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Two years later
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In the middle of the desert, a helicopter was hovering in the air. Soon enough, the space directly beneath the helicopter parted, swallowing the desert sands and creating a space big enough to containing the helicopter. It flew in and landed on a helipad inside the large basement.
Mr. Darkling and Charles; his head butler descended the helicopter and was met with some men dressed in corporate.
Inside the compound were many other buildings and workers. It was a mixture of many professions: engineers, medical attendants and scientists.
As Mr. Darkling passed by, everyone who saw him bowed in respect. Following Mr Darkling closely behind was Charles, his P.A.
They walked, towards an elevator. Charles opened it and gestured for Mr. Darkling to head inside first. Charles pushed a red button and they started to go down. At the end of their descent the door opened, they were met with another door.
Mr. Darkling adjusted his necktie and walked towards the door. When he reached the door, he stood and a scanner scanned his face, he put in his fingerprints and they got verified, the automatic door opened revealing various lab rooms, with modern technology enhancements.
They walked past the other lab rooms and once they got to a particular one, they stopped. Inside the lab was a woman in a lab coat and googles engrossed in typing.
On her table, were many laboratory tubes, containing different liquids of different colors in them. At the end of the room was a larger transparent tube that could contain a human, it had a green liquid and huge pipes connecting to it. Above it was a giant purple rune of different layers.
Mr. Darkling after spectating for a moment entered the lab. "How's the research going?" He asked as he approached the woman, surprised to see him, she stood up and immediately showed her respect by bowing.
"Sir, you came." She greeted but Mr. Darkling ignored her, his interest was more on his question and on monitor. Knowing him, he wasn't going to repeat his question, so she answered.
"I've been trying my best, there's a lot of options to choose from, a lot of plausible possibilities but they could prove dangerous to his mental and physical health."
"Is he going to die?" He questioned while still looking at the monitor, expressionless as usual.
"I... I don't think so sir, But it might paralyze or disfigure him." She replied in a shaky voice.
"If it won't get him killed, go ahead, test all of them until one works."
"Sir?"
Mr. Darkling turned to leave completely ignoring her but she called back to his attention.
"But sir he's still young..." She voiced.
"Who said you're starting now? Take the next two years and make your preparations. Make sure he doesn't die."
She could understand why, as his motive was for the good of the child, but going to such lengths, it's like he's trying to kill the child.
No, there was no way she could do such to a child of five years old, but how could she say that to this man, Darkling, one of the most powerful people on Earth?
"Sir... I... I..." She tried to speak up, but her words wearing coming out, but when Mr Darkling turned to look at her, she choked in her breath.
"You can't? You seem to have forgotten your role here, you are to obey all of my commands without question, do you need a reminder?" The choking young lady felt goosebumps as chill ran down her spine.
It became hard to breathe, the room pressure became stronger and the air thicker.
Mr Darkling wasn't using any kind of mana, he was only intimidating her with his aura. A normal human girl, challenging "Blink", a man who's known to end his targets in a blink. His glowing red eyes made her feel like she was stepping into heaven's gate.
The woman was already on her knees gasping for air while holding her neck.
"Do as you're told and be at your best, especially if you want to save him, Augustina." He said and his eyes reverted to normal, before he turned and walked out of the room.
~Cough, cough~
She coughed greedily, she has heard of his strength and how he became one of the strongest men on Earth, but didn't expect him to be so unreasonably strong with just his stare.
He always had an expressionless face and didn't react to anything she said, he would say a simple 'Yes' or 'Ok' whenever he approved and just ignored whenever he didn't.
"Sigh... You dumb girl, you had to go and get yourself almost killed." She whispered to herself after she recovered a little. She sat on the ground and rested her back on the table for support.
"I guess I have no other choice than to follow orders, I wonder if he's really planning on saving him.' She looked up at the ceiling, transporting into her world of thoughts.
'Well, he's Darkling after all, no one ever knows what he's thinking, but those eyes... They looked really.... Sad.' She remembered seeing the sadness in his eyes, despite all his attempt to hide it.
"Who would have thought that the Darkling would feel sad, no, it's who still believes he's a human. I preferred categorizing him as an alien, so his personality and strength will make sense to me, but now I'm convinced.
He's a human. Well it's none of my concern, it's time for work." She got up, sat back down her chair to continue her research.
...
"Sir shall we take a detour to see him?" Charles asked and Mr. Darkling nodded in response.
"Let's go see my son."