The groan of the gravity lift sounded like the snarling of a hungry meat grinder. I stood frozen before it, staring at a steel door nearly thirty centimeters thick. Inside my head, Dirga barked a sharp warning. "Don't go in that way, Satria. That lift has a molecular density scanner. The moment you step inside, nerve gas will flood the chamber before you even reach the lower floors."
I panted, leaning my weakened shoulder against the cold corridor wall. "Then... where? I don't exactly have wings to fly down to the base of this tower, Dirga."
My grayscale vision caught a small plaque on the ceiling: VENT-GEO-04. A steel-grated ventilation shaft emitting thin wisps of steam that smelled of sulfur and machine lubricant.
"Geothermal exhaust path," Dirga whispered. "It's the only route without biometric sensors because the temperature is considered impossible for a living human to survive. But you're not exactly an ordinary human anymore, are you?"
I looked at my blackened left hand. The Surya Majapahit Rajah throbbed, casting a dim orange glow that felt searing beneath my skin. "You want me to toast myself alive?"
"I will divert most of the residue to your skin's surface to create a temporary thermal shield. But the price is high, Satria. Your nerves will scream."
I didn't answer. With a clumsy motion, I used my left hand to rip the steel bars from the vent. The metal buckled and snapped with a sickening screech, as if I were tearing through paper. This power... it was growing wilder, yet it felt as if the bones in my arm were grinding into powder within.
I crawled into the dark hole, scuttling like a wounded insect. Below me, a deep abyss waited, accompanied by the roar of gargantuan turbines supplying energy to the entirety of Sector Zero.
The temperature inside the vent spiked. Sixty degrees. Seventy. My skin began to flush crimson, and sweat evaporated before it could even bead.
"Hold your breath now!" Dirga roared.
A split second later, a wave of geothermal steam exploded from a valve below. A blinding white cloud of scalding air engulfed me. I felt a pain unlike anything I had ever known—like being doused in boiling water mixed with acid. The left side of my face, not fully protected by the rajah, began to blister. I tried to scream, but my lungs felt as if they were being filled with molten lead.
My left ear rang violently, then went silent. I lost hearing on that side instantly.
In that blinding agony, I lost my grip. My hands, slick with sweat and residue, slipped from the support pipe. I fell.
A fifty-meter free fall into the darkness.
Hot wind whipped my face as I hurtled downward. In seconds that felt like an eternity, I saw the massive turbine blades below, spinning at thousands of RPM, ready to shred anything that fell into them.
"Use your hand! Dig into the wall!" Dirga bellowed, triggering an adrenaline surge to its absolute peak.
I slammed the fingers of my left hand into the steel ventilation wall. SREEEET! The sound of metal being deeply gouged created a spray of sparks that illuminated the dark shaft. My downward momentum jerked to a halt, but my left shoulder felt as if it had been ripped from its socket. I hung there on the steel wall, my ragged breath sounding like a broken engine in my remaining functional right ear.
I dangled just a few meters above the lethal turbine blades. Below, the blue glow from the pillar reactor illuminated a gargantuan hall filled with crystalline pipes.
I released my grip as the steam subsided, landing roughly on the iron gantry encircling the turbine. My shattered right leg hit the metal floor with a fresh crack. I groaned, clutching my trembling knee.
I touched the left side of my face. The skin felt coarse, blistered, and stung excruciatingly when exposed to the air. "I'm... I'm still alive?" I whispered. My own voice sounded strange, heard only from one side.
"Don't get soft, Satria. We're at Level B-4. The Laboratory of Avarice," Dirga's voice returned to its cold state, as if my pain were merely a statistical data point. "Look ahead. That's what I wanted to see."
I looked up. A massive hall opened before me. The floor was no longer metal, but transparent glass with a thick, pitch-black fluid flowing beneath it—pure residue from the Semeru pillar. And in the center of the hall, thousands of incubation tubes stood tall like rows of dead soldiers.
These weren't the small Tuyul Agung from above. The creatures here were far larger. They had the proportions of adult humans, but were skinless, consisting of dark red muscle fibers wrapped in transparent membranes. Their faces lacked noses—only large breathing holes—and their eyes were covered by Saptapala metal visors.
"Type-B Wiyangga... Combatants..." I whispered in horror.
They were breeding an army. Saptapala was no longer just an organization seeking energy; they were building a monster armada using my brother's genetic blueprint.
I dragged my leg across the glass floor, each step echoing in the silent, cold room. At the far end, I saw a gargantuan operating table with robotic arms dissecting a half-finished creature.
"This desecration has to stop," I growled. My left hand began to vibrate, not from fear, but from energy begging to explode.
"Patience, Satria. If you destroy this place now, the security system will lock down the entire facility and we'll never reach my core containment room," Dirga warned. "Find the main control panel. We must shut down their nutrient circulation system first. Let these things suffocate in their tubes before they ever wake up."
I moved toward the blue-glowing control panel in the corner. However, I stopped when I saw a shadow moving behind one of the large incubation tubes.
A man in full Saptapala tactical gear, with a sensor helm covering his entire face, stood there. He held no firearm. In his hand, he gripped a short sword powered by blue pillar residue.
"Subject 07," the man's voice came through the helm's speakers. "I didn't think you had the guts to dive through a geothermal vent. You've truly become a persistent monster."
"Who are you?" I asked, trying to stabilize my stance.
"Just a cleanup unit. They call me Enforcer 12. And my job is to ensure trash like you doesn't soil this sacred laboratory."
The man lunged. His movements were incredibly fast, far swifter than any drone. His blue blade slashed the air, aiming straight for my throat.
I dodged by twisting my body to the right, a movement that sent a spike of agony through my cracked right leg. The sword met only air, but its energy heat singed what remained of my clothes. I retaliated with a left-hand strike—a tiger palm that was slow but packed with raw power.
Enforcer 12 parried my hand with his forearm bracer made of anti-residue material. CLANG! The impact created a shockwave that shattered several small glass tubes around us. Nutrient fluid spilled onto the floor, slick and smelling of rot.
"You're slow, monster!" he mocked, delivering a spinning kick that slammed into my chest.
I was hurled backward, my spine crashing into a tube containing a half-formed creature. The glass spider-webbed but didn't break. I gasped, blood flowing from the burns on my face, dripping onto the glass floor.
"Satria, he's using residue-dampening technology," Dirga provided a tactical analysis. "Your physical strikes are useless against his armor. You must aim for the neck joints or the helm's visor. Use a feint. Drop yourself, make him feel he's won."
I nodded internally. I let my body go limp, pretending I couldn't rise due to my leg injury. Enforcer 12 approached with an arrogant stride, his sword raised high for the final execution.
"So weak. The Surya Majapahit lineage turns out to be just an exaggerated myth," he whispered, swinging his blade down.
That was when I moved. I didn't dodge to the side. I lunged forward, sliding beneath his sword's reach, and used my left hand to seize his right ankle.
I didn't just pull. I channeled every drop of Kalabendu energy left in my arm directly into the man's leg.
ZZZZZT!
A loud electrical short-circuit filled the room. Enforcer 12's armor sparked and suffered small explosions at the leg joints due to the pillar energy overload I forced into it. He lost his balance and crashed to the floor.
Before he could react, I crawled onto him. My blackened left hand gripped his helm's visor. With one final surge of strength, I ripped the metal helm from his head.
The face behind the helm was just a young man, perhaps my age, with eyes wide with terror.
"You... you're a monster..." he whimpered.
I stared at him with ringing ears and eyes that saw only gray. I wanted to kill him. Dirga screamed in my head to snap his neck. But I only threw the helm aside and punched the glass floor next to his head until it shattered into a thousand cracks.
"I am not a monster," I whispered with a broken voice. "I just want my brother back."
I left him trembling in fear on the floor. I walked toward the main control panel, took a deep breath, and slammed the emergency button to stop the nutrient flow to the entire lab.
The hum of the incubator machines died simultaneously. The fluid inside thousands of tubes began to recede, leaving the wretched creatures inside to suffocate before they could ever become weapons.
I stood in the center of the now-silent hall, with only the distant sound of steam audible. My body was at its limit. Synchronous Rate hit 92.5%.
I stared at the lift leading deeper. I knew that on the next floor, I wouldn't just face a cleanup unit. I would face the shadow of my own past.
ANTARALA GLOSSARY [Chapter 11]
Thermal Shield Layer: A technique using pillar residue to manipulate skin surface temperature to withstand extreme heat for a short duration.
Enforcer Unit: Saptapala special forces trained to fight experimental subjects, equipped with anti-residue technology.
Laboratory of Avarice: Level B-4 of Sector Zero, dedicated to mass-breeding Type-B (combat) Wiyangga.