[434] A Chance for Revenge (6)
One of the eight slots of the Physix Machine was filled with Izeremon's plasm.
Seven slots remained.
Raysis intended to combine traits from three other creatures—Voltum, Grabber, and Riston—to strengthen Izeremon's antithesis.
Voltum, like a mosquito magnified a thousand times, had a unique trait called "blood adhesion": it developed an intimacy for whatever creature it had sucked blood from.
It was presumed to be a psychological mechanism evolved to suppress hemolytic reactions, and in the lab they used this trait as a tool to subjugate organisms.
"I'll pour Voltum's plasm."
They added Grabber's plasm, which granted levitation, and Riston's plasm, which heightened biological activity. The four plasm types waited to be mixed in the Physix Machine.
Unlike Ilhwa's Elixir, drawing out a unique trait required setting a main type; the current main was Izeremon, and the three subtypes would reinforce its antithesis.
"Then begin."
When the button was pressed, the four plasm types that had filled about half of the glass vessel were sucked into the central glass tube.
Electricity flowed through the vacuum and the liquid began to bubble violently.
"Ohhh!"
It was a wondrous sight no matter how often one saw it.
These researchers—once disgusted by inhumane biological experiments—could not deny the joy of creation at that moment: making life with their own hands.
A blinding white flash spread as electricity discharged through the tube.
Everyone turned away except Raysis, who watched the changes inside the tube with rapt eyes.
A new species was born; the glass vessel split into four and toppled to the floor.
"Success!"
The researchers were awed by a creature utterly different from their predictions.
It was a gigantic eyeball a meter across, its surface wrapped in a thin epidermis that acted like an eyelid.
From where the optic nerve would connect, dark-red tentacles trailed out like a tail, fluttering.
Biological Weapon—Akamai (Prototype)
A cold thrill passed through the lab.
Could this really be called a living thing?
Staring at organic matter engineered solely to serve human ends, detached from any environmental logic, drove home the idea that nothing in the world was now inherently impossible.
"Haaa."
Raysis's red lips parted slightly.
What a beautiful form.
God had given living things infinite possibilities for change.
"Ugh!"
Raysis's ecstatic expression suddenly contorted.
Her crimson cloak fluttered as something inside it writhed roughly.
A biologist approached with a frightened face.
"Commander, you need to perform the contract now—"
Raysis hastily fixed her expression.
The sensation—sensitive as if entrails had been exposed—was unpleasant, but fortunately it soon seeped back into the creature's body.
"Right, I almost forgot that."
Raysis scored her wrist with a fingernail and offered her blood to Akamai.
Thud. Thud.
As the blood soaked into the epidermis, Akamai's large iris constricted sharply.
Then, as if to show affection, it turned toward Raysis and blinked twice.
Voltum's blood adhesion had taken hold.
"Is it a success?"
"Of course. It's my faithful subordinate now. Shall we get serious? Bring Shirone's clone."
When the researcher sent the order below, the floor split and an elevator carried Shirone's clone up.
Shirone's brain was currently empty—like an animal, only basic drives such as feeding and reproduction remained.
The researchers placed a device over the clone's eyes, calling it an EEG, and shone light; patterns of memory were transmitted along the retina.
It was similar to the method researched jointly by Arkein and Alpheas.
But the failure factor was the same: a clone into which memory was forcibly injected would soon suffer a mental collapse and die.
Of course, that didn't matter to Raysis.
If Shirone absorbed the organism's traits completely, all Raysis needed to do was swallow it.
Kwak kwak kwak kwak gwaang!
A violent burst erupted from the bed where Shirone lay.
The shockwave threw the researchers to the floor, and Shirone's body sprang up like a wild animal, bounding toward safety.
'What—where am I?'
Shirone moved her eyes left and right to gather information.
A laboratory. Raysis. Strange devices she'd never seen.
She still didn't understand the situation.
She had clearly been lying next to Flu taking a brainwave test, but now she was here.
"What did you do to me?"
"Hmm, well?"
Raysis tapped her lips with a finger.
"I'd like to explain, but I won't. I have a feeling we'll be saying the same things quite a lot from now on."
When Raysis snapped her fingers, the floating Akamai activated its antithesis.
"Ugh!"
As if the air had turned into solid iron, Shirone couldn't so much as move a finger.
"Th-this is...?"
"Sorry. To use a Nephilim's ability, you need intellect. It'll be over soon."
The Immortal Function begins with insight, and a clone reduced to animalistic drives could never reach it.
Shirone ground her teeth.
For someone who said 'sorry,' Raysis's eyes looked terribly pleased.
Held by Akamai, Shirone was transferred into the Physix Machine's glass vessel.
Unlike corpse experiments, they had to verify changes in consciousness, so putting the whole body in and dissolving it directly was the most effective method.
"Commander, what shall we combine it with?"
A Nephilim with one hundred percent affinity should be able to encompass any creature's personality with ease.
To test that, they preferred a creature with advanced functions.
"Synthesize it with Akamai."
"What? But—"
"It doesn't matter. This is a prototype anyway. It's the perfect opportunity to experiment on Shirone's clone."
The biologist complied.
When preparations were complete, plasm filled the glass vessel containing Akamai and Shirone.
The black liquid flowed over Shirone's nape and covered her face.
Moments later the level dropped and the liquid poured into the central tube, and Shirone's form vanished without a trace.
The researchers watched the tube glowing with a powerful light, tense.
Main type: Shirone. Subtype: Akamai.
The two organisms had melted together and birthed a single creature.
"W-what is that?"
The glass tube separated, and Shirone stood there with her eyes closed.
Even if fusion concentrated on function, mixing two distinct forms should have produced visible change.
The biologist adjusted his glasses and examined the unexpected result.
"This is just a human. Perhaps the experiment failed—"
At that moment Shirone's eyes snapped open, and a light burst from her left pupil, which was a different color.
"Ahhh!"
The researchers screamed, bodies twisting in alarm.
Raysis stepped back hastily, wearing a stunned expression.
'It only absorbed the functions?'
Only someone who had experienced the plasm state firsthand would know the changes that occur there.
And Raysis was one of the humans who had experienced plasm more than almost anyone.
When you seep into plasm, conscious thought stops. But within the single unified liquid, countless signals flow.
'The Ultima System, huh.'
Therefore, if you could control the unification signal while in the plasm state, you could potentially select function and form independently.
'This is dangerous.'
No—it's beautiful.
The ability to take on the traits of any creature in the world.
Truly, reaching the realm of gods.
"What did you do to me?"
Raysis's smile trembled at the corner.
She had even seized control of Shirone's consciousness. Akamai had been completely subdued.
'I want that ability even more.'
Raysis spread her arms and stepped forward.
"Shirone, become one with me."
Shirone activated her antithesis. Its overwhelming restraint halted Raysis's approach.
But Raysis instead savored a thrilling pleasure.
This power was on a different level from Izeremon's antithesis.
Shirone unleashed a merciless Photon Cannon.
Raysis slammed into the wall and the ceiling shook. Each blast sent up clouds of dust from wherever she stood.
"Hah. Hah."
Shirone glared ahead, breathing ragged, her gaze shaken by the impact.
Through the smoke, half of Raysis's face was revealed to have become a grotesque monster.
Her brow rose as if tearing her forehead; her pupils narrowed like a snake's; and across the lower jaw, three times as many teeth as a human's crowded between her lips.
"Kiiiii, Shi...rone..."
The sound of metal being scraped sent shivers down Shirone's spine. She opened her palm to draw out Armand.
'Diamond Armament... huh?'
Only then did Shirone realize there was no Cubrick.
But nobody could have taken it—she had not lost consciousness at any point since the brainwave test began.
'Could it be—I'm not the original?'
Shirone quickly ran through the events in her head.
She had never blacked out, yet the chain of events from the brainwave test to arriving here had been completely severed.
The liquid they'd used was like the one she'd seen with Ilhwa's Elixir; the change from being dissolved in it to being reconstructed by the Ultima System—
'They cloned me!'
Since she wasn't the original, she didn't have a Cubrick. Raysis was using that fact to run experiments.
'A biological fusion similar to Ilhwa's Elixir.'
A sudden insight flashed in Shirone's mind.
'Armand—if Armand—!'
At that moment, something swung from behind Raysis's cloak and Shirone's neck was severed from her body.
"Huuu."
Raysis quickly withdrew the body part.
It was a repulsive sight, but the researchers couldn't show any reaction.
The moment you assign meaning to a body, your own neck might be severed like Shirone's.
"From now on, double clone production. Find out exactly what changed."
The biologist said anxiously.
"This is too dangerous. Shirone controlled the biological fusion. If, by some chance, the commander were consumed the wrong way around, no creature could stop Shirone."
Raysis didn't like that idea either.
"For the time being, experiment only with Type A—clones from before Babel. Without the Ultima System it should be fine."
"But the original is Type B. It's still dangerous."
"It doesn't matter. If I set the main type to me, even the Ultima System won't be able to exert its power."
Legend said Ilhwa's Elixir was created to destroy the Ultima System, but without knowing how much of that was true she couldn't be certain.
Raysis gave a bitter smile.
"Even if I get eaten, you know."
"Huh?"
"If we become one, it won't be me or Shirone—it will be something else. That's fine. If I can become one with Shirone, I won't stop the experiment. Continue as planned."
Even if you set a main type, what is born is still a completely new creature.
So labels that would define her meant nothing.
Still, the biologist felt uneasy.
Raysis thought mere mixing would be enough, but the Ultima System perfectly controls biological fusion.
And the researchers had no idea how that was possible.
'Yes, Shirone can't reverse the situation. At best she'll only become one with the commander.'
Even so, his unease came from the years he'd spent in the lab.
To be optimistic that nothing will happen is to be constrained by a narrow set of information.
Variables always exist in the unknown beyond perception. And when something begins to stir in that darkness...
'Are we really okay to proceed?'
A bio-shock will occur.