A few years had passed since the arrival of Theophile’s seeds.
Civilization had decayed at an overwhelming speed.
Some factors accelerated this more than others.
The first was the relentless parasitism of the seeds.
The second was the outbreak of violence at the hands of contaminated beings.
Lastly was mankind’s proclivity for self-destruction.
Scientists around the world worked tirelessly to investigate the seed’s properties, discovering some key breakthroughs.
Contained within each seed was the DNA information for both male and female plants. Male plants warped buildings into enormous, grotesque towers. Female plants eventually morphed into a white moon-like apparatus floating above each tower.
Male plants absorbed people and objects as nutrients to facilitate their growth. When a tower reaches its apex, consummating with the white moon, the female plant is inseminated, thus giving birth to a new seed.
A new kind of seed was born. It became known as Witchcraft, a core with mimicry abilities far beyond its predecessor.
So potent were its properties that one could harness them to make a wish strong enough to reshape the entire world.
Once humans became privy to this knowledge, chaos ensued.
Countries waged war over control of Witchcraft. It elicited mankind’s most selfish desires, warping humanity worse than Theophile itself.
Despair encroached everywhere.
A group of girls known as Massacre Pink served as arbiters of this despair, themselves born out of the demented machinations of torture devices.
“Hey Sister Mei, wanna play a game? First we capture a family with lots of kids, then we make the parents choose who we kill first! Whoever guesses which kid the parent chooses gets a point!” The youngest sister, Gallows, had personally tallied a hundred victims by the age of six.
“Whaaaat? That is crass, Gallows. Leave me out of your barbarism★ Instead, let’s see who can find the most delicious morsel. I can’t lose there.”
The second sister was Iron Maiden, and her tally nearly doubled that of her younger sister’s.
Her brand of sadism extended to tasting her victims.
“Enough horseplay, you two. Our duty is simply to murder as many humans and monsters as possible. Do not undermine our task with childish games.”
The eldest, Guillotine, had superiority for claiming five hundred lives herself.
“Okaaaay.”
The younger sisters begrudgingly obeyed their elder with a playful sticking out of the tongue.
　 The torture device-mimicking group of Massacre Pinks killed man and beast indiscriminately.
The only adversaries who could hold a candle to their destructive force were other Massacre Pink children.
Massacre Pink girls outside of this particularly blood-thirsty outfit were known in some circles as protectors of mankind.
In most of their initial encounters, the two factions were of equal strength, concluding each clash with a draw.
It was not long before the mastermind behind the evil Massacre Pink looked into ways to evolve his test subjects beyond their potential.
Meditation.
Machinery.
Body parts, taken from contaminated beings.
He left no stone unturned to alter the make-up of his Massacre Pink executioners, turning them into unstoppable killers.
This profound change was most evident in their shiny, new appearances.
Blue eyes, and gray skin.
He distilled the world’s corruption to its essence, producing his finest work yet.
◯ With new methods came inspiration for experimentation.
The first was to abduct pregnant women, using the fallen seeds to contaminate both them and their eventual offspring.
Iron Maiden and Gallows were born of this method.
Guillotine was conceived similarly, proving its effectiveness.
Yet this method had its limitations.
Unlike normal humans, incubation time far surpassed nine months.
Both Iron Maiden and Gallows were in the womb for nearly two years prior to birth.
This required the maintenance of precise conditions for the mothers to ensure their survival.
Above all, it was inefficient.
Additionally, a declining human population led to a decrease in pregnant women.
Thus the mastermind searched for more aggressive, immediate means.
He soon learned that it was easier to abduct an already-born child, and manipulate them directly with the plant’s parasite.
It presented a great challenge, producing a near-total failure rate.
He conducted experiment after experiment, but each trial merely contaminated its subject.
But he persisted, holding onto the knowledge of other Massacre Pink girls in their teens who mutated into their superhuman state.
Patience, he realized, was key.
Every failure was a chance to abduct another girl and try again.
His only obstacle was finding enough test subjects.
So he commanded each of his girls to abduct young girls at every opportunity for his research.
“Eventually,” he calculated, “I’ll have my fourth.”
Not long after...Pyre was found.
　 ◯ On the surface, a grave threat appeared.
It was a floating, insatiable Jail that engulfed anything and everything it saw, ballooning in size with each meal.
It symbolized the world coming to its end.
This all-consuming entity soon became known by mankind as the Devouring Armada Tower.