Lower Sanctuary, 'Baptist' Alley.
Rainwater dripped from a crisscrossing network of cables and pipes, thick and resembling diluted organic waste. It splashed into stagnant pools, creating sickly orange foam. Clad in an executive robe stained with black grime, Karen Vance traversed the narrow space, which was less than a metre wide.
Her right hand was pressed tightly against her ribs, where a piece of obsidian scale was undergoing violent bio-resonance due to the high concentration of Adam cells in the environment.
'Mission ID: Delta-09, Objective: Clean up Compartment 3
Contamination level: Extremely High. Notes: No recovery required; incinerate completely.'
The voice from the communicator was accompanied by cold static.
Karen stopped in front of a hatch made of multiple layers of lead plates that shielded against radiation. A nearly transparent, ammonia-smelling liquid was constantly seeping out from the cracks.
Through the completely mutated pupils of the 'predator', the darkness behind the door had transformed into a frenzied, churning mass of highly toxic, purple life heat.
'Sizzle—'
Karen used his grappling hook to pry open the rusty lock and slammed the hatch open with his shoulder.
An extremely strong, rotten, sweet stench assaulted his senses, instantly overpowering the stench of the sewers. Karen's jaws snapped open and closed violently in response to the high concentration of biological information. He felt his second set of jaws sloshing restlessly in his throat; the urge to hunt was almost palpable.
In the cramped compartment, a family of four was huddled together.
Rather than mutating into monstrous creatures, they had fused together in an extremely bizarre way: the father, mother and two young children had lost their limbs and their skin had transformed into a translucent, jellyfish-like gel. This gel was intertwining and growing, eventually forming a giant, slowly pulsating fleshy bud in the centre of the room.
"Help… help… help…"
A faint, mournful cry escaped from the hole in the centre of the flower bud, revealing part of the mother's face. Her eyes were now a mesmerising shade of blue and stared in terror at Karen, who had burst in.
This wasn't collapse.
This was a 'minimalist symbiosis' employed by Adam cells to ensure the survival of the host in conditions of extreme poverty and a lack of inhibitors. They transformed into a mass of active protein that required no food, only the absorption of exhaust fumes from the air. Karen slowly raised the flamethrower in his hand, which emitted a high-heat flame.
According to the BRA Act, this level of 'severe contamination' required immediate decontamination to prevent escalation into a larger biological catastrophe.
But his hand trembled as he held the gun.
Through his deep blue pupils, he did not see a mass of flesh, but rather four hearts huddled together and beating weakly. They had not lost consciousness; they were merely trying to survive in this humble, dust-like manner in the sanctuary's crevice.
'Karen… Executor…'
The mother's sensory point caught the Executor's badge on Karen's chest. Her voice was weak, like a bursting bubble. 'We didn't hurt anyone. We just wanted to be together.'
Karen's breathing quickened and the Leviathan genes within him began to roar.
His predatory instincts told him that this highly purified mass of active protein would be excellent 'fuel'; if he opened his second jaw, these struggling souls would instantly become nutrients for his evolution.
However, another instinct belonging to 'humanity' screamed in his mind, preventing him from pulling the trigger.
'Target vital signs detected. Executor 00-Achilles, why the delay in purification?'
Silas's cold, urgent voice came through the communicator.
Karen clenched his teeth tightly; his mouth was filled once again with the bloody taste of self-harm. He looked into the mother's desperate eyes and remembered Leah's pure, heterochromatic ones.
In this utterly rotten world, simply 'living' had become a sin.
'Purifying...'
Karen closed his eyes, his pale blue irises blurred by tears. Rather than using the flamethrower, he suddenly unfolded the black, membranous wings on his back and used their razor-sharp edges to swiftly cut through the tissue connecting the flower bud to the wall.
'Pfft.'
Green fluid splattered across Karen's face.
Rather than killing them, he pulled the 'Ember' token that Barnes had given him from his pocket and tucked it into the centre of the flower bud.
'Follow the drain here to the underground "Hymn" section,' Karen said hoarsely. 'Aris is there; he'll take you in. Don't come back.'
He pulled the trigger of the flamethrower and aimed it at the empty ceiling.
Flames erupted, instantly engulfing the empty cubicle and creating a 'complete purification'.
Karen stood in the firelight, watching the fleshy bud slide down the culvert into the bottomless mud and disappear into the mournful wailing of the rain.
He turned and wiped the sticky substance from his face; his eyes regained their deadly coldness.
He knew that with each life he saved, he was one step closer to Silas's noose. However, those predatory eyes had already revealed this so-called 'sanctuary' — a pristine white tomb made of the ashes of the living.
At the highest point of this tomb, Silas awaited his return.
A raging fire engulfed the "Baptized" alleyway.
Braving the heatwave, Karen Vance shimmered as he stepped onto the melting metal fence. He had just released the mutated family, creating the false impression of purification. However, the restless 'Leviathan' within him only intensified, surging through his veins like a burst dam.
Due to the high concentration of bioaerosols evaporating from the flames, visibility in the alleyway was extremely low — just a chaotic, dark red blur.
[Deep-Sea Senses – Full-Frequency Search]
Karen closed his eyes and the obsidian scales on his back opened slightly, like a row of sensitive radars capturing every faint electrical signal in the ruins.
Suddenly, an extremely sharp, almost divine frequency swept through his consciousness.
It was neither the wailing of a mutant nor the electronic voice of a robot, but rather a series of high-frequency vibrations, like the impact of pure crystal, which pierced his second jaw and penetrated his cerebral cortex.
Karen slammed open a heavy blast-proof door at the end of the alleyway.
In the basement, which had been hastily converted into a biological laboratory, stood a massive iron cage made of high-pressure-resistant bio-alloy. The cage's surface was covered in electromagnetic pulses and the air was filled with a rare, pure fragrance.
In the corner of the cage, a small, thin figure huddled—
Lia.
She wore a loose, stained white robe and had heavy bio-suppression rings fastened to her exposed ankles. When Karen's dark, menacing, predatory eyes met hers, time seemed to freeze throughout the laboratory.
What eyes they were!
The left eye was a pure, stellar gold, while the right eye was a deep, nebulous purple.
In that instant, Karen felt the obsidian scales within his body cease their friction. The predatory hunger that had plagued him for weeks and driven him almost mad miraculously vanished under this golden-purple gaze.
'You... have come.'
Lia spoke, her voice not travelling through the air but acting directly on Adam's cells in the form of a bio-wave.
Karen could feel the 'tracking wires' at the base of Adam's thigh burning intensely and almost scorching his flesh. The sensors that Silas had installed were frantically recording the resonance data between Karen and Lia.
[Symbiotic Evolution – Mirror Reaction]
Karen looked down at his hands. Under Lia's gaze, his menacing, deep-blue claws slowly retracted into their grooves. The black, membranous wings on his back drooped, as if trying to mask the bloody stench emanating from him.
'They... have been waiting for you.' Leah stood up and leaned against the bars of the iron cage. Her golden-purple heterochromic eyes held no fear, only compassionate understanding of destiny. 'They said you would be the last gate in this deep sea.'
Karen stretched out his scaly hand, attempting to touch the cold bars despite the high-voltage electromagnetic field.
Crack!
A powerful electric current pierced his calloused skin, releasing a burnt smell, but he did not pull away. For the first time, a glimmer of humanity appeared in his deep blue eyes.
He finally understood the meaning of Leah's existence.
She was neither the 'raw material' that Silas spoke of nor the 'toxin' that Aris spoke of; she was the embodiment of the neutralising factor. The sequence flowing in her blood was the only thing that could enable these mutating monsters to find themselves again. 'Executive Karen Vance, data collection complete.' Silas's voice suddenly rang out from the loudspeaker above the iron cage, tinged with smug satisfaction. 'It seems your Leviathan gene matches the Holy Grail with a 99.8% success rate.' Karen jerked her head up and looked towards the surveillance camera. 'You deliberately let me find her.' His voice was deep and rumbling like thunder. 'Of course, without your predator instinct as a catalyst, the "Golden Eye Factor" in Leah's body cannot reach its maximum activity.' Silas chuckled. 'Now, execute the final clean-up procedure, kill the person outside the cage and return to the White Tower with my "Holy Grail".' As soon as he had finished speaking, the electromagnetic field around the iron cage intensified instantly, emitting a deafening roar. Karen turned to look at Leah, who was standing quietly in the cage. She extended a slender hand through the gaps in the crackling sparks and gently covered Karen's black-scaled hand. At that moment, Karen's excruciating pain vanished. An unprecedented sense of tranquillity, like being enveloped in warm seawater, rushed from her arm to her heart. Every Adam cell in his body trembled with triumph, as if they had finally found the missing piece of the genetic puzzle called 'home'. 'Take me... before they turn off the lights completely,' Leah whispered. The deep blue light in Karen's eyes surged instantly, but he didn't enter predatory mode. Instead, he entered an unprecedented state of 'symbiotic evolution'. The bioelectric currents within him were no longer violently destructive; they had transformed into a shockwave that resonated with Leah. He gripped the railing tightly. 'Silas, I'm setting the rules this time.'
In the ruined laboratory at the bottom of the alley, crimson flames cast grotesque, demonic shadows.
Karen Vance knelt before the shattered iron cage, his right hand firmly gripping the large-calibre "Executioner" pistol made by B.R.A., capable of piercing heavy armour. The muzzle was just inches from Leah's pale, almost translucent forehead.
'Cleanup procedure... start.'
Silas's voice mechanically repeated through the loudspeaker.
Karen's index finger had already pulled the trigger for the first time. Due to his extremely active 'Leviathan' genes, his senses were amplified a thousandfold. He could hear the bullet twitching as it struck the spring, smell the lingering acrid odour of gunpowder in the chamber and feel the faint but firm throbbing of Leah's carotid artery.
According to the instincts of a 'hound', the next second should have been nothing but a crimson spray. Just as the trigger reached zero, Leah neither flinched nor screamed. Instead, she slowly extended her slender, dusty hand and passed it through the cold barrel of the gun. She gently and precisely grasped Karen's completely mutated, deep blue metallic nail.
*Whoosh!*
This wasn't a physical collision, but a genetic tsunami transcending species.
Karen's pupils dilated abruptly; his previously horizontal, predator-like, rectangular pupils contracted violently. He felt a cool, holy and unstoppable force surge upwards along the blue nail, instantly overwhelming all of his killing intent.
The obsidian scales on his back, which had been frantically opening and closing in search of blood, gave off a gentle hum the moment Leah touched them.
'Your hand... is so cold.' Leah looked up, her golden-purple heterochromatic eyes reflecting Karen's demonic face. 'But within your bones lies an ocean.'
'Executor Vans, what are you waiting for?' Silas's voice suddenly turned cold, hinting at danger as he sensed something was amiss. 'Pull the trigger. It's for the purity of the Sanctuary and your own redemption.'
Karen's breathing became unusually heavy.
His fingertips trembled and the gun now felt as though it bore the weight of the Sanctuary's sins.
In his twenty years as a 'scavenger', he had never hesitated. He had killed mutated comrades and weeping civilians; in his eyes, they were all merely 'impurities' to be cleansed. But now, looking into Leah's pure, unadulterated eyes, he felt something he had never felt before. If he pulled the trigger, the 'Karen Vans' within him would die completely, and in its place would be a walking corpse, forever mired in darkness.
"No." "
A hoarse, broken yet undeniably powerful word was forced from Karen's cracked throat.
He abruptly twisted his wrist so that the gun was no longer aimed at Leah but at the surveillance camera diagonally above him, and he pulled the trigger.
Bang!
A flame erupted and sparks flew from the shattered electronic components. Silas's nauseating surveillance view was finally severed.
'You made the worst choice, Karen.'
The laboratory's defence system activated automatically: red alarm lights spun wildly and the pressure pumps beneath the floor emitted a low rumble as the deadly 'vacuum coagulator' silently spread through the ventilation vents.
Karen holstered his gun abruptly and pulled Leah into his arms.
The obsidian scales on his back were no longer for defence, but for support: he held Leah tightly against his chest. The large, bloodstained executive robe wrapped tightly around the girl's frail body.
'Hold me tight.' "
Karen's voice carried an inhuman heaviness. He could feel the oxygen rapidly draining from the air around him, and the cracks on his cheeks burned with intense thirst.
He looked down at Leah, who was nestled quietly against his chest in his arms. Her once menacing scales had softened and smoothed against his skin, providing him with a natural form of armour.
At that moment, Karen finally understood. Leah was not his mission.
She was his destination.
He suddenly unfurled his enormous black membranous wings, which were large enough to obscure half of the laboratory. A gust of wind was created, shattering the reinforced laboratory dome.
Amidst the billowing steel and rubble, a black 'dragon', embracing the golden-purple 'miracle', roared defiantly at the neon-lit sky above the sanctuary.
In the ruined laboratory at the bottom of the alley, crimson flames cast grotesque, demonic shadows.
Karen Vance knelt before the shattered iron cage, his right hand firmly gripping the large-calibre "Executioner" pistol made by B.R.A., capable of piercing heavy armour. The muzzle was inches from his face, aimed directly at Leah's pale, almost translucent forehead.
'Cleansing procedure... initiate.'
Silas's voice mechanically repeated through the loudspeaker, cold and devoid of any inflection.
Karen's index finger had already pulled the trigger. Due to his extremely active 'Leviathan' genes, his senses were amplified a thousandfold. He could hear the bullet twitching as it struck the inner spring, smell the lingering acrid odour of gunpowder in the chamber and feel the faint but firm throbbing of Leah's carotid artery.
According to the instincts of a 'hound', the next second should leave only a crimson spray behind.
However, just as the trigger was about to reach zero, Leah didn't flinch or scream.
Instead, she slowly extended her slender, dusty hand and passed it through the cold barrel of the gun. She gently and precisely grasped Karen's completely mutated fingernail, which now had a deep blue metallic sheen.
*Whoosh!*
This wasn't a physical collision, but a genetic tsunami transcending species.
Karen's pupils dilated abruptly; his previously horizontal, predator-like, rectangular pupils contracted violently. He felt a cool, holy and unstoppable force surge upwards along the blue scale, instantly overwhelming all the killing intent in his mind.
The obsidian scales on his back, which had been frantically opening and closing in search of blood, gave off a gentle hum the moment Leah touched them.
'Your hands... are so cold.' Leah tilted her head back, her golden-purple heterochromatic eyes reflecting Karen's demonic face. 'But within your bones lies an ocean.'
"Executor Vans, what are you waiting for?" Silas's voice turned suddenly icy, carrying a hint of danger, as he sensed that something was amiss. 'Pull the trigger. This is for the purity of the Sanctuary and your own redemption."
Karen's breathing became unusually heavy.
His fingertips trembled and the gun now felt as though it bore the weight of the Sanctuary's sins.
In his twenty years as a 'scavenger', he had never hesitated. He had killed mutated comrades and weeping civilians; in his eyes, they were all merely 'impurities' to be cleansed. But now, looking into Leah's pure, unadulterated eyes, he felt something he had never felt before. If he pulled the trigger, the 'Karen Vans' within him would die completely, and in its place would be a walking corpse, forever mired in darkness.
"No."
A hoarse, broken yet undeniably powerful word was forced from Karen's cracked throat.
He abruptly turned his wrist so that the gun was no longer aimed at Leah but at the surveillance camera diagonally above him and pulled the trigger hard.
Bang!
A flame erupted and sparks flew from the shattered electronic components. Silas's nauseating surveillance view was finally forcibly severed.
'You made the worst choice, Karen.'
The laboratory's defence system activated automatically: red alarm lights spun wildly and the pressure pumps under the floor emitted a low rumble as the deadly 'vacuum coagulator' silently spread through the ventilation vents.
Karen holstered his gun abruptly and pulled Leah into his arms.
The obsidian scales on his back were no longer for defence, but for support: he held Leah tightly against his chest. His large, bloodstained executive robe clung tightly to her frail body. "Hold me tight."
Karen's voice carried an inhuman heaviness. He could feel the oxygen rapidly draining from their bodies and the cracks on his cheeks burned with intense thirst.
He looked down at Leah, who was nestled quietly against his chest in his arms. Her once menacing scales had softened and smoothed against his skin, providing him with a natural form of armour.
At that moment, Karen finally understood. Leah was not his mission.
She was his destination.
He suddenly unfurled his enormous black membranous wings, which were large enough to obscure half of the laboratory. A gust of wind was created, shattering the reinforced laboratory dome.
Amidst the billowing steel and rubble, the black 'dragon', embracing the golden-purple 'miracle', roared defiantly at the neon-lit sky above the sanctuary.
The smoke and dust from the collapsed laboratory dome had not yet dissipated, and the acrid smell of ozone mingled with the sweet, metallic odour of 'vacuum solidification agent' in the air.
Karen Vance knelt in the centre of the ruins, moving incredibly stealthily and swiftly. Rather than taking flight immediately, he took advantage of the brief blind spot to rip open the lining of his tactical backpack.
'Get in there. Don't make a sound.'
He gently pressed Leah into the backpack with his large, blue-scaled hands. This cramped space, which was originally used to store high-energy inhibitors and biological samples, was now Leah's only refuge.
Karen quickly zipped up the backpack. The bio-shielding membrane on the outer layer immediately activated, suppressing Leah's sacred golden-purple frequency to the lowest possible level. Karen stood up, walked over to the pile of remains from the molten alloy cage, pulled out a piece of white robe stained with Leah's blood that he had torn in the chaos and tossed it into the activated self-destruct device.
[System Command: Executor 00-Achilles, cleanup confirmed.]
He extended his left arm towards the recorder's scanning beam and the bio-current flickered from his fingertips, precisely penetrating the instrument's underlying protocol.
Buzz—Buzz—
The recorder's screen began to flicker violently. The originally smooth data curve transformed into a frenzied visual storm under Karen's interference.
On Silas's monitoring screen, only a scene torn apart by intense light and explosions could be seen.
Target ID: Holy Grail-Alpha (Lia)
Status: Physically shattered
Residue: Active proteins reduced to zero.
Processing result: Purification complete.
'Recording complete,' Karen said softly into the microphone. His voice sounded numb and weary from the wound on his tongue that was still healing.
'Executor Vans, target cleared?' Silas's voice came through the backup channel. Due to interference, it sounded distorted and distant.
"They're crushed to pieces. Not a single cell remains, Executor."
Karen turned and let the tiny ashes settle on his shoulders. The obsidian scales on his back looked dull and lifeless, as though he had just survived a brutal massacre.
"Very well. Return to receive your final 'coronation', Karen.' Silas seemed to have complete faith in this fabricated record. After all, in his eyes, as the number one hound, Karen could never betray him because betraying Leah would be like betraying his only hope for evolution.
Karen slung the heavy tactical backpack over his shoulder and felt as if each weight were a nail piercing his already mutated spine.
Avoiding the direct line of sight of the White Tower patrol aircraft, he followed the acid-corroded ventilation duct around the laboratory's perimeter and crept like a ghost into the shadows of the 'halo zone' at the edge of the sanctuary.
Through the vibrations of the backpack, he could hear Leah's faint breathing.
It was more beautiful than any hymn, yet heavier than any curse.
"Barnes is up ahead."
Karen caught that familiar, pungent tobacco scent. The old hunter sat beside an unmarked cargo plane. The red glow of his cigarette flickered in the darkness.
Barnes didn't look at Karen, simply tossing her a bottle of strong deodoriser.
'Great report, kid. Silas's analysis team were driven crazy by your electrical noise.' Barnes stood up and opened the cargo door. 'However, how long this "dead woman" (referring to Leah) can hide depends on your luck.'
Karen didn't speak. He turned back one last time to look at the towering, pristine yet deceptively white tower.
When the sun rose and Silas discovered that the ashes held no genetic fragments, the Sanctuary would become a vast hunting ground and he would transform from a hound into the 'King of the Deep', hunted by the world.
The high-altitude winds cut through the aircraft's damaged exterior like sharp blades.
Irreversible frequency interference between Leah's "Golden Eye Factor" and the bio-engine's neural bundles caused the old cargo plane's engines to emit a final, desperate screech as it passed the Sanctuary's walls, before shutting down completely.
Karen didn't hesitate.
He slammed open the deformed hatch and the immense air pressure instantly filled the cabin. He wouldn't leave Leah to face the fall alone. Tightening his tactical backpack against his chest, he transformed into a black meteorite and plummeted a thousand metres into the water treatment plant of the old city, which was perpetually shrouded in fog.
[Leviathan – Deceleration Glide]
Less than a hundred metres from the ground, the obsidian scales on Karen's back exploded. His enormous, deep-blue, membranous wings unfurled like sails. Due to the lack of oxygen at high altitude, his gill slits vibrated wildly, creating a thunderous whooshing sound.
Boom!
He slammed heavily onto the edge of an abandoned sedimentation tank, sending up a cloud of rusty iron filings and acidic mist. This was an industrial remnant from before the Sanctuary was built: massive, reinforced concrete structures like the remains of an ancient behemoth lay across the edge of the wasteland.
Countless rusty pipes, each over ten metres in diameter, crisscrossed the area. Due to the continuous flow of underground hydrothermal vents, the entire processing plant maintained a humidity level of over 98 per cent year-round. Thick white mist moved among the decaying valves as if alive.
'Cough... cough... cough.'
Karen rose from the rubble. A gruesome gash had been cut into his right wing by steel bars, and dark blue blood dripped from his scales.
He quickly unpacked his backpack and pulled Leah out.
'It's safe here.' Karen's voice was hoarse and moist, resonating like the deep sea. 'The high concentration of water vapour refracts Silas's thermal scans, and the rusty metallic smell masks our genetic frequencies.'
Lia stood on the slippery platform, her golden-purple heterochromatic eyes gleaming in the thick fog like faint beacons in this desolate ruin. Karen found a spot inside the relatively dry, massive pump house and placed Lia on a thick layer of wrecked cables.
The obsidian scales on his back trembled slightly from extreme fatigue, emitting a low hum. Maintaining this deep-dive state required a continuous drain of bio-energy.
'Your wings… are bleeding,' Lia whispered.
She reached out her delicate hand and gently stroked Karen's cold, hardened spine, mutated by his transformation.
As her fingertips traced the wound, a miracle occurred once more.
The lacerations, which had originally been difficult to heal and resistant to the Adam virus, rapidly sprouted numerous white granulations under her touch. The excruciating pain transformed into a warm, tingling sensation. Karen could feel his violent predatory instincts entering a docile 'hibernation', enveloped in moisture and a pure aura.
"Don't waste your energy," Karen said, closing his eyes and letting the divine power heal him. 'Silas will soon discover that the report is a forgery. He'll send the 'Execution Team', and he might come himself.' Karen walked to a metal trough filled with rainwater.
The water no longer reflected the dashing B.R.A. executive, but rather a creature with bluish-purple skin, split cheeks and eerie blue eyes. He looked at his reflection, then at the holy girl silently watching him in the distance.
In this corrosive, moisture-filled dead corner, he experienced a kind of illusion called 'freedom' for the first time.
But this freedom was stained with blood.
"Lia, if they come, I will send you into the deepest part of the ocean current. Don't look back. These eyes will help you see the light in the deep sea." Karen looked down at his claw-covered hands.
Lia didn't answer, but instead walked silently to his side and leaned on his cold, scaled shoulder.
In this forgotten ruin of an old city, monster and miracle fit together perfectly in the silent mist, like two incomplete puzzle pieces.
Deep within the old city's water treatment plant, massive cast-iron pumps stood silent like dead beasts. A fine mist hung in the air, weaving a semi-transparent net that enveloped Karen and Leah in secluded tranquillity.
Karen knelt by the pool, attempting to analyse a beacon found in the remains of a former executor. Blue arcs of electricity flickered across her fingertips as she touched the rusted metal casing.
Suddenly, a wave of dizziness washed over her without warning.
This wasn't an exhaustion-induced fainting spell, but an incredibly powerful, deep-sea-like invasion of consciousness.
'Karen... look.'
Leah's voice did not pass through her eardrums but exploded directly into her pineal gland. Her golden-purple heterochromatic eyes burst forth with an unprecedented light in the thick mist. This light was no longer physical illumination, but a projection of a higher-dimensional spirit.
The rusty pipes and cold concrete before Karen's eyes crumbled instantly, replaced by a stark, chilling white laboratory reeking of formaldehyde.
He found himself watching a nursery pod numbered 'Achilles-00' from an X-ray perspective.
In the pale blue nutrient solution, a half-human, half-fish embryo was curled up. It was still small, but tender black spines had already sprouted along its spine. Dark blue blood flowed along fragile veins beneath its translucent skin.
'This is... me?'
Karen's voice echoed in his consciousness.
He saw a young Silas Morgan before he acquired the godlike detachment he now displayed. His eyes were filled with fanaticism and obsession as he held a vial of deep purple liquid labelled 'Leviathan Extract', which he was personally injecting into the embryo's spinal cord.
'You are my masterpiece, Karen,' Silas murmured in the illusion, tracing the glass of the incubation pod greedily with his fingertips. 'You will possess the body of the deep sea and the will of humanity. You are the bridge through which I will rule these two worlds.' The illusion receded like the tide and Karen's eyes snapped open, her mouth moving silently as she gasped for breath.
His jaws flared violently and cold sweat trickled down his obsidian scales. The agonising extraction of his memories was akin to being stripped bare, but it also made him realise a cruel truth: from the moment he was born, he had existed to become Silas's vessel.
"He lied to you…" Lia approached, placing her small hand on Karen's burning forehead.
Through a faint telepathic connection, Karen sensed Lia's emotions: a sorrow as vast as the deep sea and a resolute sympathy born of shared suffering.
'He left not only genes within you, but also a "backdoor",' Leah warned, her heterochromatic eyes flashing. 'That beacon is the key to opening that backdoor. Once you decipher it, Silas can instantly locate and take over your nervous system."
Karen looked down at the encrypted beacon in her hand, which was gleaming with an alluring blue light.
The previous Executor may have died clutching it, not as a form of retaliation, but as a final warning.
"I see..."
Karen let out a hoarse, cold laugh. Silas had calculated everything: his curiosity, his thirst for the truth; every step of his escape seemed to have been meticulously planned by that man.
But he glanced at Leah.
This cross-species mental communication was a variable that Silas hadn't anticipated; it was reshaping Karen's distorted underlying logic.
'Leah, thank you.'
Suddenly, Karen exerted force and the deep blue claws between his fingers instantly pierced the hard beacon.
Snap!
Under immense biological pressure, the beacon shattered completely, releasing countless blue electronic sparks that dissipated in the mist. With the destruction of the beacon, the faint tension at the back of Karen's head vanished completely — the last invisible chain left by Silas.
'Now, he can't find us anymore.'
Karen stood up, his damaged membranous wings fully unfurling in the steam and reflecting a deep metallic lustre. He was no longer the hound seeking the truth, but the truth itself.
This is the central chamber of the Sanctuary, also known as the Supreme Court.
The air here is filtered and dust-free, with only the faint scent of expensive sandalwood lingering in the cool atmosphere. Silas Morgan sits alone in front of the hemispherical monitoring wall. His long, silver hair appears exceptionally pale in the cold light of the screen; he looks like a grim reaper sculpted from marble.
On the screen, infrared video footage of Karen Vance cleaning cell number 22 in 'Baptist' Alley is playing repeatedly.
These are the final seconds before the fire.
Silas's slender fingers tap lightly on the black jade tabletop of the command console, producing a rhythmic, pendulum-like sound.
'Rewind, slow it down eight times.'
The image freezes.
The moment Karen raises the flamethrower, the infrared sensor detects an unusual tremor in the obsidian scales on Silas's back. This is not the excitement of impending battle, but an extremely rare inhibitory spasm at the genetic level.
From raising his gun to pulling the trigger, Karen pauses for half a second.
For a top-tier hound with the combat logic of 'Achilles', for whom killing comes as naturally as breathing, that half-second hesitation was tantamount to premeditated rebellion.
'Heh...'
Silas stares at Karen's blurry, masked profile on the screen, a chilling amusement creeping across his face.
'Are you pitying them, Karen? Or do you see your long-rotted 'humanity' in those lowly chunks of flesh?' Silas pulled up Karen's fabricated 'physical destruction' report.
On the screen, Leia's life force instantly dropped to zero in the explosion — everything appeared flawless.
However, as the creator of this entire biological system, Silas was intimately familiar with the characteristics of the 'Holy Grail'. Leia's genetic sequence had extremely high environmental adaptability and, even when destroyed, it left ionised residue in the air that lasted for several hours.
In the recording uploaded by Karen, the frequency of the 'interference noise' overlapped subtly with her own brainwaves.
'Using your own neural signals to forge a death record...' Silas slowly stood up, walked to the huge floor-to-ceiling window and looked down at the ancient city ruins cloaked in dense fog. 'What a brilliant improvisation. You've learned not only to hunt, but also to lie.'
Silas didn't press the red button that could instantly detonate the miniature bomb inside the executor's body.
For him, this was no longer just asset recovery, but an evolutionary stress test.
"Execution Department," he said softly into the encrypted channel. "Withdraw all routine cleanup teams. Shut down all nutrient valves in the lower zones. I want every part of that city to feel hunger.'
He turned to look at the monitor where Karen had disappeared — the Old City Water Treatment Plant.
'My masterpiece needs a whetstone. Since he wants to play the hero, I'll show him just how many people his obsidian scales can protect when the Sanctuary's mutants are driven mad by hunger."
Silas took a deep purple capsule from the crystal glass on the table and put it in his mouth.
"Go. The 'Great Silence' has begun. I want to see him at the edge of that wasteland completely tear off that hypocritical shell, kneel at my feet and devour the girl he loves."
Lower Sanctuary, coordinates: Sewage Outlet Zero.
During a lull in the acid rain, the air was filled with a suffocating smell of oxidised metal. Barnes sat on the wing of a half-wrecked patrol aircraft, his rough fingers fiddling with a recently seized black market syringe.
This wasn't the usual dark red inhibitor, but a deep purple fluid with the texture of liquid mercury.
Etched on the titanium casing of the syringe was a symbol that made Barnes's eyes twitch: an ouroboros-coated heel, beneath which were the words: 'Achilles Pharmaceuticals – Prototype Sequence.'
'Damn it... wasn't this stuff already forbidden?'
Barnes cursed under his breath. As a veteran hunter under Silas, he knew better than anyone what this name meant: it was the Sanctuary's core biological weapons laboratory and the birthplace of Karen. According to the intercepted confessions, this mutagen, known as 'Prometheus-X', was spreading rapidly through the slums like a plague.
It didn't save lives; it only accelerated them.
If an ordinary mutant was injected with the drug, the Adam cell proliferation process, which would normally take years, would be completed in just 120 seconds. The price was the instantaneous loss of the host's sanity; a living person would be transformed into a 'living weapon' with only the instinct to devour and the strength of steel.
'Silas has gone mad,' said Barnes, holding the syringe close to the light and watching the purple bubbles dance inside. 'He's creating an artificial "mass extinction", so that the unruly mongrels in the lower tiers will devour each other.' Hidden in the shadows of the water treatment plant, Karen saw the injection through the old-fashioned encrypted channel she shared with Barnes.
In that instant, he felt a sharp, stinging pain deep within the obsidian scales of his spine.
It was a homologous reaction.
He could sense that the pulsating purple fluid within was the same highly concentrated 'Leviathan' serum as the one in his blood.
'This is bait, Karen,' said Barnes's voice, which came through the communicator intermittently. 'Silas knows you're hiding in the moisture. He deliberately spread these drugs to turn those near-mad mutants into rabid dogs and draw them to you by scent.'
Karen glanced back at Leah, who was still dormant and radiating a faint white light.
He finally understood Silas's plan: to turn him and Leah into the only 'food' in this starving wasteland and make tens of thousands of mutated creatures the cheapest force for the extermination effort.
'Barnes, destroy the drugs,' Karen ordered in a low voice. The eerie blue light in his eyes turned into a chilling intent to kill.
"It won't break, kid. Dozens of boxes from this shipment have already fallen into the hands of the 'Hymn' organisation. Those guys will inject anything to survive.' Barnes flipped off the patrol plane and pulled the trigger on his bone gun. 'They're almost here. I can smell the purple potion stench wafting from dozens of blocks away."
Outside the water treatment plant, pairs of murky eyes with purple spots of light shone from the darkness.
These were monsters forcibly catalysed by 'Prometheus-X'. Their bones had grown outside their bodies, their muscles had swelled to the point of bursting through their skin, and their roars had completely lost their human frequency.
Karen slowly stood up.
He no longer suppressed his breathing, but instead fully unfurled his enormous, obsidian-scaled wings. Since Silas wanted a bloody celebration of 'evolution', he was prepared to use these cursed claws to hold a final farewell ceremony for all the impostors who had descended upon this place.
'Barnes, guard the exit.'
He bent down and gently kissed Leah's cold forehead, then suddenly accelerated, transforming into a streak of black light as he plunged into the sea of purple pupils.
The Sanctuary Central Hub is the core research area of the B.R.A. (Bioresearch and Disposal Bureau).
On a massive holographic screen, a twisted spiral structure flashed a blinding red light—Karen Vanse's original genetic blueprint. At that moment, the green block representing "human compatibility" was being rapidly devoured by a greedy, pulsating deep blue.
On a massive holographic screen, a twisted spiral structure flashed a blinding red light—Karen Vanse's original genetic blueprint. At that moment, the green block representing "human compatibility" was being rapidly devoured by a greedy, pulsating deep blue.
A system announcement rang out: "Executor Sequence 00-Achilles, biocompatibility at 14.2%, has fallen below the personality maintenance red line. Please take note."
The executives of the Research Department turned ashen-faced. This warning had not only been sent to Silas but had also been simultaneously pushed to all terminals within the Sanctuary. This meant that Karen Vanse was no longer, in a legal sense, a "runaway biological weapon" that had to be immediately contained or destroyed. Silas sat in the empty command hall, tracing the sharp drop in the genetic blueprint with his fingertips.
"强制全面测试..."他冷笑一声,眼中闪过一丝残忍,似乎在看着一个有缺陷的创造物."Karen,你以为躲在死水里就能洗去我刻在你骨头上的印记吗?"
As the command was given, all the broadcast towers surrounding the Sanctuary began transmitting an extremely high-frequency "pulse-induced wave."
This sound wave was harmless to ordinary people, but for the mutants with extremely low genetic compatibility, it was a "whipping" from the "creator," forcibly激活ing the "Leviathan" spores that were dormant within Karen's body, which caused them to shatter the facade of "reason" completely in the face of extreme hunger and pain.
Old City Water Treatment Plant
Karen was trying to calm the killing pleasure he had just experienced from being torn apart by the Awakened.Suddenly, a sharp scream exploded deep within his brain.
"Ah—!"
He collapsed to his knees in agony, clutching his head tightly as he stood in the puddles. His sharp claws dug deep grooves into the alloy floor while his obsidian scales rubbed violently against each other, sparking with blue electrical discharges under the stimulation of high-frequency pulses.
[Genetic Imprint – Forced Recombination]
He felt his spine stretching segment by segment and his previously retracted second jaw pounding wildly in his throat. His vision shifted constantly between eerie blue and pitch black, and Leah's figure distorted in his eyes, sometimes appearing as a divine miracle and at others as a mass of supremely alluring, top-grade protein nutrients.
'Go... go quickly...'
Karen hissed through clenched teeth. Half of his face had completely collapsed due to abnormal muscle growth, revealing layer upon layer of sharp teeth. Leah stood at the centre of the chaotic electromagnetic storm. She could feel the near-destructive genetic tsunami raging within Karen.
It was a death trap set by Silas: Karen would either die in agony from genetic decay, or she would succumb to her instincts to alleviate the pain by devouring Leah and completing her final dark leap.
"Karen, look at me."
Leah didn't run away. Instead, she opened her arms and embraced Karen's spiked, slimy spine. Her golden-purple heterochromatic eyes shone brightly. An almost pure white biofield spread from her body, forcefully resisting the inductive waves from the Sanctuary.
'This is your "test report", Silas.'
Leah's voice pierced through Karen's chaotic consciousness. 'He is not your weapon... but my destiny.'
In that instant, Karen's screams ceased abruptly.