"Almost done, huh."
Hel stretched her arms, feeling her stiff body crack as she slowly stood up.
Processing the remains of over a million elves had been absolute torture.
For the past several days, she had done nothing but sit on the ground — waiting for the mechanical octopi to bring over elf bodies and extracting, fusing, and refining corpses.
Now, at long last, all those exhausting tasks were finally over.
"The warehouses from one A-class city and two B-class cities are pretty much emptied out.
But beneath those two Desire Energy Bases, there's still a massive Desire Energy reservoir — an underground pool covering nearly a third of Biotic City's area.
Inside it is a staggering amount of energy, accumulated over the past 120,000 years.
If we want to move all that Desire Energy, we'll not only need to craft proper containment equipment, but also spend a huge amount of time on transportation.
According to Niv's calculations, it would take at least twenty days to haul everything out."
"Twenty days? That's way too long. And Desire Energy isn't exactly a must-have for us.
Honestly, that whole reservoir is less valuable than the elemental crystals.
Let's just leave it for later — if we can't move it now, it's no big deal.
Aside from the Desire Energy, there's nothing else troublesome to move, right?"
"There are still some large-scale machines. Niv is trying to disassemble them into modular pieces so we can carry them with space rings.
That's a lot easier than moving the Desire Energy."
"I see."
Hel's gaze drifted toward the nearby Desire Extraction devices — the ones that had once imprisoned the elves.
She waved dismissively.
"Take whatever we can. If something's too big, leave it.
We're not abandoning these cities for good — this is just a temporary strategic withdrawal so we don't get pummeled by the Imperial City's Saint-tier enforcers."
"Oh, right. What's the update from the avatar I sent to scout that C-class city?"
Hel was referring to a C-class city subordinate to the Bioweapon Factory — the only one still connected.
"Master means the C44 Biological Breeding Base, right? It's a dedicated creature cultivation lab — there's no route to the surface.
When Niv went there, the entire facility was in deep hibernation. Some of the elves you synthesized earlier came from there."
"Is that so? Then forget it for now. Same as C56 — just move the equipment and resources back."
"Understood, Master."
Niv nodded and went back to work.
Hel turned her attention back to the rows of Desire Extraction devices.
These machines weren't of particularly high quality — made from cheap materials, and each had only one trait:
[Desire Extraction (White): Extracts a small amount of Desire Energy from the target and stores it. Consumes a portion of the target's soul.]
A simple description, a simple function.
But there were so many of them.
The entire Desire Energy Factory contained over a million of these devices.
Even if each only held this one low-grade trait, gathering all of them would yield a million Desire Extraction traits.
Hel wasn't sure exactly how useful that would be, but she knew one thing: a million of anything combined would eventually form something powerful.
So, with an eager grin, she began collecting the traits one by one.
After an exhausting amount of time, she finally gathered all million traits.
Then came the next part — the tedious, soul-crushingly repetitive fusion process.
Sometimes, Hel really wished her system had a "batch combine" feature.
But no — this wretched thing didn't even have a support center, much less a ticket system.
So she had no choice but to do it the hard way: one by one.
Time passed without her realizing it. The mountain of traits in her inventory gradually dwindled — until finally, a new one appeared before her eyes.
[Desire Extraction α (Pink): Extracts Desire Energy from the target and stores it, without consuming the target's soul.]
"Oh? It doesn't harm the soul anymore? That's actually useful."
Hel smiled. Her tedious work had finally paid off.
She looked at her trait warehouse — still packed with plenty of materials.
"With what's left, I could probably make at least twelve pink-grade traits.
Should I try to see what lies beyond pink-grade?
Based on the device's function, this probably has something to do with corruption — but it might also require a bit of divine death energy, since souls are involved too…"
Hel muttered to herself, considering all the possibilities.
But when she synthesized the second pink-grade trait, she froze.
[Desire Extraction β (Pink): Extracts a massive amount of Desire Energy from the target, but causes irreversible damage to the target's soul.]
"…What the hell? So now it extracts more but hurts the soul?
Wait — does that mean these impure traits can evolve in different directions?"
Hel frowned in confusion but pressed on with the synthesis.
Not long after, another new trait emerged.
[Desire Extraction γ (Pink): Stimulates the target to produce Desire Energy and uses it to condition the target's soul. This process does not harm the soul and increases the target's loyalty to the user.]
"…Another completely new one? This is practically on par with my Training Orb — maybe even better."
Still, the sheer variety was unnerving.
She had made only five pink traits so far, and three of them were completely different.
"If I keep going, will even more variants appear?"
More importantly — could these variants be combined with one another? And if so… what would the result even be?
Swallowing her uncertainty, Hel continued to fuse traits.
Fortunately, things didn't spiral out of control — there were only these three variants in total.
When all twelve pink traits were finally synthesized, they split evenly: four α, four β, and four γ.
"Just one short…"
Hel sighed. Each type was missing just one more to continue fusing.
Her gaze drifted toward the remaining stockpile — only four red-grade Desire Extraction traits left.
If she could just get one more, she'd be able to move forward.
She could probably create another red trait once she reached sixth tier — it wouldn't even cost that much energy.
But spending valuable energy points on an uncertain trait didn't sit well with her.
So, she decided to take the practical route — she went back to Biotic City and dismantled every single Desire Energy Base there.
After collecting enough, she finally had the last red trait she needed.
Hel placed all the red traits into the fusion slot. A bright synthesis effect flared to life — and soon, a familiar name appeared.
[Desire Extraction α]
Just as she'd predicted, this was the one most likely to advance further.
Sure enough, when she placed five of these pink traits into the synthesis grid, a new message popped up.
A blank progress bar appeared — followed by a system prompt:
[Please provide one unit of Corruption Divine Power. Current progress: 0/1]