Strongest Superhuman System - Chapter 427

Chapter 427: Can We Really Depend On Them?
Once Mark was gone, Henry sat back down and sighed while folding his hands. George cleaned a bit of sweat that had accumulated on his brow while swallowing nervously. That moment when Henry and Mark were staring each other down was the most tense moment that George had ever felt in his life. He felt like he was standing in the middle of two giant mountains, and any risky movement from him would make them both fall on top of him. George was just grateful that Henry and Mark didn’t resort to more violent actions.

Once George was sure that Mark was no longer within earshot, he spoke up.

“Uhm… sir. I think… I think we should have maybe allowed Mark to see Salazar at least. Right now, things are not looking good for the Superhuman Alliance. Especially with the recent disappearance of some SOVERIGNs and the public view of us. Luna has been radio silent since her fight against the Eldritch. Gunter and Sasha have also gone missing. The only other SOVERIGN we can contact at all is Alec Ben. Shouldn’t we try to keep Mark on our good side?”

Henry frowned once George said this, and George waited patiently to see what Henry would say. George knew that Henry was a rational person, so he was certain that Henry didn’t just deny Mark for no reason.

After a while, Henry said something shocking.

“I can’t trust him.”

George frowned in return, and his confusion was obvious. Henry shook his head and sighed while rubbing his chin.

“The SOVERIGNs have been a very sore spot for the Superhuman Alliance for a long time now. From Gunter’s violent tendencies to Luna’s nonchalant attitude towards political and government matters, to Sasha’s erratic nature, there hasn’t been a single SOVERIGN other than Alec Ben that we could trust or control. And we allowed that to happen because we thought that leaving them to their own devices was worth whatever trouble they brewed. So long as they provided results, we didn’t do anything to sanction or control them. But that was a mistake on our part. We really should have tried harder to keep some sort of leash on them.”

George stapled his hand on the table and looked down at his desk solemnly. He knew that Henry was right, so he couldn’t argue against what he said.

“So, why does that make you not trust Mark?”

“After Gunter and Sasha disappeared, I made it a rule not to put too much faith in the SOVEREIGN. I’m not going to cast them out, but we’re also not going to continue depending on them for everything like we used to. Out of all the SOVEREIGN, Mark is the one we know the least about. I want to look into him a little more and find out who he really is. Until I have substantial evidence that Mark isn’t another Gunter Jake waiting to happen, I won’t be bringing him into government business.”

George’s frown deepened when he heard this. From what Henry just said, it almost sounded like Henry was trying to change the very structure of the system. Henry was talking as if he had been thinking about this for far longer than just the past few days.

“You already have something planned, don’t you? You’ve started putting things in place for a long while now to make sure that we aren’t too dependent on the SOVEREIGN. Some sort of Elite Force? Or maybe… weapons? Are you creating new weapons?”

Henry’s smile was a little strained.

“I sometimes forget how smart you are.”

George stayed silent, and Henry continued in a cryptic manner.

“Anima bones and organs have proven to be very effective weapons against other anima in the hands of superhumans, but as the level of the anima increases, the amount of firepower and mana needed to launch a successful attack also increases exponentially. With what we had in our possession, our military of A and B ranks would only be able to handle one or maybe two Elder Eldritch anima before they would be wiped out. If an Armageddon attack occurs, we would have no choice but to rely on the SOVEREIGN and guilds for aid. But all that is about to change. The recent surge in calamity class attacks has provided us with more than enough research material, and our scientists have found a way to improve the strength of a superhuman to almost godly levels.”

George’s eyes widened.

“Wait… are you really talking about that!? That project that we scrapped years ago!? I thought that was scrapped after so many people died! They were—”

George stopped shouting as he realized that the door to the office was still open, and Mary was looking toward the office curiously. Once Mary met George’s eyes, she looked away again and pretended like she hadn’t been eavesdropping. George settled down and reduced his voice so that she wouldn’t hear what he said next.

“They were injecting anima blood into people. We had fifty-five casualties! I thought we agreed never to talk about this again.”

Henry just frowned as he remembered the number of people that died in that experiment. It was never meant to go that way, and since superhumans had just gained their powers back then, they were practically walking blind and trying to see if anything would work. But things were different now.

“Our scientists have had a breakthrough, and they’ve done it.”

“A breakthrough? They’ve been stuck for more than two years. How come they suddenly had a breakthrough? Wait, no, that isn’t possible. That means something happened recently that gave them something new.”

George’s eyes widened, and his next words were laced with pure terror.

“It was the mutilated corpses found in the NSA, wasn’t it? Y-You used it. You used those corpses!?”

Henry nodded his head unashamedly. There was nothing that they could do for the mutilated corpses that were found, but at the very least, those lives helped them figure out something that they had been trying to crack for more than two years.

“They broke the DNA down and used it in the tests, and it worked.”

“It worked? That means there’s one right now. We’ve created it?”

Henry smiled.

“Yes, we have. We’ve created the first Artificially Augmented Superhuman. The First Super Soldier.”

…

That had been earlier this morning, and Mark came back home immediately after Arit and Talia were done having their bodies checked by Jeanne. Jeanne came back with them as well since she didn’t feel safe staying in the Superhuman Alliance building alone when Gunter was still on the loose, and she took up one of the spare rooms in the house for now until she decided what she will do going forward. Now, the sun had set, and Mark was sitting in the dark sitting room tiredly.

[Does the User Wish to Send Stat Points to the Selected Stats? Yes/No]

Mark calmly picked ‘Yes,’ and the system brought up a tab showing how Mark had distributed his stat points. Mark had over five thousand stat points and over seven thousand skill points after that fight with the Eldritch, and since Mark had been so busy, he hadn’t really had time to do anything with them. So Mark decided to just get it out of the way now that he had some free time.