Grim Reaper in the Apocalypse: Reaping Immortals

Atlan looked at the marvelous battle suit right in front of his very eyes. He didn't know what kind of knowledge and skill it took to create such a masterpiece. Each fiber was laced with power and complexity that looked out of this world.

"This battle suit is rated to defend against Specialist-level Canzers. The padding has five different layers, all separated by a vacuum. It corresponds to five full-powered attacks from the Canzers. Each one will crack and peel away when it gets destroyed, allowing you to have–essentially–five brand new battle suits all in one."

"These paddings…they're made out of chitin? I didn't think that we could use the carcasses of Canzers to create equipment like this."

Carmine nodded and explained. "This world has a distinct lack of valuable natural resources. Back in the olden days, we had plenty, but ever since they turned into the Unclaimed Lands, we have nowhere else to gather any good materials.

The ones that we have now are all recycled or bestowed upon us by the Genesis God. As you can guess, that's not sustainable.

We might not have many natural resources, but we do have a lot of corpses from all the missions we complete. So, our forefathers started to incorporate them into our equipment. They quickly found out that it's much more resilient than natural elements.

And as a bonus, we found that the equipment with Chitin has an unexpected magical power, allowing us to create constructs and weapons."

Atlan focused on Carmine's last words. "Constructs? They're also made out of Canzer carcasses?"

Carmine nodded. "Usually, I can't tell you this, but since you're officially enrolled in the University, you'll eventually learn this fact.

The magical effects of constructs—the very reason why they're so effective in disabling a Canzer's abilities of regeneration or cloning—is because they are made out of the very Canzer's innards and DNA."

"What?!" Atlan couldn't believe it. Whenever he came across a construct, he always felt the power of the Angels and some other kind of element; he never felt the presence of any Cancer-related ingredient.

He thought that it was the Angel power that allowed constructs to disable a Canzer's powers. But it turned out that it wasn't the whole truth.

"And more often than not, we use the carcass/remains of the same species of Canzers to create a construct that disables that same species," Carmine added.

"How is that possible? How can you use a Canzer's own corpse to disable their species? My intuition would tell me that doing that would only empower the Canzer rather than weaken them."

Carmine felt like he was teaching a student, but he didn't hate it. Atlan would need this basic knowledge to survive in the University.

"This is not an uncommon practice. Even in the olden days, when there were no Gods and Canzers in the world, humans had a lot of trouble with snakes. Whenever they were bitten, they would get infected with a venom that would slowly kill them.

Their solution to this was to extract that same venom from the snake itself and use that to create what's called an 'antivenom' that will be able to cure the bitten human.

The same principle applies to constructs.

We extract the essence of a specific Canzer from their corpse, and we inject them into a Pseudo Canzer.

This Pseudo Canzer will treat this strange foreign essence as a poison that must be destroyed. So, their bodies would produce defenses that would kill this 'poison' and start to heal their bodies.

This is what we use. We harvest those defenses that can kill the essence of a Canzer and use it to create a construct."

Atlan didn't know that Pseudo Canzers were used that way. He thought they were only good for target practice or for injecting venom into people who want to have a good time.

"This is why our City has invested a lot of our resources into Pseudo Canzer research. They are essential in our lives, not only for the creation of constructs but for our daily life as well. Did you know that mounts are also Pseudo Canzers? Did you know that most pets in households are Pseudo Canzers?"

Atlan had no idea how integral Pseudo Canzers were to the functioning of the entire City.

He now understood why the Garden club was abandoned in favor of the Pseudo Canzer division. No matter how much he thought about it, Pseudo Canzers were so much more useful.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Of course, some Canzers require more sophisticated methods that are sometimes completely illogical and arbitrary, but for the most basic Canzers, this is how we create constructs.

You'll learn them the higher you go in your courses at the University, but I'll show you an example. I heard that you were part of the Pocket Remedium disaster, the one with the Giant Werewolf Canzer.

Did you know that one of its weaknesses was its hubris?"

Atlan knew the word, but he didn't know if Carmine was talking about the noun, or something else.

"Is that some kind of element?"

"No. It means that the Giant Werewolf, or Giants, in particular, are typically arrogant and conceited. That is their weakness. If you can use their excessive pride to your advantage, then you will be able to weaken the Canzer by a tremendous amount.

Think about that. Hubris is not a physical object, it is merely an abstract word. Yet, it can affect the Canzer by a large degree."

Atlan was fascinated and horrified at the same time. The fact that such a concept would be the downfall of a Specialist-level Canzer as powerful as the Giant Werewolf lit a fire of interest in his heart. He wanted to know more about other abstract weaknesses of Canzers.

At the same time, he was scared at the thought of facing a Canzer that had no physical weaknesses. If he didn't know the abstract weakness of a Canzer, he might never be able to kill them at all.

Carmine smiled when he saw the conflicting expression on Atlan's face. This was the very reason he mentioned this to him in the first place. He wanted to stoke the youth's interest in constructs and Operators.

"But you don't have to worry about how to create a construct for now. At the very center of your battle suit is a control center," Carmine said as he pointed at a hexagonal black object embedded in the middle of the chest piece.