Chapter 204: Astartes Blacklight Prototype
Three months passed in the blink of an eye.
With Alex settled into the research division and Matthew supplying him with experimental material without restraint — specifically, Blackwatch Super Soldiers — the division's progress on the Blacklight Virus had been nothing short of extraordinary.
In three months, Umbrella had fully replicated the DX-1118 virus extracted from the Blackwatch Super Soldiers' biology and established a mature internal production line for Blacklight Virus DX-1118.
With that production line running, a single injection was all it took to transform an ordinary person into a "Super Tyrant": something capable of tearing a tank apart with its bare hands.
And the completion of that production line brought with it a new version of the Tyrant Astartes Prototype.
The company designated it internally as the Astartes Blacklight Prototype.
In terms of raw strength and resilience, the Blacklight Prototype was nearly double the Prototype unit. Speed had seen significant gains as well.
Beyond that, through genetic encoding, the Astartes Blacklight Prototype had been officially fitted with the Void Shield — that is, Sebastian Shaw's Energy Absorption ability.
With this capability, the Blacklight Prototype could absorb kinetic and electrical energy and convert it directly into self-enhancement. In practical terms: the longer they fought, the stronger they became.
On top of that, by inheriting certain properties of the Blacklight Virus, the Astartes could now run at high speed along vertical surfaces and glide through the air. Their mobility had improved by more than one tier compared to before.
After reviewing the Blacklight Prototype's full capability readout, Matthew made the call immediately: recall every Astartes Prototype unit and upgrade them all to the new standard.
Hunk, Leon, Ada, and Eleanor were no exception. They were in the enhancement queue as well.
Umbrella Corporation. Testing facility.
To stress-test the limits of the Blacklight Prototype, the testing floor had been loaded with every category of weapon available.
At the center of the facility, a single Astartes Blacklight Prototype stood under the overhead lights without a powered suit.
The light falling from above made the musculature look even more extreme, like fitted armor forged from solid steel rather than anything biological.
Across from him, a line of M1 series main battle tanks sat motionless in the distance.
Beside the tanks, a twenty-person security team with heavy weapons had their target locked, waiting for the order to fire.
From the observation position, Matthew, in a tan coat and sunglasses, swept a quick look across both sides of the floor, then pressed the test activation button.
The moment he did, a sharp alarm tore through the testing facility.
The twenty security personnel didn't hesitate. They pulled their triggers at nearly the same instant.
A dense wall of fire poured toward the Blacklight Prototype at the center of the floor. Muzzle flash strobed from every barrel simultaneously. Brass casings rang against the concrete in a continuous clatter.
The rounds came in hot, trailing faint heat-signatures through the air, weaving together into a curtain of steel.
The Blacklight Prototype didn't move.
He stood there like a silent statue while the rounds struck his bare torso and produced a sound like something hammering thick steel plate.
Rounds that would have shredded a normal person were hitting him the way a child's thrown pebbles would.
The armor of muscle didn't shift under the impact. It didn't look like flesh. It looked like something poured from alloy and left to set.
The first test round lasted roughly two minutes, ending when the security team's ammunition ran dry.
"First test phase — standard weapons fire." Doudou's voice came through the speakers. "Result: zero effect."
"Test subject: activate Void Shield."
At the instruction, the Blacklight Prototype slowly raised his eyes. The dark red pupils caught the light with a faint, cold gleam.
Without any outward sign of effort, a barely visible pale blue luminescence appeared around his body.
That was the Void Shield coming online.
In the next instant, every round still coming toward him had its kinetic energy stripped away the moment it touched that faint glow, as though an invisible hand had simply removed it from the bullet mid-flight. The rounds dropped into a ring around his feet, still carrying the smell of burnt propellant.
The extracted kinetic energy didn't disappear. It became a visible wave of energy that climbed rapidly along the contours of his musculature.
As that energy was absorbed, the Blacklight Prototype's frame appeared to expand slightly. The veins beneath the skin pressed outward and pulsed like thick cable under load.
"Void Shield operating normally. Absorbed energy converting to self-enhancement continuously."
Doudou's voice remained level.
"Initiating second phase. Anti-armor weapons engaging."
The security team set down their assault rifles and pulled rocket launchers from the weapons rack. Every dark barrel leveled at the Blacklight Prototype simultaneously.
Triggers pulled. Dozens of rockets screamed out trailing white smoke, converging on the center of the floor.
The detonations were deafening. Fire and smoke swallowed half the testing floor in an instant. The thermal wave that rolled outward from the blasts, carrying debris in every direction, pushed the security personnel back several steps even at their distance.
When the smoke began to clear, every person watching pulled in a sharp breath.
The Blacklight Prototype was still standing exactly where he had been. His stance hadn't changed.
The only thing that had changed was the pale blue luminescence around him, which was now noticeably brighter from everything it had absorbed.
The kinetic and thermal energy from the blasts had been consumed entirely by the Void Shield, converted into power and driven through every part of his body. There wasn't a wound anywhere on him. Not even a scorch mark.
The Prototype units could not have managed this. Their resilience, considerable as it was, had limits that a sustained barrage like this would have found. The Blacklight Prototype was different.
Beyond the raw physical durability, the Void Shield encoded into its genome provided a second layer of protection that conventional weapons fire simply could not penetrate.
"Anti-armor weapons." The smoke cleared. Doudou's voice returned. "No effect."
From his position, Matthew heard the report and let a small, unsurprised smile settle on his face beneath the sunglasses.
"In that case — let the tanks fire."
The moment the order went through, the turrets on the line of M1 tanks began rotating.
The 120mm smoothbore barrels of what was called the "tank killer" main gun settled on the two-and-a-half-meter figure at the center of the floor.
A sound like the earth splitting open. Fire erupted from the muzzles several meters long.
Depleted uranium armor-piercing rounds left the barrels at supersonic velocity, their specially constructed cores carrying enough kinetic force to punch through the frontal armor of any current main battle tank in service, aimed directly at the Blacklight Prototype's chest.
For the first time, the Blacklight Prototype reacted.
He slowly raised his right hand. Five fingers spread wide, palm turned toward the incoming rounds, each one capable of punching through an entire building.
Time seemed to stop.
The tip of a depleted uranium core contacted the pale blue luminescence, and the violent kinetic energy of the round poured into the Blacklight Prototype's body like a dam breaking, driving his strength up another level in an instant.
The sudden surge of power blew the floor beneath his feet apart — a crater several meters across dropped out of the concrete where he stood.
Fracture lines spread outward in all directions. Even from his observation position, Matthew felt the vibration through the soles of his feet.
Several seconds passed. The armor-piercing rounds stopped.
They hung in the air, held in place by that paper-thin shimmer of pale blue light, their cores still vibrating with residual kinetic energy, producing a sharp metallic whine. Not one of them had advanced a centimeter further.
Eventually, the rounds lost the last of their momentum and dropped to the floor with a flat sound.
"Standard armor-piercing weapons: no effect."
"Void Shield continues operating normally."
"Proceed to next phase?"
Doudou's voice again.
Matthew looked at the assembled tanks and security team in the distance.
"For your safety, the next phase doesn't require your participation."
"You're dismissed."
The security team didn't linger. They packed their equipment and cleared the floor quickly.
The tanks, at Matthew's signal, rolled into the heavy vehicle bay.
Once the floor was completely clear, Matthew turned back to Doudou. "Next phase can begin."
At his word, the heavy alloy blast door at the far end of the testing facility began to rise.
Heavy footsteps came from the darkness beyond. Each step hit the floor like a hammer on concrete.
When the figure stepped into the cold light, the Blacklight Prototype got a clear look at what had emerged.
It was a Prototype Nemesis unit. Two meters, seventy-eight centimeters tall.
The musculature across its entire body had taken on an abnormal grey-ashen color. Thick cords of vein coiled across its neck. Its eyes were clouded and cold, and deep in them something moved — brutality and obedience wound together.
In its hands, it carried a man-portable railgun scaled to its own dimensions.
The weapon was long and uniformly black. Two electromagnetic acceleration rails ran the length of the barrel. Even without charging, it projected a pressure that put people on edge.
The Nemesis took up a position at the edge of the floor.
At Matthew's nod, the Prototype Nemesis slowly raised the railgun and leveled the barrel at the silent figure at the floor's center.
"Third test phase." Doudou's voice came through on cue.
"Energy weapons."
Matthew pushed his sunglasses up and watched with genuine interest.
A railgun.
He knew exactly what that thing was capable of.
Once it finished charging and released, the energy torrent it produced was something current Astartes powered armor could not stop. The sub-Adamantium alloy and Vibranium-plated exterior, along with all the other layered alloy composites in the suit — against that blue-white beam, none of it would last five seconds before being torn open like paper, the flesh and bone inside following immediately after.
There was no comparison between this and conventional fire.
Facing the railgun charging in the distance, the Blacklight Prototype's expression didn't change.
No fear on that hard face. No tension. No response at all.
The only sign that he was taking it seriously: the Void Shield, noticeably brighter than before.
Across the floor, the railgun began charging.
Blue-white arcs of electricity moved like silver threads along the electromagnetic rails, producing a sharp, piercing whine.
The charge density in the air spiked.
Even from behind the observation barrier, Matthew felt the hair on his arms rise with static.
At the muzzle, as the stored energy built, a fist-sized core of concentrated light condensed and formed.
It expanded at a striking pace.
From a distance it looked like a small sun being forcibly contained at the end of the barrel.
"Charge complete —"
The railgun's combat system announced.
Then:
BOOM.
A detonation that eclipsed every previous discharge combined.
The railgun's muzzle erupted with a blue-white energy torrent a full meter wide.
The air along its path ionized instantly, leaving a visible vacuum channel carved through the space between muzzle and target.
Electrical arcs coiled around the beam like vines, producing a sustained, teeth-setting crackling sound.
The speed was beyond anything visible.
Almost in the same instant it fired, it had already crossed the hundred-plus meters between the Nemesis and the Blacklight Prototype and slammed into the pale blue Void Shield.
The moment it hit, the entire testing facility went white.
At the collision, the floor beneath the Blacklight Prototype exploded upward.
Chunks of concrete launched in every direction like rounds from a cannon. The floor was gouged into a deep channel, and the Blacklight Prototype himself was physically pushed backward by the force of the impact.
One meter.
Two meters.
Three.
His feet dragged two blackened grooves across the floor surface. The smoke from the friction between boot soles and concrete mixed with the electrical burning smell of energy overflow and hung in the air.
The Void Shield, which had been holding steady through everything before this, was now in serious distress.
The pale blue luminescence was no longer calm.
It flickered violently.
Ripples ran across its surface in continuous waves.
The color began to shift.
Pale blue to deep blue. Deep blue to red.
It looked like something that had absorbed far more than its designed capacity was now fighting with everything it had to process a destructive flood of energy it was never meant to handle.
The railgun's torrent kept pouring in.
The Blacklight Prototype was pinned against the wall behind him by the sustained force, his entire body driven into it, still holding.
The output sustained for roughly ten seconds.
When the blue-white torrent finally exhausted itself, the railgun in the Nemesis's hands emitted the harsh whine of an overloaded system, and black smoke began rising from the muzzle.
The light faded.
Dust rolled through the air.
The testing floor fell into a brief silence, broken only by the soft sound of debris settling.
Matthew slowly removed his sunglasses, narrowed his eyes, and looked toward the center of the floor through the settling haze.
In the distance, the Void Shield's glow had dimmed to almost nothing.
Just a faint trace of luminescence remaining.
And through that trace of light, the Blacklight Prototype slowly lowered his arms from where he'd crossed them in front of his chest.
His frame had expanded noticeably from before.
The sheer volume of energy absorbed had been so large that fine cracks like lines in porcelain had formed beneath the skin across his body.
The cracks were deep red, with something moving beneath them that looked like flowing lava.
"Hm." The Blacklight Prototype exhaled slowly.
A significant quantity of energy vented with that breath.
The temperature inside the testing facility rose noticeably as it dissipated.
About half a minute later, the dust settled completely.
Doudou's voice returned to the testing floor.
Still level. Still calm.
"Third test phase complete."
"Direct railgun strike."
"Test subject —"
"No damage sustained."
"Initiate final test phase?"
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