New Game+

The scene had startled the soldiers. The entire explosion of the lightning ball caused the ball to stay visible compact for a few seconds.

The appearance of the five men drew the shocked stare of many. Almost every nearby soldier reported to their platoon and sent the videos back to their home.

But all of them gawked when the five men stood up.

Their movements, appearance, and the very words they said made the soldiers recall a certain science fiction story that managed to survive the cultural shift to the Supra-Modern era.

When the one in the center ordered to terminate all enemies, one of the naked men slowly walked forward, and suddenly, the heat signature of this person rose to great heights.

"Gear second..." Gardo couldn't help but whisper. Arthur frowned as he gave strict orders that Gardo wouldn't even whisper this. But Gardo's passion was just so hard to contain.

All of a sudden, the man disappeared.

One of the Exoskeletons could barely catch the fast speed of the man who had now jumped with incredible strength. He was already at the same height as the Exoskeleton.

The figure was in mid-air and was over seven meters away from the pilot. But this figure had his arms ready to punch.

The Dalisay family had constantly improved and strengthened their tech. Since their tech dealt with the compression of energy, they recklessly experimented and applied a strange means to compress the energy and composition of Gardo. Gardo's body had the strength of nearly three people. His muscles, the density of his bones, and even his cellular composition was a compressed mass of cells.

The process to convert and improve Gardo's body was deemed impossible at first. But then, Lynd returned. The multiple paths that allowed them to observe and examine how the cells change allowed many scientists to create a theoretical path of applying these changes. The passion and dream that Gardo had were now possible as the Way opened it for him.

He was the first to enhance his Path through his Faith and the application of science that altered it. The operation was so risky that many among the top brass was worried and prepared for the possible death of Gardo.

But through his dreams, hopes, and the picture Gardo had for himself. It was made possible.

With the applied scientific alteration that pioneered the exploration and enhancement of the very DNA of an Unlocked, Gardo had control over every muscle and cell in their body and yet retain the power, fierce heat, and even improved the durability of Gardo's body.

Despite nearly losing his life, Gardo finally achieved his dreams. He was so happy that he could die.

The heat and energy of his body allowed him to perform small explosive bursts that could cause him to fly and accelerate at immense speed. The compression of his body would expand, and it gave him a human body that could expand several times. 

Gardo resisted the great urge to say Gomu Gomu and immediately punched out.

His fist extended and stretched the seven-meter gap between him and the Exoskeleton. His bones also expanded. Because Gardo's family science was the compression of energy, he was the one in the Unlocked that could lengthen and shorten his bones and stretch his muscles at will.

BOOM!

The fist punched out and struck the Exoskeleton. The punch was faster than a speeding bullet.

Gardo's fist pierced through the Exoskeleton and immediately killed the pilot.

The sudden attack startled the soldiers, and they began to shoot at Gardo.

But at that moment, the rest of the team had also jumped. Gardo was the opening act to distract them further. The split-second surprise caused them not to see the fast movements of the five who were now attacking various soldiers nearby.

Many who approached began to control the aim of the gun or the Exoskeleton arm so that when they began to fire, it struck their nearby allies.

The gun shots were heard, and many soldiers were killed. Almost instantly, eight soldiers who were assigned to guard that area were killed. 

The information that Lennox had over the techs of Egypt proved useful. The team knew that they could not use the soldiers' guns unless they had the fingerprints and the retinal scans of the soldier. The technology was also a bit more complicated as the two scans could detect if the person was still alive. This was how it was not effective to gouge out the eye or cut off a finger to use it to have access to the suit.

Four of the five continued to fight by running on the other parts of the border. Harker's big frame allowed him to carry a soldier easily. So he kept choking a soldier and carried him around to use him in order to shoot the nearby soldiers. Gardo kept rushing and even unconsciously muttered the name of his attack. But as he was in character, he still used a thick Austrian accent when whispering the name of his attack.

As everyone continued to gather the attention of the nearby squads, Arthur performed a strange operation that was only trained for spies.

Theoretically, the Unlocked could reshape their entire body to have a different face and appearance. But this required extreme focus. Humans could control the movement of their arms and legs through their muscles, but trying to reshape one's face required tremendous concentration that it was as if they were trying to move thousands and thousands of hands. And not only would they move it, but they also have to add tension to the muscles to keep the muscles and the reshaped face from returning to their original position.

The amount of energy alone necessary to hold these theoretical changes would rapidly drain and burn the calories of an Unlocked.

Only Lennox had the means to change his appearance through his power easily. The amount of attention that the brain needs to exert was so significant that only someone with many thought processes could do this. And even if someone had that ability, unless they could reform their feature like Lennox, the amount of energy that an Unlocked could maintain a new face was so small.

So the rest of the Overcomers could not constantly maintain and command every cell of their body to hold it. And so, as it was impossibly hard at the current level for the Unlocks to change their faces and features, the Unlocked focused on simpler things such as the copying of eyes and fingerprints. 

After killing a soldier, he placed his thumb over the dead soldiers. The Unlocked had a superb sense of touch. A trained Unbecoming can sense the smallest sensation. The curves and lines of a fingerprint were among it. His enhanced senses allowed Arthur to easily copy every detail of the fingerprint and force his skin to follow it.

The same principle was applied to the eyes. Arthur took a look at the eyes and memorized every detail. Arthur closed his eyes and focused on changing it.

The soldiers around him were busy from the attacks of the group. The soldiers could not lock on to the fast attacks of the nude soldiers.

A platoon of Jet-propelled Exoskeletons was preparing to fire their barrage of bullets as it saw the naked men. 

But suddenly, gunshots resounded at the moment these Exoskeletons started firing. The bullets struck their arm and caused the group to lose balance, and as they fired their weapons, they struck each other.

The whirling, spinning, and out-of-control descent of these Exoskeletons was a horrifying sight that the base officers couldn't understand how or what caused them to all fall.

The border patrols began to rush at the location as the signals of their allies were quickly dwindling.

More Exoskeleton platoons that were sent mysteriously died out almost immediately once they reached a certain distance. What was even bizarre was that the experts concluded the cause of death was friendly fire.

The base immediately activated its version of the technology that imitated Dune. A sandstorm appeared in the desert and bombarded the place. But unlike Dune, Egypt relied on Locust Technology which flew within the sandstorms and would send the data back. With these insect size drones flying within the sandstorm, detecting and destroying them was hard.

"Set the Locust to scan and detect foreign metals!" The Commander of the Base ordered.

"Sir! There are none!"

"Set it to locate heat signatures of humans!"

"Nothing's on our scanners, sir!" The soldier reported.

"Locate the region for any possible energy fluctuations like the one we detected earlier!"

"We can't find any, sir!"

"Sir! The soldiers inside our bunkers are dead!" One of the soldiers reported.

"What? How?!"

"We are still sending our forces to check!"

"Sir, other bunkers are not responding! We have yet to confirm if the soldiers manning them are alive!" Another soldier reported.

BOOM!

An explosion was heard, and everyone in the room froze.

"How?! How are they so fast?! And why can't we detect them?!"

"Set our scanners to detect all metals, including our allies!"

The soldiers followed the orders, and now, they were able to detect four allied soldiers moving along the sand.

"We found them!"

"No! One is missing!"

"Is everyone an Aragarian here?" An unfamiliar voice called out.

Everyone in the Command center felt their heart stop.

A few were startled and turned around to see an unfamiliar, small figure.

The figure looked like he was a teenager. He wore an Egyptian soldier's gear and even carried their weapons.

"What year is it?" The young voice asked.

There was silence.

BANG!

One of the soldiers died.

"What year is it?"

"2112..." The soldiers who were the next target called out fearfully.

"Principal. It is the Year 2112. Prime Jerious's machine has successfully brought us to that man's Planted days." The young man suddenly spoke.

The sentence that this man gave further shocked everyone.

Secretly, the base's Commander had pressed a certain switch that linked him to the base deep in the heart of Egypt.

Of course, the very small movement was noticed by the young man.

"Who sent out a signal?" The young man frowned.

The Commander's eyes grew grim as he heard this.

"Have you contacted your Principal?" The man asked.

"Principal? We... we serve Presiders."

"Presiders? Has Earth not yet hosted a Principal? Principal, it seems our records are flawed. There are no Principals on Earth yet." The young man paused. His expression changed, and he turned towards the Commander.

"Is your leader, Principal Lanterk?" 

"May... I know how to address you?"

"I am Presider Darwin. Follower of Principal Ptolemy. Is Principal Lanterk in charge of Egypt?"

"N-no! We only know of Presider Lanterk! The current leader of Egypt is Presider Andronze!" The Commander answered. Before a Presider who followed a Principal, who was he to withhold such information?

"Principal. The Commander of this base claims that Lanterk is a Presider. Presider Andronze is still alive in this timeline." The young man called out again.

After a few seconds, the young man sneered and looked at the Pioneer.

"Ah. So that's it. You are a traitor, aren't you? Are you a spy of Principal Lanterk? He hid himself quite well. Since you sent a link, then can Presider Andronze hear me?"

"Wha-what?" The Commander was confused.

"Presider Andronze. Stay away from our business. We seek a Planted. A powerful Planted that will rise and be a threat to our entire world. We have no care of what experiments you do down there. To show our sincerity, we will tell you this... Beware of the Principal Lanterk! Do not be deceived by the Goat with Four Horns! Otherwise, you would never know how you die!" 

The young man turned back to the rest.

"One last question... Do you know a Planted who calls himself Rumpelstiltskin?"

"Rumpelstiltskin?" The soldiers had confused looks.

"Oh? He must be going by a different moniker. He could be called the Devourer?" The young man asked again.

The soldiers slowly shook their heads.

"The Usurper?" 

The soldiers continued having confused looks.

The young man frowned.

"Patricia?" The young man asked again.

The soldiers were even more confused. They thought this man was looking for a male Planted.

Some shook their heads once more.

"There are too many Patricia's within the Planted and Pioneer circle. But I don't know of any within Egypt with those other titles." The Commander answered.

"Could Presider be more specific?"

"He is also called Cracky Battcheeks." The young man added.

"Cracky Battcheeks?" The soldiers chorused together.

"No? Never mind then. Die." 

And Lowengren massacred everyone.