The forty-eight hours passed in the blink of an eye, marked by absolute turmoil in the upper echelons of Lock Night City.
My dispatches to the House of Castille and the Ironfang Clan had struck like imperial thunderbolts. Faced with immediate financial liquidation, the seizure of copper mines, and the auctioning of their ancestral treasures, both families had developed sudden, diplomatic illnesses.
When the emergency board convened to hear Grandmaster Vance's formal grievance, not a single allied hand was raised in his favor. The petition to overturn the Roy estate's trade embargo on the Vance dojos was crushed before the ink could even dry. Rumor had it that Master Vance had shattered his private mahogany dining table in a fit of Stage 2 Martial Master rage, his pride dragged through the dirt by a sixteen-year-old trustee without me even bothering to attend the session.
I had far more important matters to attend to than the tantrums of a declining clan.
The rain had cleared over the Western Industrial Sub-District, replaced by an icy, biting fog that rolled off the drainage canals. The armored limousine glided down the subterranean descent into the secure bays of Apex Biomolecular, the hydraulic locks hissing shut behind us with familiar finality.
"Master Ryuk," Ronald announced as he held the rear passenger door open. "Director Chen has followed your exact directives. Sector 7 has been evacuated, all automated bio-surveillance records for Sub-level 4 have been wiped, and the live tissue containers are unsealed."
"Good," I replied, stepping out into the sterile white glow of the docking bay.
I walked down the reinforced corridor of Sub-level 4 with brisk, quiet strides. The viral lattice under my skin was humming with an eager, electric frequency.
Waiting outside the pressurized airlock was Director Chen. The old biochemist looked as if he hadn't slept a wink in two days. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath his round glasses, and when he saw me approach, he hurriedly flattened himself against the titanium bulkhead, his hands trembling as he clutched his diagnostic tablet.
"M-Master Amar!" Chen stammered, bowing so deeply his forehead nearly touched his knees. "E-Everything is prepared! The stasis field around the Abyssal Chitin Parasite has been deactivated, and the live rift-beast tissue cultures have been brought to the secondary containment platform!"
"Did you encounter any complications?" I asked smoothly, pausing before the thick spirit-quartz observation window.
"N-None, Master!" Chen squeaked, adjusting his glasses with slick fingers. "Though... I must warn you again. The Abyssal Chitin Parasite is an entirely different caliber of organism compared to the Blood Rot bacterium. It was extracted from the abdominal plates of a Stage 3 Rift Beetle. Its cellular density is reinforced by bio-metallic chitin, and it actively secretes a bone-corrosive neurotoxin. If it breaches containment—"
"I am well aware of its properties, Director," I cut him off, my voice carrying an effortless, razor-sharp calm that made the old man's breath hitch. "Unlock the inner airlock."
"Y-Yes, sir! Immediately!"
The heavy decontamination bulkheads hissed apart, venting a cloud of frigid nitrogen gas.
I stepped into the pressurized isolation chamber, the heavy titanium doors locking behind me with an airtight clack.
The air inside was freezing, smelling of pungent sulfur and the sharp, metallic reek of dried rift-beast ichor. In the center of the surgical platform lay a long, reinforced steel basin. Inside it, submerged in a shallow layer of crimson nutrient broth, was a grotesque, football-sized biological mass.
It looked like an oversized, segmented centipede wrapped in jagged, obsidian-black chitin plates. Even without a head or eyes, the creature's body was squirming in frantic, rhythmic spasms, its hundreds of sharp, needle-like chitinous legs clicking violently against the steel tray. Faint, acidic green fumes rose from its dorsal pores, hissing as they etched tiny corrosive pits into the surgical metal.
A Stage 3 bio-parasite.
To an ordinary Stage 1 Martial Adept, standing in the same room with that creature without protective spirit-armor would result in melted skin and poisoned bone marrow within minutes.
To the one hundred and seventy-one million bacteriophages pulsing in my bloodstream, however, that writhing black parasite was nothing short of an evolutionary feast.
Thump-thump.
My heart beat with a steady, slow rhythm.
I approached the basin, stopped three inches from the thrashing parasite, and rolled up the sleeves of my black sweater.
"Let's see how tough your armor is," I muttered softly.
I extended both palms downward over the steel basin, completely bypassing any martial qi.
Active Aerosol Exhalation.
Ssssshh.
An invisible, sub-microscopic mist detached from my pores, carrying ten million active Bacteriophage Clones downward like a silent, ravenous shroud.
The moment my swarm touched the surface of the green acid fumes, the newly integrated Toxic Immunity passive from the Blood Rot strain kicked in. The corrosive vapor didn't harm my clones in the slightest; instead, my phages used the thermal convection of the fumes to dive straight toward the chitinous parasite.
Clack-clack-clack-clack!
In an instant, my secondary consciousness exploded into a roaring hive-mind battlefield.
Through millions of crystalline viewpoints, I saw the true structure of the Abyssal Chitin Parasite. Its outer shell wasn't just dead organic material; it was an intricate, multi-layered mesh of bio-metallic chitin plates glued together by dense, protein-rich cellular seams.
The moment my phages landed on those microscopic seams, the parasite seemed to sense an existential threat. Its dorsal pores snapped shut, and its internal conduits flared with a savage burst of rift energy, attempting to cook my clones with concentrated toxic acid.
Attach, I commanded, cold and detached. Pierce.
Ten million tail fibers flexed simultaneously.
Their diamond-hard, Z-rank protein injectors slammed downward, bypassing the jagged surface and boring directly into the cellular seams of the creature's chitinous wall.
Click!
Ten million hollow protein tubes penetrated the parasite's cytoplasm.
Inject.
The dark, icy genetic code of my Bacteriophage Clone surged into the host's cellular core like liquid obsidian.
The hostile takeover of a multi-cellular rift parasite was vastly different from a simple single-cell bacterium. The parasite's cellular machinery fought back fiercely, its primitive alien immune proteins rushing toward the injection sites to dissolve my viral strands.
Plaintext
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SWARM MATRIX: MULTI-CELLULAR PARASITE TAKEOVER
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[Host Target]: Abyssal Chitin Parasite (Stage 3 Beast Level)
[Immune Resistance Encountered]: Moderate (Rift-Grade Chitin Proteins)
[Genetic Assimilation (Passive)]: Overriding Host Cell Nuclei...
[Replication Yield]: 1,200 Clones per Cell (Dense Chitin Biomass)
[Host Structural Breakdown]: Initiated
=====================================================
"You have tough armor," I murmured, watching the twitching black centipede behind my human eyes, "but your cells still use nucleic acids. And in the microscopic realm... I am God."
My passive Genetic Assimilation flared.
The Z-rank code systematically hijacked the parasite's ribosomes, forcing its vast reserves of bio-metallic chitin proteins into the assembly of new bacteriophage capsids!
Every microscopic plate of armor on the creature's back was turned against it, dismantled from the inside out to forge trillions of diamond-hard viral heads and contractile tail sheaths.
Ten million clones became one hundred million.
One hundred million became four hundred million.
The creature's frenzied clicking began to slow. The obsidian sheen on its jagged shell turned a brittle, ash-gray color, spiderweb cracks spreading across its armor as its inner moisture and protein were greedily drained.
Three seconds... two seconds... one second.
CRUNCH.
To human eyes, it looked as if the football-sized alien parasite simply dried out and imploded.
With a soft, hollow crack, the entire creature collapsed into a heap of fine, gray dust inside the steel basin. The green acid fumes completely dissipated, leaving behind nothing but sterile, purified ash.
And at that exact microsecond, an overwhelming, cataclysmic tide of sensory feedback rushed back into my human brain.
BOOM!
My physical body jerked backward half a step, my boots skidding across the steel tiles.
Four hundred million new clones surged out of the ash, riding the ambient air current back into my respiratory tract and integrating into my vascular highway. The sudden explosion of new viewpoints, new sensory nodes, and sheer bio-feedback felt like a supernova detonating inside my sea of consciousness!
I clenched my jaw, veins bulging along my temples, forcing my biotech discipline to enforce total swarm synchronization.
Harmonize! I roared internally. Suppress the noise!
The chaotic sensory storm bowed beneath my absolute will. The hundreds of millions of inputs smoothed out into a deep, rhythmic hum—a quiet, terrifying cosmic engine operating beneath my flesh.
My bones clicked, dense viral lattices wrapping tightly around my marrow, while my muscular fibers hardened with the incorporated genetic data of the Stage 3 beast's bio-metallic chitin.
Plaintext
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SWARM STATUS PANEL
=====================================================
[User]: Amar Roy
[Physical Realm Promoted]: Martial Adept (Stage 2)
[Cellular Composition]: Chitin-Reinforced Bio-Lattice
[Main Form]: Human
-----------------------------------------------------
[CLONE SWARM MATRIX]:
- Active Bacteriophage Clones: 571,840,000 / 1,000,000,000
- Colony Tier: Primary Swarm (Tier 1 - Saturation Phase)
- Integrated Pathogens:
* Terrestrial Streptococcus (Baseline)
* Necrotic Blood Rot (Stage 3 Rift Strain)
* Abyssal Chitin Parasite (Stage 3 Beast Genome)
-----------------------------------------------------
[NEW TRAITS INTEGRATED]:
- Chitinous Bio-Mesh (Passive): Kinetic trauma absorption
increased from 50% to 75%. Skin density can briefly harden
to withstand standard Stage 3 beast-grade blades.
- Aerosol Range Expanded: Infiltration radius increased to 10 Meters.
-----------------------------------------------------
[NEXT EVOLUTION THRESHOLD]:
- 1,000,000,000 Clones (Stage 1 Evolution & Talent Extraction)
=====================================================
Five hundred and seventy-one million clones.
Stage 2 Martial Adept!
And my physical durability was now dense enough to blunt the edge of a spirit blade without deploying a single shred of martial qi. More than half the path toward the one-billion threshold was complete.
Outside the quartz window, Director Chen was staring at the pile of dry gray ash in the basin with a gaze of utter, catatonic disbelief. He looked like an atheist who had just watched a god descend to rewrite the laws of physics before his eyes.
I smoothed my black sweater, tapped the exit sensor, and stepped out into the corridor.
"Director Chen," I said quietly, brushing past the paralyzed old man.
"M-M-Master Amar..." Chen wheezed, falling to his knees.
"You have performed adequately," I murmured, tossing a black encrypted credit chip onto his lap. "Fifty thousand star coins for the lab's operational fund. incinerate the remaining ash and forget what you saw today."
"If anyone ask tell them that you have to destroy the specimen because some of it breached the containment and to prevent any breach to outside the laboratory, you destroyed everything in the lab"
"Y-Yes, Master! Thank you, Master! We know nothing! Nothing at all!" Chen pressed his forehead hard against the floor, tears of relief and fear staining the tiles.
One hour later. Golden Star Academy, Third-Floor Cultivation Vault.
The heavy door to Chamber 301 hissed open with a soft clack as I bypassed the wards with my biometric pass.
The air inside was blazing hot.
All twelve crates of Grade-2 Blood Condensation Grass were now hollow, reduced to withered, desiccated husks scattered across the floor.
Sitting atop the white jade platform, Lina was draped in an ethereal, radiant blanket of pure azure-gold light. Her pink hair drifted weightlessly, and when her eyes snapped open at my entrance, her vertical golden dragon pupils were so sharp, so sovereign, that the ambient spirit energy in the room hummed in submission.
Stage 2 Martial Adept!
In just forty-eight hours, she had completely broken past the bottleneck, her dragon bloodline blossoming under the guidance of the ancient immortal and the endless stream of resources.
The golden light slowly faded from her gaze, returning to a warm, soft amber as she saw me standing in the doorway.
"Amar!" she gasped, standing up from the dais with a grace and speed three times faster than before. "You're back!"
"I promised I would be," I said, a soft, genuine smile touching my lips as I walked toward the platform.
Deep within her soul, the Sovereign Dragon Empress let out a sharp, strangled hiss of sheer, primal horror.
"He... he changed again?!" the ancient immortal cried out in Lina's thoughts, her celestial composure entirely shattered. "Two days! It has only been two days! The boy walked out of here as an Apprentice, and now... now his flesh carries the hardened bone-density of a abyssal beast! What kind of forbidden, demonic sorcery is this?! Lina, stay away from him! He is no longer just a void—he is an active calamity!"
Lina completely ignored the frantic screams in her head.
She took three quick steps off the jade platform, stopping right in front of me. Looking into my dark eyes, seeing the tired, gentle warmth that only ever appeared when he looked at her, she reached out and gently grasped the fabric of my coat.
"Amar," she said softly, her voice filled with quiet, unwavering determination. "I finished all twelve crates. I reached Stage 2. When the Black Crag opens next week... I won't hide behind your back. I will fight beside you."
I looked down at her earnest, beautiful face, feeling the faint, draconic heat radiating from her skin.
My heart is beating, my blood is running fast in my blood stream, and not only my body even the millions of Bacteriophages present inside and outside of my body are feeling the same feeling.
No matter where I go or No matter what I become, I can never forget this smile. Currently standing in front of my eyes Lina is showing that same smile, the one I have been dying to see.
The smile she would give me if I apologize for being late, the smile that is mine, only mine. The smile that I need to protect, even if it means to kill everything, destroying world, or even erasing the abyss itself.
Gently, I raised my hand and patted her head, my fingers tangling softly in her pink hair.
"I know you will, Lina," I whispered, my dark eyes flashing with a cold, predatory light that would soon set the entire survival realm on fire.
"And together... we will paint the Black Crag red."