Chapter 281: Afterlife, the Inhuman Organization
"Their goal was to create a loyal army that had no fear of death."
"But for various reasons, the experiment was both a success and a failure. In the end, the Kree Empire withdrew completely from Earth. Over countless generations, some descendants of the ancient humans who had undergone those experiments inherited Inhuman genes."
"Starting around the 1980s and 90s, people gradually began awakening those genes. Most hid themselves, while others were captured and suffered miserable lives, much like many mutants."
"After your mother, Jiaying, recovered from what happened to her, she spent more than a decade traveling the world to find and rescue Inhumans. She eventually founded an organization called Afterlife."
"The name represents leaving one life behind and beginning another—it also symbolizes being given a second chance."
Matthew explained everything piece by piece.
Only then did Skye understand that her identity as an Inhuman could be traced back to ancient times and to biological experiments conducted by the Kree Empire.
Skye was familiar with the Kree Empire. Terra possessed extensive information about the universe, though much of it had been taken directly from Kamar-Taj's brief history of the cosmos.
The Kree were a humanoid alien race that had established a vast empire in the Large Magellanic Cloud.
The original Kree had blue skin, though another branch of the species emerged thousands of years later.
Physically, they were largely similar to humans. However, Hala's harsher environment—particularly its stronger gravity and nitrogen-rich atmosphere—made the Kree far more resilient. Although they could not breathe Earth's atmosphere without specialized equipment, their denser bodies gave them roughly twice the strength and endurance of an average human.
Their civilization had existed for six million years, during which the Kree Empire expanded across nearly a thousand worlds in the northwestern region of the Large Magellanic Cloud.
It was a vast colonial empire and a true galactic superpower, with technology far beyond anything Earth could match.
However, Skye had little interest in the Kree Empire or its history. What she cared about was her mother and the organization Jiaying had built.
So she asked Matthew about it.
This time, he answered without hesitation. . "Afterlife is located deep within the Himalayan mountain range of Nepal."
"Deep in the Himalayas?" Skye blinked in surprise.
She remembered that Kamar-Taj was also located in the Himalayas, but she quickly realized the two were nowhere near each other. Kamar-Taj was near Kathmandu, while Afterlife lay much deeper within the mountain range.
The Himalayas stretched roughly 2,450 kilometers from east to west, so the two locations could easily be separated by several hundred kilometers.
"I understand," Skye said, nodding.
After a moment's pause, Matthew spoke up. "Find your mother and convince her to abandon those ideas. Terra accepts all people—it can accept the Inhumans as well."
He left the rest unsaid, but Skye understood his meaning, a complex look surfacing in her eyes.
Whether she considered Calvin's account or the Emperor's gentle warning, it was clear that something had happened to her biological mother and changed her completely.
It made sense. Jiaying had only recently become a mother when someone came for her, cut her open, dismembered her, and left her body in the wilderness.
That kind of pain and torment could easily destroy a person's mind.
The Emperor was merciful.
His promise also meant that Skye had considerable freedom in how she handled the situation.
Her heart filled with gratitude.
In the end, Skye left the estate with renewed determination, while Matthew returned to the living room.
The matter itself did not mean much to him—but Skye did.
The young woman had enormous potential. Otherwise, Matthew would never have entrusted her with a top-tier Devil Fruit like the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
She also possessed excellent strategic and tactical instincts, along with the qualities of a natural commander.
That was rare.
By allowing Skye to handle this matter on her own and decide how to resolve it, Matthew believed she would finally overcome the burden that had haunted her for years—and once that obsession was gone, she would likely experience another major period of growth.
It was an excellent investment.
With war approaching, Matthew remained as calm as ever and showed no sign of concern.
During the breaks between training and study, he began considering another matter.
Now that the Terra Empire had been founded, he had no intention of keeping its ambitions small.
The unification of Earth was inevitable.
According to Terra's established strategy, they had chosen not to use the overwhelming power of the three warbands and Matthew himself to conquer the entire world immediately.
Doing so would be easy—no one could stop them.
The real difficulty would be absorbing and stabilizing everything afterward, which would take a great deal of time.
Even so, they could not simply remain idle in the meantime.
Preparations had to be made in advance.
Karla and the others were already handling those matters. Matthew only needed to continue growing stronger while refining Terra's training and development systems.
Those systems had already matured considerably.
Even so, Matthew believed something was still missing—
mobility and population for future large-scale wars.
Mobility, in this case, meant technology.
Terra's technological level—especially its genetic technology—was already impressive even by galactic standards.
That was true when measured against human civilization.
Other species, particularly divine races and those with exceptional bloodlines, were born with natural advantages. Asgard was the clearest example.
Even ordinary Asgardian civilians possessed physical gifts far beyond those of most other civilizations.
On Earth, their bodies would rival or even surpass Steve Rogers after becoming Captain America.
Humans, by contrast, were fragile from birth. They started weak, and their natural limits were low.
A disease, a car accident, a simple mishap, extreme heat, or drowning could easily take a life.
Humanity's greatest advantages were probably its ability to reproduce, its intelligence, and its unusually rich emotions.
But even its reproductive capacity could not compare with certain insectoid species, while its greatest minds still fell short of ancient interstellar empires with vast accumulated knowledge.
Intelligence alone could not close such an enormous technological gap.
And without some extraordinary method of conversion, emotion could not become power either.
That was why most civilizations in the universe knew almost nothing about humanity—and even those that did rarely considered it worth their attention.
From their perspective, humanity was a primitive species.
The only thing Earth truly had in its favor was its favorable ecosystem.
If an interstellar war had ever reached Earth without the protection of Kamar-Taj or Asgard, humanity would likely have been enslaved, consumed by demons, or bred like livestock.
Terra's genetic technology had begun to change that.
But it was still not enough.
Earth's population of several billion might seem vast, but compared with the scale of the universe, it was insignificant.
Matthew planned to wait until Terra completed its initial transformation, then unify Earth within a short period and fully integrate the planet's population, technology, and resources.
At the same time, the military would be expanded.
After that, Terra would need a Great Crusade.
Earth was simply too small. Even if every ecosystem and resource on the planet were forcibly consolidated, it still would not be enough.
Perhaps it could support them for several decades—or even a century.
But what about after that?
...