Instantly feeling the effects of the blood-red energy filling his body from his mouth opened to the fullest, the engineer struggled to see the entire change, even if he was the subject in question. He was experiencing a phenomenon he was witnessing for the first time, both as a scientist and a test subject right now.
The limbs, detached from the torso they had been connected to since birth and rendered useless, were returning to their former places with newly formed ligaments. When ten breaths passed, the engineer managed to stand up and swing his arms comfortably. Only his severed hand wasn't reforming, but it was obvious this was thanks to the metallic patch he placed over the open wound.
"It's unbelievable, I'm experiencing such life energy for the first time. I can feel it; my arms, my legs healed much stronger than before!"
After the engineer healed, he seemed to have forgotten for a while for what purpose this event took place; his entire focus was on detecting the changes occurring in his body.
"Nine minutes and fifty-eight seconds!"
Nafız's reaction was clear; it resembled the words an adult would say to a child amusing themselves by turning the room's light on and off. Upon hearing that his time was running out, the engineer returned from the dream world he had plunged into and started speaking inside the Blood Dome amidst the destruction.
"Those who rule the Machine Empire are closely interested in you, the orcs. In an age where all powers managed to establish a balance with each other in some way, you emerged unexpectedly and changed everything.
Taking the Orc Steppes under your control killed their buzz a bit at first, but the Wild Swamp campaign that followed changed all their opinions. For the Machine Empire, which caught the chance to sell at least ten times the weapons sold during the Two-Year Wars in a single go, you were the side that breathed life into their stagnating economy."
Any kind of information coming from within the Machine Empire, which was a complete black box, was worth its weight in gold, and exactly for this reason, Nafız showed no reaction to the engineer's prattle.
"What you sold during the war must be a drop in the ocean compared to what you sold afterwards due to the impact it created and the fear we struck into the other civilizations!"
Just as his body healed, the engineer was regaining his senses mentally by responding to the words spoken by the Blood God. The moment he felt he gained value as a source of information, both his posture and the energy he radiated changed.
"The Mercenaries, who are one of our biggest customers, even the first, disposed of almost all the spoils they obtained by raiding the Hell Realm to buy weapons. While the Queen of Hell Eyshan constantly bought weapons under the table to put her secret plans into action, the ongoing war with the Lands of Light ensured both sides wore down our doorstep.
When you conquered that place too, the two civilizations, thinking it was their turn, had to grant some privileges, not just gold, to buy weapons!"
When the conversation, which was progressing within Nafız's knowledge up to this point, veered in another direction, the engineer stopped to catch his breath. The reason for this, aside from saying the long sentence in a single breath, stemmed from wanting to gauge the changing attitudes of the person across from him, and he would reach the data he wanted immediately.
"Five minutes, twenty-six seconds!"
The blond engineer, who thought he had gained some leeway with his intriguing words, continued to do what he had to do without paying attention to his dry throat the moment he saw nothing had changed.
"The Mercenaries allowed us to build a giant facility in the region under the dominion of the Golden Leaf Merchant Guild. Here, engineers and architects had permission to conduct all the experiments they couldn't do inside the Machine Empire."
When he referred to his compatriots, whom he had constantly addressed as 'we' up to this point, as 'they' for the first time, the Blood God had to intervene.
"What kind of experiments are we talking about?"
The surface of the Blood Dome rippled; the blond man had to answer this question before anything else.
"Every kind of experiment you can think of is being conducted. All the studies that cannot be carried out within the borders of the Machine Empire due to ethical concerns are conducted inside this facility, and the most important issue is that almost all the test subjects are orcs!"
The sole piece of land inside the Border Castle disappeared after these words as well. While Alator, watching the events from the edge of the cavity, barely caught Pavlovich who came flying, the engineer was groaning between the claws of the Blood God.
"I have no guilt; like I said, I'm just a simple third-class engineer, I haven't even passed my mastership exam yet."
Succumbing to her anger for a moment, Nafız roughed up the engineer a bit but then returned to her former calmness. Words she wouldn't have cared about in the past could drive her crazy now. While she carried her own past life and Mora's consciousness within her, she acted feeling more human than orc, judging what she heard accordingly, but after releasing both of them and seizing the lineage power of God Berkut, she had become a pure-blooded orc.
Berkut was the god who gave orcs their power, and while his life force flowed in her veins, it was impossible for her to react in any other way.
"Speak, where do they find the orcs used for experiments in this facility?"
The blond man, whose pressure on him lessened, was aware he was walking on the edge and was going to spill everything he had.
"Orcs had been bought and sold as slaves on the Mercenaries' Lodge for a very long time. Upon you conquering the Orc Steppes, the shipments were cut off, but due to your superior reproductive capability, you continued to exist on the continent.
When our people got permission for such a facility, however many orcs lived on the Mercenaries' Lodge were gathered here, and production began in an area inside the facility!"
Swallowing five times before saying his last words, the engineer finally spilled the beans, and a breath later, his head left his body.
"Time's up!"
Perhaps he wasn't aware, but the lifespan allotted by the Blood God had ended that second. The Blood Dome dispersed; the Elemental Ten, witnessing what happened, took a step back each and set to watching Nafız floating in the air.
"So you started stuffing orcs into barns and breeding them like farm animals."
Flapping the blood wings extending to her two sides by emerging from her back thanks to the Orc Blood Techniques, Nafız hovered a bit higher, and when she concluded she had risen enough, she called out to the Elemental Ten.
"I am going to destroy the nearest border outpost! Fix the destruction you created and follow me!"
While Nafız went in search of blood to extinguish the fire blazing inside her, the Elemental Ten was rushing to close the giant pit they created. The news of the destruction of the first Border Castle would be heard sooner or later, but it wasn't smart to leave traces of an elemental attack behind.
Savagery was in their nature; they couldn't fight by denying their existence, but to not give the enemy information about themselves, they had to use their brains alongside it. While Nafız's two black daggers pierced armor and made cuts reaching down to the bone, far away, in the Heart of the Sand hidden among the desert sands, Wind of Death was thoughtfully watching outside.
"Instead of our spies we sent along with those exiled from the Orc Steppes, I encountered someone I don't know who they are. If he knows, the three bigwigs of the city are also aware we're here, but why haven't they attempted to do anything yet?"
The Blood God was storming and raging along with the ten druids she took with her, burning and destroying whatever came her way. If it weren't a mission requiring stealth, Wind of Death would undoubtedly want to be in her place, but what fell to her this time was a mission that would require her to run her brain at full capacity alongside her superior physical attributes.
"It's impossible for us to achieve anything by waiting. Since they didn't come and find us, then I will find them!"