Dante nodded and walked inside, gazing at the decorations and style of his base. Sitting right in the heart of the city, nestled amidst towering skyscrapers that breached the atmosphere's limit, lay the discreet yet conspicuous sprawling territory.
Its outer walls that faced the public shimmered with a dark black force field, making anyone who had curiosity on their mind to enter this property feel hesitation.
Hovering transport ships entered and exited through an anti-gravity launch bay, their sleek metallic surfaces reflecting the barrier's dark glow. They continually brought in necessary materials and personnel from outside who were necessary for the base to function.
After all, you didn't expect Dante to manually be carting things up and down like when he was first setting up on earth back then? There was no need since he was now in the Eternal universe, the source of it all.
Once through the giant glass doors that had dark-green orb-like scanners to check everyone and everything that entered the base officially, one could finally see the interior of the sprawling establishment.
Inside, the base buzzed with a familiar symphony of silent mechanical hums and soft whirrs. Luminescent panels lined the corridors, guiding soldiers in biomechanical suits to their destinations. Tubes filled with iridescent liquid connected chambers where bio-warriors cloned using quantum species genetics rested and regenerated.
After all, Dante had killed a lot of things in his various escapades, and he often kept some in his quantum space. After replicating the corpses and removing quantum poison, he threw them into the lab to be spliced and recombined into troops of the organic kind.
His earlier idea of having only androids or synthetic troops was quite foolish and shortsighted, limited by his ignorant perspective back then. Unfortunately, as awesome as it seemed, using a mechanical army only worked when the technology level of the opposing force was lower than yours.
Putting aside the Eternal Universe, which was the same technology level as Dante's current means, more than 90% of the universe qualified to enter the First Gate had achieved this level of technology.
More than 60% had better technology than the Eternal Universe, and Dante by extension. Using technology there was ill-advised, which was why the Eternal universe hadn't simply run rampant with anti-matter weapons or dark matter weapons to push forward.
Not only did the enemy have anti-anti-matter technology, but they could either pull out weapons of the same class, and if you were unlucky, weapons of a higher class. At that time, it would be too late to cry 'uncle!'
Dante continued straight to the military base's control center, which was a football field-sized labyrinth of holographic screens and neural interfaces.
A colossal viewscreen in the center - a running trend with things in this universe, Dante noticed - displayed important information about the faction's operations, their recruitment, as well as expansion, blinking with the knowledge of interstellar travel routes.
While Dante was observing the screen, a group of 50 people walked toward him, led by three in the front. When Dante turned to regard the group with a smile, the three in front naturally being Aisha, Lucian, and Harold, immediately fell to one knee in reverence.
"Aisha, Sin Demon of Lust, greets the Quantum Lord!"
"Harold, Sin Demon of Envy, greets the Quantum Lord!"
"Lucian, Sin Demon of Pride, greets the Quantum Lord!"
Their voices were loud and powerful, causing a heatwave to surge through the large room that felt abyssal in nature. Those who followed them felt a hint of pain and fear in their very souls, as if these three were entities that they absolutely should not be so close to in any way.
Dante nodded in approval. "You may rise."
It may sound a bit pretentious given where he came from and who he was just under a year ago, but Dante did not feel that way. The moment he had decided to walk down the path of a conqueror, he expected to be treated differently.
He wasn't the type for false modesty, to insist that his subordinates call him in a friendly manner and act disrespectfully towards him in public. Maybe in private was fine, but everything had its time and place.
The trio of Deadly Sin Hellfire Demons stood up with a respectful smile. Dante then glanced past them to see those they brought along, and he was satisfied. Among them were the 28 students from his class and a smattering of others who were sent here by his confidantes.
Connor sent over 3 of his younger cousins, while Beatrice and Lily contributed almost 10 youngsters of the Portinari Clan. Peter, Dante's uncle, had been roaming the universe in these months and had built himself a small alien harem.
Among them, some of the aliens and mixed breeds related to the woman begged Peter to speak to his nephew and send their younger brothers or sisters over, and they made up about 6 people.
The final 3 were from Harold and Lucian's families.
Now that the way things have been said, it would seem like these youngsters were being sold off to Dante… which wasn't far from the truth. However, they were more than willing to come and even fought for this chance for many obvious reasons that should not have to be stated.
"Hmm. It's good to see you all here. You already know who I am, so there's no need for an introduction. Also, you can be sure that I know exactly who all of you are." Dante began addressing them as all eyes fell on him.
"Each of you will walk up to me one by one and receive your new power from me. You have already been briefed by my three generals, and I hope that there are four of you with enough talent to fill the rest of the gaps."
Dante clapped his hands. "Without further ado, let's begin. Humphrey, you come over first, then Slessor."
Humphrey was startled but walked over with a calm expression that was clearly forced. He had gone from a top talent with the perspective of being top of his batch to a waste that no one in his clan cared about until Dante mentioned he would take them in.
The speed at which he went from heaven to hell and now to this… heaven?… was still weighing on his mind. In truth, he did not mind being subordinate to Dante given his talent and abilities. After that second mock exam in the virtual zero gate, his mind had cleared up, and he no longer regarded Dante as his peer, but a peerless monster with no equal.
The reason that he couldn't be calm was that, in the end, the power that Dante would be giving him would be foreign, external even. It would never be his, like his Aerogenesis had been.
Dante seemed to see Humphrey's turmoil but did not offer solace. Even though he certainly understood how Humphrey felt and where he was coming from, the fact was that he would be in the underworld by now if Dante hadn't resurrected him.
He was lucky to even have all of his body, spirit, and soul in one piece along with his stats and memories. To expect his superpowers to come back when the universe could only support one holder of each was a joke, of course, the universe took it back the moment he genuinely died.
As for being resurrected, well.
It had nothing to do with the universe and he had died already, so there was that. As for Portia, not only was she the literal Daughter of Heaven, but the Nirvana Fire of a Phoenix was tyrannical enough to not only snatch back her soul from reincarnation, it even recollected her superpowers and activated them.
But of course, Dante was not going to use Nirvana Fire for his darling fellow classmates, otherwise how could he have them here before him like this, seeking power at the cost of their freedom?
Dante immediately began infusing Humphrey with his Hellfire True Qi and stopped when the fellow entered into a cocoon to begin the transformation. He moved the cocoon to the side and continued with Slessor after that and everyone one by one for the next few minutes.
By the time he was done with the last person, Humphrey's cocoon was about to split open since the man inside had already completed his conversion. In another few minutes, it burst open, revealing the now naked and handsome half-elf to the world.
Before Humphrey could even gain stock of his ability as well as where he was, he heard a voice filled with amusement off to the side that was familiar.
"Oh? I never expected this. The popular Humphrey of the Unique Batch definitely became a Sin Demon, but I did not expect you to get this sin at all."
Humphrey turned to see Harold glancing at him with amusement while Lucian was disdainful. As for Aisha, she was only here to goad and instigate, so she giggled as if to say that their words were true.
Humphrey was puzzled. Sin demon? Which one was he then?
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