Dimensional Descent

The male Invalid smiled lightly, pressing its knife just a bit more firmly into Aina’s skin. Despite the fact it was still the flat of the blade, Aina’s skin was left with a much deeper impression, taking several more seconds to rebound to its previous unblemished appearance. 

Aina’s jaw clenched tightly, her gaze completely focused on the knife gliding across her hand. It was as though she would rather see everything through to the end than look away. 

As for the Invalids words, she hardly cared about them. 

Invalids represented failure. Even if they were the so-called majority, nothing would change that. 

Plus, unlike humans, Invalids couldn’t reproduce. They had no way of multiplying their numbers. As such, even if for a short moment they were indeed the majority, just how long would that last exactly? 

That said, it wasn’t like there were no worlds were humans failed to weed out the Invalid threat. In those cases, Invalids would become the majority and take hold of the planet for themselves. But…

The irony of it all was that while humans could evolve without Invalids, the vice versa was not possible. In the cases where Invalids ‘won’, the reality was that they in fact lost. 

Now trapped on a world without humans and without ability to travel to other worlds, they essentially reached their limit until the day the world was devoured by its Zones due to lack of human presence. 

No matter how you looked at it, Invalids were inferior in every way. Whether it was by the fact they failed to awaken their abilities or even up to the fact they were reliant on humans even now. 

“Hm? You don’t believe me?”

The male Invalid blinked, a part dangerous, part amused light in its eyes. It seemed impossible to read its intentions, leaving Aina in a perpetually tense state. Her nerves stood on end, even the tiniest hairs on her arm standing erect. 

This reality quickly chipped away at Aina’s mental fortitude. It made one worry if this was the true goal of the Invalid all along. 

“You humans have indeed always been like this. But then again, my people have their own issues. I try to tell them that they should control their impulses better, but they don’t like to listen.”

The male Invalid sighed, continuing to run its knife across Aina’s fingers. 

“They can’t blame me for their own foolishness, right? I just turned them all into puppets so they could calm down a bit and bide their time properly. How are we ever going to show the humans who the true superior beings are if we can’t do even that?”

The male Invalid chuckled a bit. 

It looked up from Aina’s hand only to find Aina looking toward it, her gaze carrying a fiery blaze. Maybe if looks could kill, the male Invalid would have been diced into countless pieces by now. 

“Interesting, interesting.” The male Invalid chuckled more deeply. “Your mind is still clear after so long. Its rare for someone to last so long in my presence. Most minds would have collapsed by now. Let me guess, does it have something to do with that crown on your head?”

The male Invalid reached a finger forward, trailing it across Aina’s inflamed scars until he stopped at the gem that hung from her forehead. 

The feeling of having her scars poked and prodded at left Aina’s body shaking even more fiercely than before, but her gaze remained defiant. 

At that moment, the sound of a knife meeting hard wood sounded. 

Blood flowed slowly, pooling across the table and dripping to the floor. 

“Ah, oops.”

The male Invalid clicked his tongue, shaking his head. 

He raised his knife back up, carefully cleaning the blood off its blade. After he was finished, he raised the bloodied cloth to his nose, inhaling a deep breath. 

Aina’s fingers rolled from her hand freely, only to be stopped by the male Invalid’s plate. 

Veins bulged out from Aina’s neck, but her gaze gained a new level of intensity. If only she could move, if only she could just move. 

“… This blood…” 

The male Invalid closed his eyes. When they opened once more, his gaze had earned a tinge of red. From his previously calm expression, it seemed as though he had lost all reason for a moment. 

“… You… You’re a Broodmother…”

The male Invalid’s face flushed with excitement. He displayed a level of emotion Aina had yet to see to this point. 

Its laughter rang through the underground space. It was so loud that the walls began to shake. 

“How unexpected! How truly unexpected! Never would I have thought that I would have such a day! For me to meet such a treasure, the Heavens are truly smiling down upon me! HAHAHA!”

The male Invalid stood, knocking over its chair and almost shattering the table before it. 

A towering erection pressed outward against the male Invalids robes and pants. It seemed with each billowing laughter it released, it grew more, becoming almost like a second pulsing monster of its own. 

When the male Invalids laughter died down, it looked toward Aina with a fervent gaze, the tent in its pants pulsing with a grotesque air. In those moments, the scent the Invalid gave off only became more nauseating. 

“Just looking at you, you have no idea the kind of value you have. But, I expect humans to wallow in ignorance, so I don’t mind explaining it to you…”

Though the Invalid began to speak, Aina’s mind was roaring. She wanted to move, she needed to move. She wouldn’t be caught here, she wouldn’t allow this disgusting creature to do the things it wanted to do to her. 

She already well knew what a Broodmother was. 

It went by too many names. Birther, Eternal Mother, some even called them Vampires. However, there were two things all these titles had in common. 

The first was that they all guaranteed an impossibly high Blood Force affinity, affinity so high that most talents couldn’t even match up to it. Maybe only monsters like Leonel who had Grade Nine Dream Force affinity while still in the Third Dimension could hope to be on the same level. 

And the second was that… 

They were among the very few existences that could allow Invalids to reproduce.