The sight of Carlos sizzling atop a metal slab was too much for Caroline to bear… she puked all over herself once more…

The popping of his flesh and the weak moans of pain even made Zeel a bit uncomfortable…

Zeel could even see the pale-yellow of melted fat dripping down the metal slab, quickly licked off the ground by the Militants…

Zeel expected this behavior from a cult, but these were Militants…

Something wasn't making sense…

Then again, it wasn't until recently that Zeel understood humans beyond their flaws…

Caroline, Bean, and Flinch puked their guts out, but they still took occasional peeks at their sizzling comrade…

Luckily, them puking on themselves served to discourage the Militants from partaking of their flesh…

It was a brilliant survival tactic in Zeel's eyes…

Carlos was probably the first chosen to be eaten because he was the cleanliest of the bunch…

Aside from Zeel, of course, since he never stayed dirty…

Bean was faring the best…

He had been tortured extensively so he was somewhat accustomed to the sight of a man being cooked on a slab of metal…

Or, at least, if he was bothered, he hid it so deeply that even Zeel couldn't see it…

Zeel honestly doubted that it was Bean's first time witnessing such a scene, but as someone who did a lot of bad things he could not remember, Zeel was not someone to judge…

Zeel heard Carlos's final whimper and sighed….

'The smart ones always die first…' Zeel lamented internally, much rather seeing Flinch dead instead of Carlos…

After all, Carlos had a brain, and Flinch was probably sucking cocks to survive this long…

Then again, Zeel summed it up to the illogic of Humanity…

Flinch started to shiver like a man trapped in the mountains during winter…

Carlos may have been the weakest amongst the group, but Zeel could tell that Flinch was the most cowardly…

"This is going to be troublesome…" Zeel murmured, not feeling threatened even though he was strapped to a boulder that may or may not be used to tenderize his flesh…

After all, if worse came to existence, he could simply push his Divine Energy to its limits, sending black lightning rampaging all over the place…

The Underground structure would probably collapse and he would take a couple of years to dig himself out, but that wasn't anything a thousand-year slumber couldn't fix…

And also, sure it would kill everyone gathered here, but he could only use such a technique once, and he would be virtually defenseless afterward…

If he had the nanites, piloting his body with his nervous system fried would be as easy as breathing, but without the nanites, he could not risk critical injuries…

Especially, critical injuries that would take days to heal…

So, Zeel decided to wait…

Someone was bound to fuck up in some big way, and he would be there to slit all their necks…

None would be left alive…

Well, maybe he would spare a couple of people to demonstrate his newfound kindness…

'But which ones?' Zeel thought, already creating a mental list of those amongst the Militants who were redeemable…

But when his list failed to produce results, he decided to save Caroline and Bean at least…

That was as far as his heart now stretched – three people, including himself…

Zeel tugged on the chains that bound him to the boulder, and realized there was no way to break free any time soon…

Even using his lightning to cut through the chains would take a couple of hours…

Unlike Zeel who was restrained thoroughly, Bean had some freedom of movement… his feet were shackled, but the chain could extend for half the current chamber…

Bean, Caroline, and Flinch scootered closer to Zeel's boulder…

There were not very far to begin with, but closer to the man who could shoot lightning from his fingers was definitely not a bad idea…

So, they scooted over…

Of course, they were not doing this due to a sense of togetherness, but because Zeel had signaled them to, and they were more than willing to drag attention to someone other than themselves…

"What's the plan?" Bean inquired when they were a couple of feet away…

"There is none…" Zeel mentioned, "I am hoping to come up with a plan of escape using the time the Militants will be eating all of you…"

"YOU FUCKER!" Flinch yelled, and leaped at Zeel, but the shackles around his feet restrained him…

"We had a deal…" Caroline murmured, her heart beating erratically because something in the back of her mind was telling her that Zeel meant every word he said…

"I never said you would die…" Zeel replied bluntly "Just everyone else… you need to take care of me while I am out…"

"Wha—"

Caroline didn't know what Zeel meant by 'out', but before she could inquire, Zeel was already gesturing for Flinch to come a bit closer…

Flinch got up and drifted a bit close to Zeel, stopping at the end of his chains a couple of inches away from Zeel…

Zeel sneered and giggled a bit beneath his breath "I hear you been sucking toes to survive this long…" he whispered, clearly trying to instigate Flinch…

And it worked…

Flinch threw a massive fit…

"YOU MOTHERFUCKER…" He yelled, "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?"

"A dick-sucker?" Zeel mocked, and Flinch's constant shouts of outrage finally gained the attention of the Militants…

Actually, one Militant in particular…

He had a bald head, yellow-stained teeth, about average height, and a scar across his cheek…

Zeel could instantly tell he was the Leader…

There was a certain power in the Leader's steps, and judging by the way he smacked Flinch away, Zeel knew his guess was right…

"What's your name?" The Leader asked, offering Zeel a piece of meat from his plate…

Zeel rolled his eyes and asked mockingly "Should I use the hands bounded to this boulder to eat it?"

The Leader picked a piece of meat with his fingers and offered it to Zeel, and the Homo-Superior took the meat into his mouth with no qualms…

The Leader's hands were soaked in blood and covered in soot, but Zeel accepted the meal of human flesh regardless…

"Crunchy…" Zeel commented, a bit of disdainfulness in his tone…

"Human meat tends to be crunchy…" The Leader replied, expecting Zeel to spit the meal out of his mouth since that was the normal reaction for most people…

But Zeel didn't care…

"Your cooking is a bit off then…" Zeel smacked his lips appraisingly, not bothering to hide his discontent "Human meat should be tender…"

"You have experience with cannibalism then?"

"Oh… I eat anything the Universe offers…" Zeel smiled smugly as if he knew something the Leader didn't "I can tell you the secret ingredient to cooking human flesh, but you wouldn't understand…"

"Really?" The Leader smirked, leaning closer challengingly "What could you possibly know that I don't?"

Zeel tilted his head backward, a silent way of urging the Leader even closer…

The Leader leaned forward in curiosity "Tell m—"

Before the Leader could even finish his statement, Zeel had already leaned closer to his ear, activating [Deep Time-Zone] with all the Divine Energy left inside his body…

The world in Zeel's perception slowed a bit, then stopped entirely…

Black Lightning snaked to life around Zeel's body, but as quickly as the Lightning emerged, it also died down…

Zeel was not looking to fuel the Black Lightning with his Divine Energy…

NO!

He concentrated on maintaining the [Deep Time-Zone], intaking as much air as he could into his lungs…

Even though it burned to breathe in this Time-Zone…

The air felt solid like rocks being stuffed down his throat, but Zeel still inhaled as much as he possibly could until…

"BOOM!" Zeel whispered, the word siphoning all his Divine Energy away in an instant…

His [Deep Time-Zone] was dismissed at that very instant, and the words that were supposed to be a whisper, rang as loud and as sharp as a supersonic weapon…

Nearly twenty times louder than if thunderclouds were booming right next to everyone's ears…

---BBBBBBOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM---

The Leader's head was the first to pop, followed by those nearest to furthest…

Flinch's head popped…

Bean's head popped…

Caroline slumped to the ground screaming in agonizing pain…

Zeel's whisper bounced on the walls of the chamber and rebounded all over the room, popping the head of all Militants for as far as the sound traveled…

When the boom faded, only two people were left alive…

Zeel was half-conscious, slumped on his knees in exhaustion…

The boulder had been shattered by the strength of his earlier whisper, and now, Zeel was once again a totally free man…

Caroline was the only person still alive besides Zeel, but judging by the way she was bleeding from her orifices, it would not be long before she succumbed to those injuries…

With his consciousness waning, Zeel glanced at the bodies of Bean and Flinch, silently cursing himself…

"I was trying to be a good person but… can't save them all, right?" He murmured, crawling to Caroline and recovering the Quantum Armband he had slipped around her arm before these events unfolded…

The only reason Caroline was still alive was that Zeel's Quantum Armband emitted a reverse frequency that nullified almost all of Zeel's earlier whisper…

'Almost' being the important word…

"At least, I saved one…" Zeel cheered, slipping the Quantum Armband back around his upper arm and passing into unconsciousness…