"Submit to me or die."
I let the words hang in the sterile, bloody air. My grip tightened slightly on his throat, a clear, unspoken threat.
The Surgeon's mechanical eyes, wide with a mixture of pain and fear, narrowed. He was a B-rank, no fool. He knew he was outmatched. He also knew that death was not the only option.
"Submit?" he rasped, his voice a strained whisper against my grip. "To what? To a ghost in a mask? To a naked savage?"
He was trying to provoke me, to buy time. It was a desperate, pathetic attempt.
I squeezed harder, my fingers digging into the soft flesh of his neck. I could feel the delicate bones of his trachea groaning under the pressure. Only his arms and eyes had been cybernetically enhanced, not his neck.
"So I take that as a no," I sighed, my other index finger coming up to tap my mask. "Let's make something clear. I'm not asking for your opinion. I'm giving you a choice. A very simple one. Serve me, or die. There is no third option. There is no negotiation."
"My... my work..." he choked out, the words barely audible. "It is for the advancement of humanity. The merging of flesh and steel... it's the future."
"Hehehe..." I laughed, a cold, humorless sound that echoed in the small room. "Advancement? You call this hackwork advancement? You bolt cheap chrome onto thugs for a criminal organization. You're not a pioneer. You're a glorified mechanic. A body shop attendant for the mob."
My words struck a nerve. His pride, the one thing he had left, was wounded. His face contorted in a mix of rage and humiliation.
"You… you don't understand…" he managed to gasp out.
"Alright... no point in talking with the dead," I sighed. "Time to die."
I twisted my fingers, and with my other hand, I gripped the back of his head.
Then I pulled.
His neck snapped like a dry twig, the sound loud and final in the quiet room. His body went limp, a puppet with its strings cut.
I let go of him, and he crumpled to the floor in a heap of white scrubs and cheap chrome. A B-rank surgeon or not, pride was a luxury the dead couldn't afford.
"What a waste," I muttered, shaking my head. "But then again, nothing really goes to waste around me."
Without a second thought, I unzipped my bodysuit from the waist down once more, letting the cool air hit my damp, aching folds. My clit throbbed, still riding the high of the slaughter outside. I stepped over the corpse, straddling his chest.
Dark, slick tendrils slithered out from my pussy and ass, wrapping around the Surgeon's body like loving serpents. They burrowed into his flesh, into the ports of his cybernetics, pulling him toward me. The wet, obscene sounds of my body consuming him filled the sterile room. My stomach extended beautifully under the strain of a B-rank meal before absorbing the mass, leaving me shivering as a wave of foreign data flooded my brain.
Ding!
[Devour Successful!]
[+120 HP] [+140 MP]
[+2 Intelligence]
[Skill Acquired: Cybernetic Diagnostics (Passive)]
[Skill Acquired: Precision Incision (Active)]
"Mmm. Much better." The surge of power made my clit throb visibly, a fresh bead of arousal dripping down my inner thigh. I savored the Surgeon's last moments, his knowledge of anatomy, cybernetics, and the Black Hand's inner workings spooling out in my mind like an open book.
I had access to everything now. His memories, his skills, his secrets. It was like being handed the master key to a kingdom of information.
I turned my gaze to the operating table. The Black Hand thug who had been strapped down was hyperventilating, his eyes practically popping out of his skull. His chest cavity was still pinned open, a half-installed chrome ribcage glittering under the surgical lamps. He had witnessed the whole thing—the nudity, the murder, and the monstrous consumption.
"P-Please..." he whimpered, blood bubbling at the corner of his mouth. "Just kill me..."
"In a moment," I purred, walking over to the tray of surgical tools. I picked up a scalpel, feeling the innate familiarity from my newly acquired skills. I leaned over him, letting my bare, dripping lower half press lightly against his arm.
"You see, it would be a shame to let all this expensive chrome go to waste. And I need to test out my new hands."
Behind me, the doorframe shadowed as Ron walked in. He looked at the mangled door, then at me—completely naked from the waist down, holding a scalpel over a dying man, with dark tendrils still lazily retreating back into my thighs. He swallowed hard, the drug in his system doing little to fully suppress the sheer visceral shock of the scene.
"Sister," Ron said, his voice a bit tight. "The warehouse is secure. Umbra and the serpent finished off the stragglers. We found a vault in the back room."
"Excellent work, Ron," I said without looking back, precisely slicing a nerve bundle to stop the strapped man's twitching. "Search the doctor's desk. Look for blueprints, ledger books, or any high-grade monster cores he kept for his experiments. We're stripping this place clean."
"Yes, Sister."
Ron moved to the desk, though his eyes lingered on my hips for a second longer than necessary. The drug in his system was definitely putting up a heroic fight against his discipline. I giggled softly, a wicked idea forming in my mind for his next reward.
"As for you," I whispered to the man on the table, driving the scalpel straight into his heart with anatomical perfection. "Don't worry. I'll put your chrome to good use."
His body convulsed once, then lay still. Another dark tendril lanced out from my pussy, wrapping around the corpse and pulling it in.
Ding!
[+87 HP] [+42 STM]
"Hmm?... no skills?" I said, a little disappointed. "I guess he was just cannon fodder."
I pulled my bodysuit back up and zipped it with a satisfying sound. The cool leather pressed against my warm, slick skin was a welcome sensation.
Ron returned from the desk, holding a small data chip and a sleek, black pistol.
"This was all I could find," he said, offering them to me. "The rest was encrypted."
"Good enough," I said, taking the chip and pistol. With the doctor's memories, breaking encryption would be child's play. I just need time to study them.
As for the pistol, it was a nice addition. A high-grade stun pistol, modified to fire plasma bolts. Perfect for non-lethal takedowns... or for when I wanted to melt someone's face off.
"Let's check out that vault," I said, holstering the pistol. "And then we need to get out of here as soon as possible. The Black Hand will not be happy."
The warehouse was a mess of blood, bodies, and broken machinery. My white serpent, now a bit larger than before, was curled up in a corner, happily digesting its meal. Umbra was nowhere to be seen, likely back in Ron's shadow, resting after the hunt.
The vault was located behind a hidden panel in the back of the warehouse. The door was massive, made of titanium, with a complex locking mechanism.
The doctor had the combination in his memory, and this vault had a simple mechanical lock, no electronics.
I guess the Black Hand never expected that someone would dare to raid them in their own territory, and even if they did, they would never get the combination from the doctor.
A foolish mistake.
I quickly input the combination, and the door swung open with a heavy groan.
The vault was a treasure trove.
Crates of monster cores, some of them B-rank and even a few C-rank. Stacks of credit chips. A rack of high-grade weapons and armor. And in the center of the room, on a pedestal, was a single, small, black box.
I walked toward the box, my heart beating faster in anticipation. I could feel a strange energy emanating from it, a dark, powerful aura that made my skin tingle.
"What do you think that is?" Ron asked, his masked face tilted toward the box.
"I don't know," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "But I have a feeling it's something important."
I reached out and opened the box.
Inside, nestled in a bed of black velvet, was a single, small, black seed.
It was no bigger than my thumb, and it was shaped like a heart. It was pitch black, and it seemed to absorb the light around it, creating a small void. A strange, dark energy pulsed from it, a rhythm that matched my own heartbeat.
'What is this?' I thought, my mind racing. 'It's not a monster core. It's not a mana crystal. It's... something else.'
I reached out and picked up the seed.
The moment my fingers touched it, a jolt of energy shot through me. It wasn't painful. It was... familiar. Like a long-lost part of myself had returned.
Ding!
[Item Acquired: Seed of the Abyss]
"Seed of the Abyss..." I whispered, the name appearing in my mind as if it had always been there.
"What does it do?" Ron asked, taking a step back, a hint of caution in his voice.
"I... I don't know," I said, my voice trembling slightly. "But I know one thing. It's mine."
I closed the box and put it in my inventory, a strange sense of possessiveness washing over me, turning to Ron with a predator's grin and pointing at the storage rings.
"Take everything else," I commanded. "The cores, the credits, the weapons. Leave nothing behind. We're burning this whole operation to the ground."