Transcendence (1)

I applied Metal Absorption, but nothing about my appearance changed.

This transformation had taken place inside my body. My internal organs had boiled hot for a moment, then quickly settled back down.

From now on, whenever I activated Metal Absorption and consumed metal, I could imbue my outer carapace with that metal's inherent properties.

Shall we give it a try?

My nest was located in an underground secret passage, its ceiling and walls all built from solid alloy. With the trait still active, I raked my claws across the wall.

I popped the metal fragments that came loose into my mouth and swallowed. The change was immediate. The glossy, chitinous sheen of my carapace shifted to the hard, rough-hewn texture of metal.

I prodded the carapace with the tip of a claw. It felt exactly like the wall.

The hardness seems comparable, at least.

Even metals too tough for me to chew would deliver their effect the moment they entered my body. What if I activated Metal Absorption and swallowed a tungsten round from a Gauss rifle? My carapace would harden to tungsten-grade toughness, and my body weight would increase along with it.

Metal Absorption seems to work fine.

With the trait confirmed, all that remained was the Transcendence System — a system that had never existed in the game.

Come to think of it, if the goal was simply to solve the problem of having too many traits, wouldn't overhauling the fusion system have done the trick?

Fused traits could only be created by combining two unfused traits, one to one. If they'd merely relaxed the fusion conditions, the bloating trait list would have been resolved easily enough.

And yet they'd introduced an entirely new system instead. What did that imply?

It might be tied to the conditions of my later evolutions.

The evolution requirements up to Sub-adult hadn't changed at all. The conditions for reaching Young Adult were identical to the game's, too. If the Transcendence System was only appearing now, it might be a requirement for advancing from Young Adult to Adult — or perhaps for reaching Ascension itself.

Worrying about it gets me nothing certain. I'll try it first and think after.

To the text box asking for my final consent, I answered yes. The moment I did, mucus began to pour from my body, just as it did when I evolved.

What is this?

The mucus solidified in an instant, cocooning me whole. As I sat sealed inside the massive cocoon, another translucent text box floated up before me.

It was my first time experiencing anything like this, and I was a little taken aback.

Even when I gained a new trait, it never enveloped me in a cocoon and rebuilt my entire body like this. That only happened when I evolved to my next stage.

A trait on par with evolution, is it?

That realization taught me one important lesson. Unlike other traits, those gained through the Transcendence System apparently required a cocoon-like state before being applied — much like an evolution. If I'd accepted the Transcendence System somewhere other than my nest, I'd have been in serious danger.

I'll have to be careful from now on.

This place was my nest, though, so there were no real hazards to speak of. I decided to wait it out at my leisure.

"Contact with Jade has been lost?"

Minseok Eugene, butler to Sihyeon Yujin, asked again in disbelief.

The subordinate nodded and relayed to Minseok the message left behind by Hope, one of Jade's men.

The message reported that every team member who had infiltrated the T&C Special Trade Hub had been wiped out, along with a description of the creature that had attacked them and a rough outline of its capabilities.

"The entire infiltration team annihilated by an unidentified creature..."

However many times he checked, a recorded message wasn't going to change. Faced with a report no one had anticipated, Minseok let out a long sigh.

The young mistress's condition has been poor as of late.

Sihyeon had always been a woman like a machine worn smooth of emotion — a side effect of the modification procedures that turned her into a Shadow.

Moreover, she had spent long years working as a spy and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠assassin under Akira Yujin's orders, so nearly every emotional display she offered was performance.

For someone running and ruling organizations and individuals alike, the absence of emotion was hardly a flaw. Sihyeon had been a strong, coldly rational leader, and not once had feelings ever compromised her work.

But that was before...

The Sihyeon resurrected as a clone was different now.

Since her revival, their mistress had been plagued by nightmares. She never spoke of them directly, but Minseok suspected those dreams had something to do with the being that had killed her.

The young mistress is afraid of death.

No replacement clone existed at present. Manufacturing a clone was no simple matter, and the Cult's secret art of transferring a soul was a technique that demanded enormous time.

If she died this time, it would truly be the end — so even a woman of Sihyeon's overwhelming power had ample reason to be afraid.

Still, Minseok shook his head.

Petty emotions cannot be allowed to delay the execution of the greater cause.

Sihyeon was the legitimate heir of the Yujin family, its one irreplaceable ruler. For the sake of those who followed her, she had to honor Jungwoo Yujin's legacy.

In fact, Sihyeon herself had never entirely dismissed the possibility that her clone might behave in unexpected ways.

Minseok had received his instructions from her back when the clone was first created — directives on how to respond if that happened.

If the clone reacted negatively upon hearing of Jade's death — refusing to go to the space city, for instance — Minseok would have no choice but to resort to force.

I'd rather not use that method if it can be avoided...

Minseok glanced briefly at the safe in the secretary's office. After a moment's deliberation, he left it untouched.

"I will make the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠report myself."

"Understood."

Leaving the office, Minseok headed for the laboratory. Because of her latest genetic modifications, his mistress was currently staying there.

When he arrived, the researchers bowed their heads to him without a word. At his gesture, they quietly filed out of the lab.

Only he and his mistress, Sihyeon, remained. She had just received the new gene transplant, and floated suspended inside a culture tank.

Her appearance had grown far more grotesque than before.

Her once-flawless, snow-white skin now looked rough ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and hard like a beast's hide, and a sharp horn had grown from the left side of her forehead.

Minseok addressed his mistress, whose eyes were closed.

"My lady. I have a report."

She opened her eyes. Her left one had been replaced with the eye of an animal, lending her an unsettling, almost uncanny air.

「You wouldn't interrupt my calibration unless it were urgent.」

"Indeed. Contact with the team infiltrating the T&C Special Trade Hub has been severed."

「Contact with Jade, lost?」

Her brow furrowed — evidently Jade's death had not been anticipated either.

「He was transplanted with Metallic Gremlin genes. Ordinary police or androids would hardly suffice to eliminate him.」

"According to the emergency transmission from Hope, one of Jade's men, the ones who annihilated them were not human."

「Don't tell me the Galagon has already gone berserk.」

"I confirmed through our informants that this is not the case. It appears Jade's team was taken down by a being entirely unconnected to our plans."

「Unconnected, you say...」

The annihilation of the team meant to carry out the operation was bitter news, but the fact that the enemy had no ties to Noble Capital was at least a small mercy.

"What are your orders?"

「...Hm.」

To Minseok's question, Sihyeon fell silent.

If the Board of Directors Meeting were canceled, obtaining fresh intelligence about it would not be easy for her. She was officially presumed dead, which placed severe restrictions on her intelligence-gathering.

She could order her subordinates to collect information, but the gap between what she had once gleaned at Akira's side and what they could obtain would be vast.

In short, if she missed this board meeting, seizing a future opportunity to eliminate Noble Capital wholesale would be next to impossible.

But forcing the plan through from here carries its own enormous risk.

If even one member of Jade's team had survived and been taken prisoner by the T&C family, every detail of the operation would have leaked. Noble Capital's interrogation techniques were beyond imagination; no agent, however rigorously trained, could withstand them.

And if the T&C family already knew of her plans, a trap might well have been laid.

I need to know who fought the team.

Minseok had told her it was a non-human entity, but both of them understood the truth: whatever had wiped out Jade's team was no pushover.

To be fair, Jade's team had been dispatched to prepare a terror operation, and its own combat strength was on the weaker side. Even so, they were not so feeble as to be annihilated this easily.

Whoever had destroyed them was therefore highly likely to be connected to Noble Capital. To confirm, she asked Minseok:

「Who was it that wiped out Jade's team?」

"An unidentified creature, one that has not yet been catalogued. I will display Hope's final transmission."

Minseok inserted a data chip into the terminal beside the culture tank. Moments later, a holographic message window materialized across its surface.

「!」

As she read, her pupils dilated. Her body convulsed violently, as though she'd been struck by lightning.

"My lady?"

Her reaction was far fiercer than he'd anticipated, and Minseok, too, panicked.

The equipment throughout the laboratory began to shake wildly, and hairline cracks began spreading across the culture tank that held her. Her psychic power, along with her mistress's turmoil, was warping everything around it.

At last the tank gave out and shattered. In the same instant, the surrounding equipment was swept away, and Minseok was hurled backward.

"Gahk!"

"It's him! He's in the city!"

Sihyeon screamed as she burst from the shattered tank. Her expression seemed to tremble between terror and something like joy.

"M-my lady?"

"The plan proceeds as scheduled. The operatives are dead, so prepare a new team at once. The enemy in the city is formidable — select only the very finest of elites."

"Y-yes, my lady!"

"And prepare my combat suit."

"You mean the White Maiden, my lady?"

She nodded.

Those words meant she intended to visit the space city in person and direct the operation herself.

As if all the worries he'd carried on his way to the laboratory had been groundless, not a trace of fear of death remained about her.

Relieved at his returned mistress's bearing, Minseok quietly excused himself from the laboratory.

Having dismissed her subordinate, Sihyeon looked down at her own body. The soles of her feet were bloody from the tank's glass shards, yet the strangeness she felt outweighed the pain.

It was a fact her subordinates — even her butler — did not know: she had never overcome the wrongness she felt in the clone's flesh.

She had strained to preserve Sihyeon Yujin's patterns of thought and habit, but day by day, her inner self was drifting further from the original.

One of the forces driving that divergence was the nightmare.

The memory of her original body being murdered by an unidentified monster aboard Yu Seong's ship. That memory returned to torment her in her dreams every single night.

She knew. Until she confirmed the creature's death, she would never know peace.

But in this vast universe, hunting a monster whose identity she didn't even know, unable to tell whether it lived or died, was all but impossible. Even if she set her subordinates on its trail, there was no telling how many years it would take.

And so her nightmare was destined to become an incurable disease she would carry to her grave.

That is, if not for the message she had seen today.

This time, I will kill him for ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠certain.

Having at last seized the opportunity she had long prayed for, Sihyeon broke into a smile of pure ecstasy.

Unlike an evolution, the application time for the transcendent trait hadn't been especially long. It had felt like roughly two to three hours.

I tore open the cooled cocoon and stepped out. The mucus inside burst free in a flood, gushing out like water from a ruptured balloon.

Shaking off the slime and the fragments of cocoon shell clinging to my body, I stretched once from head to tail.

Huh?

The five-meter ceiling of the secret passage somehow felt closer than before.

I lowered my combat arms to inspect them. Their appearance had changed considerably.

Across the board, all four arms had shifted from a shape resembling human arm bones to something thickly corded with muscle. Compared to before, they'd grown roughly one-and-a-half to two times thicker.

The hands had changed too. The fingers at the ends of the upper pair of combat arms, mounted at the shoulders, had swollen so massive they could pass for pincers.

The lower left arm — the one that had housed the Barbed Bone Launching Organ — had transformed into something as thick and menacing as a mortar. The small fingers at its tip had grown proportionally with the rest.

Perhaps because of my increased bulk, the small arms on my chest had now grown to roughly the size of a child of seven or eight. Arms that size could comfortably grip and fire pistol-class weapons.

The carapace encasing my thorax, back, and head had grown far thicker as well, reminiscent of a Mountaincrawler's dorsal plates. My weight must have climbed considerably — I found myself wondering whether I could still manage to fly on my wings.

That's a lot of change.

The overall silhouette hadn't strayed far from the Sub-adult form shaped by the Physical Enhancement Type, but in the finer details, the transformation was drastic enough to call it half an evolution.

To review the changes, I opened my status window.

What's this?

The moment I activated the text window, a torrent of words greeted me.