Genesis heard the loud digging sound. The rest of his team must have heard it as well because they started to flee. Genesis commanded them to stay put.
Most of them, if not all of them, were skeptical about his words. But Genesis was a genius.
Genesis anticipated that thing digging towards them was using a sort of system similar to echolocation. Genesis came to this expert like conclusion because whenever they ran or tried to flee, the digging sound would be louder and more repetitive.
He thought the creature must be blind or have a poor vision. If they stayed still and close to the rocks in the cave, then they may be mistaken as rocks.
"Stay near the rocks. I think it's using echolocation."
Genesis whispered as loudly as he could.
Using their shabby acoustic camouflage. It seemed as if the thig had stopped digging. They were safe, but Genesis gestured to them to stay put, even if it was just for a little longer.
They did as followed. They were as still as the human extent made them to be. Then the cohort saw it. A somewhat humanoid figure had pilgrim attire. It roamed through the shadow littered pathway. It walked slowly and Genesis was able to see its skin rotting. That thing was a zombie.
Its eyes were either out of its socket or they were festering. It couldn't see them, but it had evolved to counter that. It had ears that twitched uncontrollably. Genesis could hardly hear the noise it emitted. The high-pitched noise...
That was it! That was the way it used its echolocation! If Genesis got rid of it, they could have one less worry to deal with. If he had a sword, he would have been able to slice off its ears with his hate of Agents.
'This thing looks like something the White Room would come up with. It looks Agent enough for me to hate.'
Even after escaping the White Room, he still despised those malevolent creatures.
All Genesis had was his tiny shovel and a small bag. None of the items in the bag would provide any value. Even if he was close enough to cut off its ears, he did not know if he had the strength to slice off the creatures ears.
He looked around at his exploring crew. They had no weapons at hand. Even if they did the look on their faces, they told Genesis that they were not willing to follow through with the act. All they could do was run and cower in fear.
At least the White Room gave them a chance with their weapons. But this First Major Adaptation, but they had no chance. None at all.
Genesis watched as the zombie walked. Then there was a sudden scraping sound, Genesis looked from where the noise was coming from. Genesis was so surprised when he saw it an eyebrow raised.
The zombie was dragging a heavy metal object. An excavator claw, the bucket teeth made a horrible noise when it scraped across the floor, but Genesis somehow did not notice it before.
The excavator claw was rust colored with a tint of yellow. If the claw still had that bit of yellow it meant three possible options. It meant that the creature had found this excavator not long ago. The zombie had taken care of the excavator to an astonishing degree.
The last option was probably the or the best. It was that the pilgrim had evolved to be able to deoxidize things or had some sort of deoxidizer. If the zombie excavator wielder could really deoxidize the claw what else could it remove oxygen from?
Genesis did not want to find out so he stayed put, strategizing. He hypothesised that the pilgrim attire was not just a costume and this zombie was from long ago. Which meant it had gone up and found this excavator claw somewhere.
Genesis hoped that the creature had just taken really good care of the claw and it could not deoxidize. If not that would be a problem. But another good question was why had the creature not stayed higher up in the ground.
It either did not want to or was bound by something. It was kept here, of free will or ancient law, one may never know.
Genesis had spent so much time thinking that. He did not notice the zombie leaving them be. It was long gone. It was actually safe to move now.
His crew rushed over and came to him and they barrged him with a bunch of questions in sign language.
"What do we do now? If that thing really uses echolocation it's going to take way longer to find a way out of here. Plus there may be more of it."
"Do we have anything that can fully mask us or anything to disrupt the echolocation."
A person went up to Genesis because he couldn't see his signs before and he spoke with his hands saying.
"I carry magnetostrictive crystals."
"Amazing! Now we just need a magnet. I know at least one person here carries a magnet."
Jamie pulled out a magnet from her pocket. She stepped over and handed it to Genesis. Genesis then put the magnetostrictive crystal near the magnet and the ultrasonic noise was made.
"How do we know it works?"
"Can't you guys hear that high-pitched noise?"
"Humans aren't supposed to be able to hear ultrasonic noise, Genesis."
It seemed that his hearing was beyond the human limit, good to know.
"Just trust me, it's there I can hear it."
The other members of they're exploring group looked cautious. They didn't hear the noise, nobody except Genesis did. They all believed they were right and that Genesis was going mad. They wanted to trust him they really did.
But his statement just made it so hard to believe him that they just chose to trust in him with blind faith. They followed him in the search to find a new exit.
***
This entire place was a labyrinth. It was so confusing that it made even Genesis's head hurt. In their time in the maze they had found countless torches, which kept the bats at bay. They also hadn't seen the zombie pilgrim in a long time.
But no matter how futile each attempt was they still kept on pushing. Genesis still wanted to save these people. After all this was his crew. He cared about them almost as much as he cared about his actual crew.
Speaking of his actual crew he wondered how they were doing. He was especially worried for the baby. He thought the best he could about the child's survival skills but he really didn't think it could survive. He wanted to believe but he didn't think he could. The same thing applied with Smudge.
Genesis also pondered about Lautaro's wellbeing. Lautaro was a strong person and he was incredibly amazing at adapting aswell but his recklessness might kill him one day.
He knew that Noel and Jae would be doing better than okay because they're monsters of change. If they see a situation they adapt to it as fast as a bullet train speeds through the city.
In the White Room it wasn't a challenge it was truly just a learning phase. A phase for them to awaken who they truly were.
For them the tutorial was too easy. He wondered what sort of amazing powers they would gain. Jae would probably have a power that let's him command an army. He wasn't too sure about Noel though. If they're powers were truly suited to them then he did not know what type of ability Noel could gain.
Whatever it was Genesis was sure that Noel would be able to use it to it's full potential. That was just how enchanting Noel was. She was probably beautiful enough to make the First Major Adaptation a breeze.
'I bet she could charm Fate itself.'
How amazing that would be. Noel would ask Fate to stop kicking, punching, slashing, gutting, drowing, burning, choking and infecting Genesis. But the problem was that Fate would probably pretend it did not hear Noel's pleas and keep being a horrendous thing to Genesis.
Hana and Sephina were different cases though. Sephina had told Genesis about her past life of turmoil. She cried to him about the bullying that she endured. Sometimes he even held her while she had her terrible nightmares.
If she faced another incident like that again. He was afraid of what would happen. Not just for the bullies but for herself. What if she did something she could never undo? Genesis tried not to think about the idea and he did his best to believe in new Sephina, the Sephina that had survived countless terrors, the Sephina that never hesitated to draw her bow.
Yes. He believed in that one. The one that he needed to believe in.
Hana on the other hand was a difficult issue entirely. If her First Major Adaptation involved interacting with people at all then she might not succeed in completing the First Major Adaptation. She might be stuck there forever. But Genesis hoped that she prevailed for all of his crew he did.
As for the explorers they were met with a devious surprise. The zombie stood right at the end of the pathway. It still had that same look to it and the excavator claw was still the same. Genesis then took the magnet and put it near the crystal.
The ultrasonic noise bounced off the somewhat narrow pathway, reaching the zombie. The zombie ears started to click but the more it clicked the more it seemed that its echolocation was not working. Genesis had done it!
The pilgrim started to swing the claw randomly, in a desperate attempt to attack them it swung at the pathway entrance. The rocks above started to crumble and fall down. The pathway was collapsing.
Genesis's group tried to exit from behind them but a cauldron of the white bats attacked, flanking them. They were trapped in the pathway and it was collapsing. This was not good, not good at all.
Torches we're thrown and bats were slayed. But the cloud was too much. The fire wasn't killing them fast enough and the zombie was approaching. It swung relentlessly, never giving up in its attack.
Two fatal threats were charging at them, but it was one single bat that killed them all. A small white bat dodged the almost magnetic fire and then it charged at Genesis. But the bat missed entirely, instead it hit the crystal out of Genesis's hands.
The crystal was on the floor just for a bit. For about 3 seconds the ultrasonic noise stopped. The zombie used its echolocation in the first second, then spent the next 2 golden seconds killing.
It was fast too fast. Faster than an advanced Agent on pure caffeine. It killed 5 of his team members, in 2 seconds it took 5 lives.
Genesis opened his mouth in awe. The others who were throwing fire at the bats got distracted and they stopped. Instantly a colony of bats swarmed them. Blocking they're vision and knocking theire chances of getting the crystal out of the park.
The pilgrim took its time slaughtering them all. There was no fighting back, there was no opportunity, there was no stroke of luck, Genesis was dead.
But he didn't give up either when the pilgrim swung at him it took out a group of bats because Genesis had managed to disable its echolocation. But the zombie struck at the ground beneath Genesis's feet, the ground gave way and Genesis fell.
***
Genesis quickly woke up and heard a somewhat familiar voice.
"Genesis Blotch has failed the First Major Adaptation. Is what Adonis would be saying if I wasn't here."
Genesis looked in the completely white space and saw the Purposeless Wanderer. He was wearing a wide hat and a trench coat it covered most of his body except his pure white smile.
"Genesis if you are to be my successor you have to do better. I can't be saving you all the time, I'm a busy man and one day I won't be there to save you."
"Are you the reason?"
Genesis asked abruptly.
The Purposeless Wanderer gave a smile before answering.
"Yes. I am the reason why you are so unlucky. You see Fate doesn't like me very much and I like you much enough, so Fate doesn't like you much. Understand? Good."
"So what do I do now? All my crew is dead and the zombie pilgrim and flaming white bats are attacking me."
"Oh, them. They're all dead. I know I'm so amazing. All praise the Purposeless Wanderer. But Genesis you lost because of your mindset and also due to slight communication issues with Adonis."
"What do you mean communication issues?"
The Purposeless Wanderer answered Genesis half heartedly.
"You'll find out later in your journey if you ask your ADAM now you will probably a whole lot weaker than you should be. But anyway. You lost because you cared to much. The quest for your FMA was just to steal that gem. If you used people as who they truly are, which is lesser than you. Then you would not have lost that is why your mindset needs to change, you spend to much time being the wannabe altruistic, when you only have you, yourself and you. So you have to change that, I'm simply just helping."
Genesis didn't know what the Purposeless Wanderer was talking about but when his smile grew wider and his fingers raised up he was scared for what the Wanderer was going to do to him.
"Genesis Blotch go bring chaos into this world of evolution. End this world of evolution and go to sleep."
The Purposeless Wanderer snapped his hands and Genesis fell asleep for a long, long time...