I left my father’s fight behind. My own mission wasn’t over.
I ran through the basent corridors, following the plans I had morized. Alarms were blaring. My father’s soldiers were securing the base, exchanging fire with the lab’s rcenaries. It was chaos.
I found the control room. A large, reinforced door, like a vault. It was locked.
I didn’t look for a code.
I placed my hand on the steel. I used my dagger, not as a weapon, but as a key. I felt the energy of the locking chanism and erased it.
The locks retracted with a series of dull clicks.
I pushed the heavy door and entered.
The control room was a large, circular chamber, filled with screens and consoles.
And in the center, Dr. Aris Thorne was there.
He didn’t seem surprised to see . He just looked at with his cold, calculating eyes.
He was holding a syringe. A large syringe filled with the sa black, pulsating liquid I had seen in the reports. Abyss creature cells, pure and concentrated.
"You’re just in ti," he said, his voice calm despite the chaos outside. "To witness the birth of a god."
And before my eyes, he plunged the syringe into his own arm and injected the contents into his veins.
The black liquid coursed through his veins, visible beneath his pale skin. His body began to tremble, to convulse. Inhuman groans escaped his throat.
"You see?" he managed to articulate between spasms. "This isn’t just a serum. It’s the essence... the pure essence of the Aura Devourer you killed!"
His body began to warp. His skin turned grey, his limbs elongated. He was becoming a more evolved, more intelligent version of the monster I had faced on the island.
"I perfected the process! I eliminated the flaws! I can now absorb Aura at will! I am the perfect biological weapon!"
He raised his head, his eyes beginning to glow with a red light.
I just stood there, watching him, without moving.
My expression was calm. Almost bored.
The doctor noticed my lack of reaction. "What? You’re not scared? You don’t understand? I’m about to beco a god!"
I smiled. A cold, mocking smile.
"A god? No. You’re just turning into an uglier version of the monster I already beat."
I leaned against a console, crossing my arms.
"Go on. Do it. Transform. Take all the power you want."
I looked him straight in his red eyes.
"I’ll wait. And when you’re done playing... it’ll be my turn."
Dr. Thorne’s transformation was complete. He now stood before , a nightmarish creature nearly ten feet tall, a perfect blend of man and Aura Devourer.
"IMPRESSIVE, ISN’T IT?" he roared, his voice a distortion of growls and words.
He raised a clawed hand. A sphere of grey, dead Aura, far denser than anything the monster on the island could have created, ford in his palm.
"NOW, DIE!"
He threw the orb of energy at . It absorbed everything in its path. The air, the light, the sound. It was an attack designed to annihilate everything.
I sighed.
I raised my hand.
And I used both of my Super-Skills at the sa ti.
I activated ’Accountability’, the power I had stolen from the Director. I saw Thorne’s attack. I saw its trajectory, its composition, its weak points. I saw thousands of possible futures in a fraction of a second.
Then, I activated my ’Absolute Evolution’.
I chose the future I wanted.
And I adapted to get there.
I didn’t create a barrier. I didn’t dodge.
I simply held out my hand.
My body changed. My hand and arm transford, not into a weapon, but into a concept. The perfect antithesis of his attack.
My hand touched Thorne’s orb.
There was no explosion.
The orb simply... unraveled. It dissolved, its energies breaking down into nothing.
Dr. Thorne stood there, his monstrous jaw hanging open, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
"Is that your great power?" I asked.
I didn’t even need my dagger.
My body adapted again. My arm stretched, crossing the room in an instant.
My hand grabbed Thorne by the head.
And I absorbed.
He scread. A scream that quickly died out as his body, his mind, and his soul were devoured and added to my collection.
There was nothing left.
I looked at the silent control room.
The "god" had been one-shot.
The ga was over.
The control room was silent, except for the blaring self-destruct alarms.
[SELF-DESTRUCTION IN FIVE MINUTES]
I had to get out of the lab before the explosion.
I ran through the corridors, ignoring the sporadic fighting between my father’s soldiers and the last rcenaries. I went back up to basent 2.
The scene was a carnage. The bodies of guards and prisoners were everywhere.
And in the middle of the corridor, I saw Yoo-Na.
She was on her knees, crawling away from one of the test subjects. It was one of the shapeshifters, a colossus of muscle and rage who, despite his injuries, was particularly tenacious. She had almost finished her "cleanup," but this one had given her a hard ti.
Seeing her there, broken, pathetic, trying to flee, sothing in snapped.
All the hatred. All the pain. My mother’s death. Her face, laughing at my humiliation. It all ca back in a black wave.
I walked slowly towards her.
She heard . She turned around. When she saw the expression on my face, pure terror painted itself on hers.
"No... please..." she began to beg.
I didn’t listen. It was over.
I summoned my dagger.
And I killed her. A single blow. Clean. Silent.
She collapsed to the floor, her empty eyes staring at the ceiling.
The young shapeshifter subject, who was still standing, watched the scene. With the threat that had been chasing him gone, the tension suddenly left him. He passed out.
I looked at Yoo-Na’s body. I felt nothing. Just... emptiness.
I searched for my father’s Aura. No signature. He must have left the premises, returning to his subspace after his fight. I was alone.
[SELF-DESTRUCTION IN ONE MINUTE]
I looked at the unconscious young subject on the floor. He was a victim. Like .
I couldn’t leave him there.
I lifted him onto my shoulder. He was heavy, but I barely felt it.
I infused my entire being with Aura. I used Reinforcent at a level I had never reached before.
I multiplied my speed. Thousands of tis.
The world beca a tunnel of blurred light. I shot through the corridors, the floors, the Aura barrier, the ice bridge in a single thought.
I found myself on the cliff, on the other side of the ravine, just as the island prison erupted in an explosion so massive it lit up the night like a new sun.
The shockwave from the explosion swept over us, and the unconscious young subject I was carrying. I anchored myself to the ground, creating an Aura shield to protect us from the flaming debris.
When the heat and noise subsided, there was nothing left of the island. Just a smoking crater in the ocean.
All the evidence. All the monsters. All my hatred. Buried.
As I watched the scene, an electric blue rift opened beside .
My father stumbled out of it.
His combat armor was in pieces. He had a large gash on his cheek and his clothes were torn. He was breathing heavily, visibly exhausted, but he was alive.
"Is it... over?" he asked, looking at the crater.
"Yes," I said.
He let out a long sigh of relief. "Good."
He looked at the boy on my shoulder. "You saved one of the subjects. That’s good, kid."
"What about you?" I asked. "The Director?"
My father shook his head, a dark look on his face.
"I didn’t kill him," he said. "I couldn’t. His astral body can split infinitely. He’s practically immortal."
He caught his breath.
"But I trapped him. I managed to seal the subspace rift behind him, locking him in a dinsion of absolute void. He’s sealed. For now."
He looked at , and his expression was grave.
"But with his accountability faculties, his ability to calculate probabilities... he’ll eventually find a way out. In the long run, he can escape. This is only a temporary solution."
The threat wasn’t eliminated. It was just... on pause.
"For now, that’s good enough for ," I said.
My gaze fell on the unconscious boy on my shoulder. He was breathing calmly, his body having returned to a normal human form.
"Now, we have to take care of him. He must have a family sowhere. We have to take him ho."
My father nodded. He took out his military terminal, the advanced model I had seen before.
"Let handle it. The organization’s database has access to national records. If this kid exists in the system, I’ll find him."
He activated a biotric scan function, passing the device over the boy’s face.
An information file appeared on his screen.
My father read the information, then he looked at , an eyebrow raised and an amused look on his face.
"Well, what do you know," he said. "It really is a small world."
"What?" I asked.
He showed his screen.
I read the na.
[Na: Kim Tae-Hyun]
[Status: Missing (three years ago)]
[Registered next of kin: Kim Ha-Yoon (Older sister)]
The blood drained from my face.
It was impossible.
The young subject I had saved, the monster I had almost left to die...
It was Ha-Yoon’s little brother.
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