe eventually developed the technology for gene alteration and with that comes many miraculous benefits. The removal of genetic diseases and even an increase in reproduction as they could fix issues with infants while they are in the egg... or womb, for species like yourself.

But rather quickly these species, one after the other, thought to themselves the exact same thing. 'Why stop at fixing the broken? Why don't we perfect our species?'

Perfection, however, is an endless pursuit. Once their genes were optimised and their species were at their peak performances, they desired abilities beyond their natural capabilities.

Thus, they began forced evolution. Generation after Generation, they altered their genes and their children's genes. Tweaking and fiddling with them, hoping to become perfect.

Unfortunately, No matter the species or their technology level, Each one was always led into the same issue by their hubris."

"...Gene Collapse." Seth muttered with a sigh, pushing his hair out of his face.

He recalled Angel's description of the phenomena back when he first encountered it. That it was caused by the consumption of the same genetic material, aka cannibalism, under their new worlds rules.

But it also had other ways of occurring. Angel had mentioned that some were able to harness mana to force themselves to evolve with different methods, but they never expanded on what methods.

At the time, Seth had simply brushed it off. But now that he was hearing this tale, his mind couldn't help but bring the memory back to the surface.

Prometheus raised his eyebrow at Seth's mutter.

"So you've encountered it before?"

Seth nodded solemnly, letting out a sigh as his mind drifted into more memories.

"Yes, We have. Multiple times. Firstly was through prisoners of a creature called a Hemogoblin. They didn't care what they fed their prisoners, which meant that sometimes they were fed human meat and... that was the result.

The second was by a man who thought himself a god, and fed the same meat to his prisoners intentionally in order to create weapons. Monsters for him to use."

"Hemogoblins? You've seen those here? Hmm... It seems this planet is fairing worse than I thought."

"Yeah, not just those things. We had hundreds of portals open across our city, and presumably the world. Let all sorts of creatures through. I and my... uh, companion here even got stuck in the space between those portals for months.

Met some friends, nearly died a few times, but when we got out only seconds had passed for everyone else."

Prometheus frowned deeply, tapping his chin as he considered Seth's words, while Seth himself was reminded of the 'friends' he had met in the endless meadow, mainly the fish people.

They had never been able to understand each other when they were stuck there, and it was their device that had helped him and Astra get back from that place.

He had meant to eventually talk to them about it, get some answers from the strange creatures using a communication device as a translator. But it seems that it had completely slipped his mind.

Not that it mattered now, since he was getting answers from the source. But still... he should probably check on them, just in case they had ended up in a fish market or something.

"I have a feeling this was my fault too. You see, those creatures were just like you. Forced to evolve one day and thrust into chaos.

When the Apotheosis group eventually came together, they figured out a way to solve their issue. Changing genetics was too complex and time consuming. You have to know the right genes to change and in what way to get the optimal results.

Their populations were dying because of their own experiments, falling to gene collapse in their endless pursuit of knowledge and perfection. So they designed the System and dropped it onto planets like yours."

"Are you telling me that we are nothing more than... guinea pigs?"

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