Chapter 442
Chapter 442
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 442
Chapter Title: The Day of the Great Full Moon (6)
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20 minutes ago.
After escaping its glass tube in the isolation chamber, the Garas attempted to breed with every living organism there.
This was exactly what Plu had intended, but there was one fact she had overlooked.
Even she, who knew how terrifying the Garas was, had failed to gauge the precise level of its reproductive drive.
Trapped in a narrow glass tube for days, the Garas was in the most agitated state of its life. Upon finding freedom, its reproductive drive surged to 200,000 times that of a human.
The time it took for the genetic information a Garas injected into another species to grow from an embryo to an adult was, on average, 14 hours.
But now, gripped by the desperate crisis of being unable to pass on its lineage, the birth time was a mere three seconds.
“Gyaaaah! Gyaaaah!”
As the giant creature let out a pained shriek of childbirth, dozens of Garas burst from its belly.
The young, writhing in their fetal state, grew into adults in less than ten seconds and pounced on other creatures.
It was literally an exponential explosion.
Garas offspring were born in every containment unit, and soon, the isolation chamber reached its saturation point.
With a loud bang, the steel door flew open, and a flood of Garas in all shapes and sizes poured down the corridor like water bursting from a dam.
The torrent of creatures crashed into the corridor's intersections, splitting apart according to the principles of fluid dynamics and beginning to spread throughout the entire command center.
* * *
“Hah! Hah!”
In the corridor swept clean by the Garas, only the gruesome remains of victims were left behind.
Only the bald man, a victim of the Garas, was left leaning against a wall, gasping for breath.
His abdomen was grotesquely swollen as if filled with fluid, the distension doubling in size every second.
“Gasp! Gasp!”
A trembling hand reached for a dagger on the floor.
Lifting it with both hands, he held it in a reverse grip and aimed it at his own stomach, his face a mask of terror.
“Krrghh!”
He had to stab himself. It was the only choice, the best thing he could do for himself.
But in the end, the man's face contorted in agony, and he threw the dagger away.
“Aaaaaargh!”
The man's abdomen exploded, and a black monster, curled into a ball, spilled out.
When its curved spine fully straightened, its body measured a full meter in length. It braced itself on the floor with two emaciated arms and reverse-jointed legs, its long tongue lolling out.
Its face was smashed as if by a hammer, it had no eyes, and its brain was completely exposed atop its head.
“Ki, kikiki!”
Prowling like a cheetah, the Garas detected the scent of life with its keen sense of smell.
“I… am… the king… of the species.”
Crack!
Four cracks spiderwebbed across the floor, and the Garas vanished.
* * *
Shirone and Plu sprinted down the corridor, not daring to look back.
There were Garas everywhere they turned, and they could feel their escape routes narrowing.
“Senior! What do we do? We’re going to be surrounded at this rate.”
A swarm of Garas appeared in the direction they were heading.
Plu stopped and swung her Phoenix, unleashing a vortex of fire.
“Kiaaaah! Kiaaaah!”
The heat melted the Garas's skin like porridge.
But soon, their wounds began to regenerate with the ability of Cancer.
“Tch! Regeneration this time?”
The Garas itself was not a particularly strong creature.
But when its bizarre reproductive ability, capable of creating offspring in under ten seconds, combined with the environment of a laboratory isolating all manner of life forms, an unbelievable species was born.
As the population exploded within the confined space, some mutants even attempted to breed with their own kind, causing the Garas to evolve, growing stronger and stronger.
Shirone gritted his teeth, his expression grim.
He could tell what kind of creatures Lacesis had collected just by looking at the forms of the Garas.
“I'll handle this.”
A black orb materialized before Shirone's eyes, crushing all the charging Garas.
This was thanks to learning that the black orb was effective against the Cancer trait, but that was just a stroke of luck.
Every creature has a natural predator, but the Garas were currently thriving in an environment that allowed for infinite variations. The longer they stalled, the more disadvantaged they would be.
“Kiririk! Kiririk!”
A slimy substance dripped from the ceiling, forming dozens of hanging sacs.
The center of each sac split open horizontally, and the eyes that emerged activated Antithesis, freezing the two in place.
“Kuh!”
At the same time, a Garas with the ability of the transparent Hororos bit Plu's calf.
Seeing the clear teeth marks on her white skin, Shirone drew upon his Mental Transcendence and retaliated.
He crushed the transparent, snake-like Garas with his tentacles while simultaneously firing his Photon Cannon at the ceiling, causing the wall to collapse and block the exit.
With no time to think about the consequences, Shirone checked on Plu.
If the Hororos had also mixed with the traits of a venomous creature, they were in deep trouble.
“Senior, are you okay?”
Plu looked at her bleeding leg. It wasn't bad enough to immobilize her.
But the moment she saw the Garas growing stronger with time, she had already made her decision.
“I'll lure them away. You find Lacesis. If you don't stop her, the mission is a failure.”
Shirone couldn't answer.
He knew the situation left them no choice, but the thought of leaving Plu as fodder for the Garas was horrifying.
“Senior, I…”
“Go! You promised me! That you wouldn't hesitate when you had to make a choice!”
Shirone clenched his fists and shouted.
“How can I leave you behind! I'd rather…!”
A sharp slap echoed, and Shirone's head whipped to the side.
Plu's cold eyes stared into Shirone's face.
“Go. You can do it. You know that, don't you?”
Shirone didn't feel the pain. The ache in his heart was far worse than the sting on his cheek.
“Take care of Lacesis. Then, come back for me.”
They both knew that would never happen.
That fact saddened Shirone more than anything.
“The more you hesitate, the less time you have to save me. If you came back and found I had died five seconds earlier, could you bear it?”
“Senior.”
“Two seconds have passed.”
Shirone squeezed his eyes shut and stood up. Then, for the first time in his life, he told a lie concerning someone's life.
“I will definitely come back.”
Shirone pushed off the ground and disappeared around the corner.
Almost simultaneously, a swarm of Garas rushed from the opposite direction.
Plu was no longer afraid.
Instead, a sense of relief from sending Shirone away made her expression calmer than ever.
‘Thank you. You’re a good kid.’
A dry smile touched her lips.
“Goodbye, Shirone.”
Leaning on her Phoenix to stand, Plu’s expression was fiercer than ever before.
Smoke rose from her body as if she were about to explode.
Amplifying her magic with an omnipotence that disregarded her own immolation, she held out her Phoenix.
It was the strongest spell possessed by Plu, an officially ranked 8th-grade mage.
Hellfire!
A bursting cloud of flames erupted, filling the entire corridor.
* * *
Tears streamed endlessly from Shirone's eyes.
But the heart-wrenching sorrow turned into cold fury the moment he reached the laboratory containing the Fusix Machine.
With a gaze sharp enough to cut steel, Shirone stared at the laboratory and slowly opened the door.
In the silence, only the sound of bubbling could be heard.
All he could see were the corpses of researchers.
Creatures were contained in the glass spheres of the Fusix Machine, just as Lacesis had shown in her Memory Vision.
Shirone stopped in front of one of the spheres.
Inside was the body of Ikasa, torn to pieces as if chewed by teeth.
A bitter emotion filled Shirone's eyes as he looked at her upside-down face.
‘Ikasa.’
He had failed to keep his promise.
But he had to put that thought aside for later.
Without turning around, Shirone asked.
“Are you satisfied now? Is this the result you wanted?”
Lacesis walked over nonchalantly, a smirk playing on her blood-red lips.
“Looks like you've trapped yourself. You shouldn't have touched the Garas.”
Shirone slowly turned around.
“It's the same for you. Give up now. The command center will be sealed.”
“Hahahaha! If you really believe that, you're far too naive. Do you think I did all this just because I was weak, because I admired strength? Not at all.”
Crack! Crack!
Lacesis's bones twisted, and her muscles began to swell like balloons.
“I am already the ultimate life form.”
Her height surpassed two meters, then three, growing until she touched the ceiling.
Her skin was entirely red, with a tail of entangled intestines, and her muscular body was covered in the twitching organs of unknown creatures—eyes, noses, mouths, and teeth.
An unspeakable grotesqueness.
A hideous body, devoid of function, containing only absolute malice.
“Shirone, become one with me.”
The moment Lacesis's androgynous, low voice echoed, Shirone reflexively fired his Photon Cannon.
But his target wasn't Lacesis; it was the Fusix Machine.
BOOM! KABOOM!
Moving faster than the Photon Cannon's beam, Lacesis blocked its path to the Fusix Machine.
Despite the powerful impact, her sturdy body didn't even flinch.
Law of Satan—Incarnation of Evil.
It was a Divine Transcendence that would have caused a human body to collapse, but Lacesis's durability, combined with countless life forms, was on par with an angel's.
“Kraaaaaah!”
Lacesis spat a powerful stream of fire. Shirone teleported to evade it and countered with Armand's tentacles and his Photon Cannon.
The laboratory instantly became a chaotic battlefield.
Lacesis never left her position in front of the Fusix Machine, yet it was Shirone who was being pushed back.
As lightning mixed with the flames, leaving him nowhere to escape, Lacesis lunged forward, grabbed Shirone by the neck, and slammed him against the wall.
“Kuhk!”
If not for Armand, his neck would have already snapped.
Tentacles shot out from his robe to attack, but they couldn't even break her skin.
“Kukuku, did you really think you could win? Because you're a Nephilim? The light of Sector 73? Did you think you could defeat me?”
Lacesis's eyes glowed gold.
“I am Satan, the Incarnation of Evil!”
A new consciousness flooded into Shirone's mind.
In a space of soaring flames, the avatar of Satan and the avatar of Shirone materialized, mirroring their real-world states.
As Shirone's golden wings bent as if about to break, trembling violently, Satan thrust its hideous face forward.
“Poor little lamb, a mere Nephilim is no match for me.”
“Grrrrrrr!”
Shirone used the power of Mental Transcendence to maximize his avatar's abilities.
Satan's face contorted for a moment, but it quickly focused its strength into its arm with a look of contempt.
“Huk!”
The impact bent Shirone's waist as if it would snap, and his legs thrashed wildly.
To stop the avatar of Satan, which stood at the extreme of evil, one would need to be at the extreme of good.
It was a state unattainable for a human like Shirone.
‘Is this how I die?’
He could feel his strength draining as his avatar's presence grew faint.
In reality, his physical body was likely bent to the point where his neck was about to break.
‘Senior…’
What was she doing right now, surrounded by the Garas?
‘I can't let it end like this!’
Shirone gritted his teeth and deployed his avatar technique once more.
For the sake of his senior who had thrown herself into a terrible hell, he had to fight until the very end.
“How dare you!”
As Shirone's resistance intensified, Satan's arm muscles bulged as if they would burst.
Flash!
At the same time, Shirone's body was engulfed in a pure white radiance as another avatar was superimposed over his own.
It was Armand, integrated through the Ultima System.
Mind and body surged into the avatar as a single signal, leading Shirone to a state he had never before reached.
Mental Transcendence—All is Mind.
“Kuaaaaaaaargh!”
As a beastly roar erupted from Satan's mouth, Shirone's body turned into light and exploded.