The glowing crimson liquid inside the military canister bubbled as ten million bacteriophages poured from my palm, slipping through the microscopic seams of the glass seal.
To an ordinary alchemist or biochemist, the Class-S Military Berserk Mutagen was a crude, volatile nightmare—a synthetic hormone cocktail mixed with refined spatial-beast adrenaline designed to burn a creature's lifeforce like dry kindling.
To my Tier 2 Sovereign Swarm, however, it was simply a new chemical blueprint waiting to be copied.
Plaintext
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CHEMICAL ASSIMILATION COMPLETE
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[Blueprint Acquired]: Class-S Berserk Mutagen (Blood-Boil)
[Swarm Integration]: Spliced into Viral Protein Coat
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[NEW PARASITIC PROTOCOL UNLOCKED]:
- Protocol 4: "Crimson Rupture" (Active)
* Swarm secretes concentrated berserk mutagen directly
into the host's adrenal cortex and dantian meridians.
* Effect: Forces Host into an uncontrollable, pain-blind
psychotic rage at 300% Qi output before triggering
catastrophic cellular meltdown.
=====================================================
The canister in my hand went clear, the red chemical completely stripped of its active compounds and absorbed into the genetic memory of my one billion clones.
I tossed the empty metal cylinder aside. It clattered hollowly against the dead Wyrm's bone plates.
"Master," Commander Kael said, stepping carefully over the beast's dorsal ridge while eyeing the empty canister with quiet dread. "The surface drones show Grandmaster Vance has finished collapsing the northern gorge exits. He believes the Wyrm is awake and tearing through the subterranean tunnels. His personal shuttle just lifted off, heading straight for the Academy's flagship cruiser."
"And the other students in the trial zone?" Lina asked, her brow furrowing as she looked up from the dead beast. "When Vance collapsed those exits and triggered the tremors, dozens of squads were still inside the upper ravines!"
"The seismic shockwaves drove the wild Stage 1 and Stage 2 surface beasts into a panic," Kael reported grimly. "The student squads are scrambling toward the eastern extraction beacons, just as Vice Principal Rosette planned. She's already broadcasting an emergency distress signal to the city, claiming an unexpected 'Stage 4 Spatial Tide' has erupted in the Black Crag."
Lina clenched her fists, the golden dragon aura beneath her skin flaring with righteous heat. "She's setting the stage right in front of the whole city. When the dust settles and we don't come out, she'll shed a few crocodile tears on the news broadcasts and hand your company keys over to the War Ministry."
"She certainly knows how to put on a theater production," I murmured, leaping lightly down from the Wyrm's skull and landing silently beside Lina on the stone floor.
I reached out, catching her chin gently with two fingers and tilting her face up toward mine.
"Why do you look so angry, darling?" I asked softly, a calm, indulgent smile curving my lips. "Did you think I would let a second-rate actress steal our wedding fund?"
Lina's fierce expression cracked, a sudden, helpless flush creeping up her neck at the casual mention of the word wedding. She swatted my fingers away, though she didn't step back.
"Who said anything about a wedding fund, you lunatic?!" she muttered, glancing sideways at Kael's soldiers, who had all very wisely turned their backs and pretended to inspect the ceiling welds. "Be serious! Grandmaster Vance and Rosette are both on that flagship cruiser right now. Even with your secret tunnels, if they declare you dead in the trial and invoke martial law over the Roy banks tonight—"
"They won't make it to tonight," I interrupted softly.
My smile didn't fade, but the warmth in my eyes dropped into a cold, pitch-black abyss.
"Have Kael's men load the Wyrm's spine onto the mag-lev train," I said, taking her hand and leading her back through the titanium airlock into Outpost Zero. "We're going back to the lounge. The second act of Vice Principal Rosette's play is about to start on the main screen... and I wouldn't want you to miss the premiere."
Five miles above the eastern ridge of the Black Crag, the Golden Star Academy's flagship command cruiser—the Starlight Bastion—hovered like a gleaming steel fortress among the sulfur clouds.
Inside the primary medical bay on the cruiser's upper deck, the air was thick with the smell of antiseptic ozone and scorched iron.
Grandmaster Vance stood beside the central operating table, his heavy crimson armor still stained with volcanic ash. Opposite him stood Vice Principal Rosette, along with three senior physicians and two high-ranking observers from the Imperial War Ministry.
On the operating table, inside an open stasis pod, lay Arthur Vance.
"Why isn't he waking up?!" Grandmaster Vance snarled, his Stage 2 Grandmaster pressure making the surgical trays rattle violently. "I pumped three full cycles of my core fire-qi into his lungs! His broken bones have already been set with Grade-3 bone-mending paste! Why is his breathing still so shallow?!"
The chief academy physician wiped cold sweat from his forehead, staring in utter confusion at the holographic diagnostic screen hovering over Arthur's chest.
"Commander Vance... it makes no medical sense," the physician stammered, his hands trembling. "His external wounds are stable, and the Grandmaster fire-qi you infused into him is circulating through his heart. However... there is a dense, shadowy mass coating the inside of his bronchial tree. Our scanners can't identify it—it looks like simple phlegm, yet it is absorbing every drop of fire-qi and medicinal energy we pump into him!"
Vice Principal Rosette stepped closer to the table, her heterochromatic eyes narrowing as she looked down at Arthur's pale, bluish face.
"Could Amar Roy have poisoned him in the gorge?" Rosette asked coldly.
"With what?!" Grandmaster Vance barked. "My grandson was wearing the Sun-Devouring Core! No mortal poison below Grade-4 can bypass that artifact's passive fire-ward! And my own Grandmaster qi would have incinerated any common toxin in his blood the moment I infused him!"
"Regardless," one of the War Ministry observers spoke up, checking his pocket chronometer with a cold, bureaucratic smile. "The seismic sensors confirm the lower caverns of the Ashen Gorge have completely collapsed. No life signatures have emerged from the subterranean sector in forty minutes. Amar Roy and the traitor's girl are buried under three hundred thousand tons of rock alongside the Stage 4 Wyrm."
Rosette's lips curved into a triumphant, icy smile. She turned toward the communications console at the far end of the med-bay.
"Once the one-hour mark passes, I will officially sign the academy casualty declaration," Rosette said smoothly. "By midnight, the War Ministry's asset-seizure teams can enter the Roy Conglomerate tower and freeze the central bank vaults. Grandmaster Vance, your clan will receive the Western Spirit Mines as promised."
Grandmaster Vance let out a heavy, savage breath through his nostrils, looking down at his crippled grandson. "Gold won't replace my grandson's crippled pride, Rosette. When the excavation teams dig up that gorge next week, I want Amar Roy's crushed corpse brought to my manor so I can feed it to the dogs myself."
Down in the subterranean lounge of Outpost Zero, eight hundred meters below the mountain, I watched the entire exchange through the hacked medical-bay feed that Ronald's cyber-intelligence unit had tapped into via the academy's trustee override code.
I sat on the black leather sofa, my arm draped loosely behind Lina's shoulders.
"They already divided up the mines," Lina whispered, her amber eyes cold as she watched Rosette's smug face on the monitor. "They don't even have a shred of guilt."
"Vultures don't feel guilt, darling," I said softly. "They only feel hunger."
I closed my eyes, severing my view of the room and plunging my mind across the five-mile distance—locking directly onto the two hundred and ten thousand bacteriophage clones nested inside Arthur Vance's lungs.
They were fat.
Swollen with three full cycles of Grandmaster Vance's own diluted fire-qi, and newly updated with the genetic code of the Class-S Berserk Mutagen via my hive-mind resonance.
[Target: Arthur Vance]
[Location: Flagship Cruiser 'Starlight Bastion' - Med-Bay]
[Surrounding High-Value Targets: Grandmaster Vance (0.5m), Vice Principal Rosette (1.2m), War Ministry Envoys (2.0m)]
[Execute Protocol 4: Crimson Rupture?]
"Enjoy your mines, Vance," I whispered into the quiet underground room.
Execute.
Inside the med-bay of the Starlight Bastion, the holographic heart monitor above Arthur's bed suddenly let out a piercing, continuous shriek.
BEEEEEEEEP!
"What's happening?!" Grandmaster Vance roared, lunging toward the table.
Inside Arthur's chest, two hundred and ten thousand bacteriophages simultaneously contracted their protein tails, injecting a concentrated, microscopic flood of the Class-S Berserk Mutagen directly into Arthur's adrenal glands, heart valves, and spinal cord—while simultaneously releasing all the stored, compressed Grandmaster fire-qi they had hoarded over the last hour!
THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!
Arthur's heart rate spiked from forty beats per minute to three hundred in a single second!
His skin turned the color of boiling blood, thick black veins erupting across his neck and face like writhing snakes. His shattered bones didn't heal—they were forcefully locked together by a violent, spasming surge of mutated muscle fibers and hyper-ignited fire qi!
SNAP!
Arthur's eyes flew wide open.
There were no pupils left—only two pools of blinding, blood-red madness.
"Arthur?!" Grandmaster Vance gasped in shock, leaning down over his grandson with joy and confusion. "You're awake—"
Arthur didn't speak. He didn't recognize his grandfather. His brain had been completely drowned in neurotoxic berserk hormones and agonizing, burning pain.
With the explosive, suicidal strength of a Stage 3 Adept burning three hundred percent of his lifeforce—fueled by the Grandmaster qi his own grandfather had pumped into him—Arthur's unbroken right hand snatched the heavy surgical laser-scalpel from the tray beside him and drove it six inches deep straight into the chief physician's throat!
SHLICK!
Blood sprayed across Vice Principal Rosette's white face as the doctor collapsed, gurgling.
"ARTHUR! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" Grandmaster Vance bellowed in horror, reaching out to grab his grandson's shoulders—without raising his lethal Grandmaster defense aura, terrified that his own rebounding force would kill his fragile heir!
That hesitation was fatal.
As Grandmaster Vance grabbed Arthur, locking them face-to-face at point-blank range, Arthur opened his mouth and let out a deafening, inhuman shriek—vomiting a pressurized torrent of boiling black blood and fifty million newly replicated, mutagen-laced bacteriophages straight into the old Grandmaster's open mouth, eyes, and nostrils, as well as across Vice Principal Rosette's face!
[Secondary Infection Confirmed!]
[New Host Acquired: Elder Vance (Stage 2 Martial Grandmaster) - Entry via Open Mucosal Membrane while Unshielded!]
[New Host Acquired: Vice Principal Rosette (Stage 9 Martial Master)!]
BOOM!
Having burned every last drop of his cellular vitality in that single, berserk eruption, Arthur's heart literally exploded inside his chest, his body collapsing backward onto the operating table as a charred, smoking corpse—right in his horrified grandfather's arms.
Down in Outpost Zero, the monitor went dark as the med-bay's quarantine alarms began to wail across the sky.
I opened my eyes, looking at the black screen as a slow, chilling smile spread across my face.
"The gift has been delivered," I murmured softly.
Grandmaster Vance had spent an hour looking for me in the dirt—completely unaware that he had just carried my plague straight into his own lungs.