The slaughter resumed after the three-hour rest.
Followed by Enigma who was still weak to fight actively but active enough for a short battle, Varian paid the sixteenth planetoid a visit.
It was an aquatic planetoid with more than 95% water with the landmass present in the form of island chains.
So, Varian used his water powers and unleashed horrifying tsunamis on the Abyssals. But That alone wasn't enough to end them.
So, he used a simple trick. He discharged the lightning into the water. Since the ocean water wasn't completely pure, it was a good conductor of electricity.
What the Abyssals faced wasn't a tsunami but an electric tsunami. This method was so effective that in just five minutes, the whole Abyssal army was wiped out!
Even for Varian, it was a staggering achievement.
Because when he usually 'destroyed' the planetoids, he would at most kill half of the army along with their strongest awakeners.
But he wiped out the total three hundred thousand Abyssals. When he left the planetoid, not a single breath was heard.
The slaughter continued.
One planetoid after another quickly fell under Varian's overwhelming strength. Even though he grew tired with each battle, Varian continued to fight.
And watching his one-man wars, Enigma could hardly conceal her shock. Seated in her room in the ghost ship, she viewed everything from a large hologram with a blank look on her face.
Every time Varian waved his hand, heaven and earth shook.
'…How did he get too strong all of a sudden?'
She would bet her life and even 'Her' life on Varian growing stronger somehow. It wasn't just his individual powers, but also the boost they provided to each other.
The problem Varian faced despite having so many powers was that these powers didn't complement each other much. They were like two separate sword strikes—they didn't add up into an attack.
It was still the same case. But the problem somehow got better.
Moreover, Varian's stamina had reached an insane level. Enigma was sure that the combined stamina of seven separate level 8s would be far lower than Varian's.
"You are becoming a true monster…" Enigma sighed in disbelief.
But she was relieved more than anything. In this dangerous world, you either become a monster or be swallowed by one.
The more dangerous Varian becomes, the safer he would be.
Varian's wars continued.
After nearly ten hours, he finished off ten planetoids and was racing towards finishing the final five.
For some reason, Enigma couldn't stop the growing anxiety in her heart. She had no idea why, but she began to feel the growth of something dreadful. Of something that seemed familiar but without any idea of what it is.
Varian's emotions were completely different.
Mars had lost many planetoids since it was weakened due to him. He had seen some destruction caused by Mirage Queen. He had heard of the casualties.
But visiting these planetoids one by one and seeing the littered corpses of the human army on every one of these planetoids… was soul-crushing.
If the millions of deaths under Mirage Queen's rampage back then were directly his mistake, then the deaths of more than three million soldiers on these thirty planetoids were the consequences of that very mistake.
"…Fuck." Varian cursed as he punched the planetoid he was 'visiting'.
A strong shockwave spread out and reached the Abyssal army ahead of him.
Like dried leaves facing a fierce wind, the Abyssals were blown away and exploded into blood mist due to the sheer force of the shockwaves.
In a few minutes, the entire planetoid had no significant Abyssal army left alive.
Varian was about to leave when he saw the corpses of the human soldiers scattered across the planetoid.
It was odd.
Abyssals had a tradition of burning their enemy's corpses. Leaving so many corpses like this…
Varian barely gave it a thought and reasoned it must be because they were busy preparing to continue the war.
It wasn't a proper explanation, but he didn't think much about it.
"You'll get a proper funeral once this war is over." He promised and jumped into the ghost ship which soon disappeared into outer space.
As Varian progressed in finishing off the last four planetoids, Enigma found her eyebrows jumping in fear.
"Corpses?" Enigma clutched her head to recall if she had heard anything related to them. Despite using mind powers, she found no special memory related to corpses.
Yet, they were giving her an eerie feeling.
Enigma tapped her armrest and called the ghost watching a drama in another room. "Boo, did all the previous planetoids you went to have scattered human corpses?"
"Uh? Ah?!" Hearing Enigma's voice directly in its mind, Boo jolted up and looked around in fear.
After identifying the voice, Boo appeared in Enigma's room with an urge to complain.
But seeing Enigma's indifferent face, Boo gulped down its words. This woman was mad in her own right. At one point, she wanted to take down the entire Xanders by herself.
"All the planetoids Master raided today and yesterday have corpses. There weren't any traces of them being cremated." Boo answered after reviewing the data and yelped what it just realized. "Wait, but why?"
Enigma shook for a moment as an unknown fear crept inside her heart. She took a deep breath and looked at Boo with a serious expression. "Be alert."
Then, she disappeared from the ghostship and appeared a few miles away from Varian who had just destroyed the Abyssal army on the planetoid.
Before Varian could even ask why did she appear here, Enigma waved her hand and an invisible wave spread throughout the planetoid.
"Enigma, wait, what are you—"
The corpses littered across the planetoid, both human and abyssal, burst like a balloon and painted the land red and green.
Varian was stunned at her action before he got angry. But controlling himself, he asked her for an explanation. "Why did you touch the corpses of the human soldiers?"
"A bad premonition," Enigma replied with a calm expression.
Varian narrowed his eyes. "Any evidence for your premonition?"
"None. I just feel it. Something bad is going to happen."
"And you didn't even let the human corpses go. It's the last dignity we can give to people who died for the human race." Varian clenched his fist as his chest heaved up and down.
"Trust me once." Enigma looked into his eyes and said in the earnest tone she could. "Even if what I do is despicable, it's better for your safety and mine. Please understand."
Varian didn't expect such words from Enigma and was at a loss for words.
And to be fair, he couldn't completely write off her 'premonition'. She was a hybrid after all and might have abilities he or even she wasn't aware of.
Moreover, now that he thought about it, the situation of the corpses was weird. It was the same for all the planetoids he defeated yesterday as well.
So, maybe there was really a conspiracy linked with these corpses.
"…But do we really have to destroy them?" Varian still asked.
It was too disrespectful to blow up the corpse of the person who died to protect everyone.
"I don't know a better way," Enigma said with no emotional burden.
"I think I do." Varian shrugged.
Enigma shrugged. "Show me on the next planetoid then. If it works, it works."
Thirty minutes later, Varian destroyed another planetoid and Enigma quickly blew up the Abyssal corpses.
Then, the ghost ship circled around the planetoid at full speed and captured the human corpses before placing them inside a super expanded room.
Ghostship too had a limit on its space expansion, but the ceiling was pretty high. Plus, since they were corpses, they could be stored in limited space.
The room itself was sealed by level 9 walls.
Enigma looked at this arrangement and nodded in acknowledgment. "It's more time taking, but if you want this, then sure. But remember your promise, you should leave the battlefield after you finish off the remaining planetoids."
"I know." Varian smiled, not knowing what was about to come.
Two hours later, the last fallen planetoid was decimated by Varian's iron fist. Now, excluding the level 9s and level 8s, Mars gained a ridiculous edge against Mirage Abyss.
And the person who was responsible for this dream-like situation was sipping tea in the lounge when a room in his spaceship suddenly exploded.
