Chapter 104: The Injection
"SHINK!"
A sharp blade extended from Mason's gauntlet and plunged deep into the gap in Donovan's chest armor.
Donovan first felt a chill, followed by overwhelming agony. He convulsed wildly like a fish out of water.
But the more he struggled, the deeper the wound became. Gradually, the light in his eyes faded, and his body twitched involuntarily.
He stared intently at the fallen energy compound on the ground, his eyes filled with intense resentment.
"I am an Avenger! I am an Avenger!"
His voice grew fainter and fainter until his head lolled to the side, and he fell silent.
"Huff...!"
Mason exhaled a long breath, then released his overclocked state. Extreme exhaustion washed over him, his muscles screaming in protest, and he nearly collapsed.
He checked his vitals and found that in just a few seconds, the bio-battery's charge had dropped by ten percent. He also experienced cotton mouth, a racing heartbeat, and other aftereffects.
"No, I have to get out of here fast—this place isn't secure." Mason forced himself to stay alert, tossing Donovan's body into a nearby pile of scrap and picking up the metal case from the ground.
He thought for a moment, then took the authorization key from Donovan's corpse, opened the case, and carefully secured the energy compound inside.
Just as he was about to leave, he suddenly remembered something, walked over to the android, wrapped its remains in a tarp, and threw it into the vehicle.
In a sense, the android was just a robot wrapped in synthetic flesh. Even though Mason had demolished it, by extracting the storage chip from its neural processor, he could easily access everything it had recorded.
Mason's sudden ambush of Donovan would inevitably leave evidence at the scene.
He didn't even bother looting Donovan's body for equipment. Who knew if there were tracking markers embedded in them? Using or selling them could bring serious heat.
He started the vehicle and drove a short distance, dumping the android's remains and Donovan's body into the incinerator as he passed it.
Under the intense flames reaching thousands of degrees, they were quickly reduced to ash and slag.
Having done this, Mason started the vehicle again and headed toward the base near Blackwater Street. Judging by the time, the battle between Donnie and Lionheart was nearing its conclusion.
However, Mason didn't notice that from the spot where he and Donovan had fought, a metallic sphere the size of a marble rolled out from Cade's scattered debris.
Four slender mechanical legs emerged from the sphere's smooth surface, then the sphere rotated, determined its direction, and vanished into the darkness.
Mason parked the vehicle a few hundred meters from the Blackwater Street base beside an abandoned alley. In the darkness, he could clearly see the distant firelight and hear the thunderous boom of gunfire.
His body was still somewhat weakened, still suffering from the aftereffects of his limit break.
Mason hadn't expected Donovan to be so heavily augmented. To quickly end the battle, he'd been forced to use his Ultimate Burst. He admitted he'd been overconfident, deploying it in actual combat without prior field testing.
Fortunately, the situation had been resolved smoothly, though he felt drained and couldn't immediately engage in the next fight.
He weighed the energy compound in his hand, deep in thought.
He'd researched enhancement serums extensively—as long as one's physical attributes met the requirements, using them was extremely straightforward.
Just inject the compound along the spinal column base, and in about ten minutes, neural-spinal activation would be complete, breaking through the first enhancement threshold and becoming an enhanced operative.
After becoming enhanced, physical attributes would experience explosive growth and enter a highly active developmental period. Once spinal activity stabilized, the first genetic modification could be considered.
Mason's hesitation centered on whether or not to use the energy compound now.
After experiencing the second mission world and returning to reality, Mason's physical attributes had entered a period of rapid growth—just yesterday, both of his core stats had surpassed 3.0.
However, he was currently somewhat depleted, making this less than optimal timing for the injection. But considering Donnie's terrifying marksmanship and tactical brilliance, he felt uncertain about his current capabilities.
"No time like the present. I'll have to take it sooner or later anyway. Donnie's cunning and paranoid—he's definitely hiding an ace up his sleeve. I orchestrated this entire setup; if I can't take him down, the consequences will be catastrophic."
Having made up his mind, Mason didn't hesitate any longer. He secured the vehicle, vaulted into a nearby abandoned building, found a secluded room, barricaded the door, and prepared to administer the injection.
The blue liquid slowly flowed down his lower spine, and Mason felt no pain—only a faint, cooling sensation.
But as soon as he stood up, he suddenly felt a molten, searing agony radiating from the base of his spine. It felt like a white-hot branding iron had been driven deep into his body, causing him to let out a guttural roar.
"AAAHHH!"
Mason collapsed to his knees with a heavy thud, frantically pounding the concrete floor. Scorching energy surged upward from his tailbone, vertebra by vertebra. Each vertebra the energy reached sent violent tremors through Mason's body—he was drenched in sweat, his frame shaking violently.
"Jesus... Christ... it hurts!"
Mason wished he could black out immediately, but in fact, during the spinal enhancement process, his consciousness wasn't only incredibly sharp—it was even more acute than before, amplifying the pain several times over.
"Faster, faster!"
Mason gasped for breath, the relentless waves of pain constantly overloading his nervous system. Eventually, Mason felt his entire body go numb from the agony, as if he'd completely lost all sensation. Just as he was about to pass out from the unrelenting torture,
the pain reached its crescendo, completing the activation of the final cervical vertebra.
"That level of pain would kill a normal person," Mason muttered softly, lacking even the strength to stand.
If someone blacks out from the pain during the transformation process, the procedure automatically aborts, and they'll face pain several times more intense on the next attempt. It becomes virtually impossible to complete the activation while remaining conscious.
Therefore, there's only one chance for the first activation.
Looking at his watch, only five minutes had passed, but for Mason, it felt like an eternity.
Two minutes later, the pain subsided, and sensation returned to his body.
Three minutes later, Mason felt as if his spine had become a living thing, each vertebra articulating from bottom to top in sequence, accompanied by soft crackling sounds from within his body.
He lightly touched the ground, his body springing up like a panther, rising to his feet with a series of popping sounds. Mason clenched his fist, and power far exceeding his previous strength surged through him.
On his personal terminal, his physical data was finally updated.
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