Hybrid Ciri

Buzz----

An invisible infrasonic wave traveled ashore from the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Anchorage.

Anchorage Medical City.

Nearly all the world's biomedical PhDs had gathered here, working day and night to crack the open cells on He-El's surface that granted humans superpowers.

Inside the vast, brightly lit Ciri Laboratory.

Ciri frowned, her delicate fingers holding a twelfth-generation universal superpower gene agent. The magnificent azure liquid in the test tube reflected her slightly displeased eyes.

"Why has it turned into the universal version again?"

All the biomedical PhDs in Anchorage Medical City believed that cracking He-El's surface cells and selectively acquiring specific kinds of superpowers was something that could be accomplished within the next decade.

The openness of those surface cells made gaining superpowers easy. The next step—choosing exactly which superpower to gain—would not be difficult either.

Ciri had begun her research earlier than anyone else, and she understood the progression of He-El's cellular changes.

The first wave had been the blood collected after he fell from the sky. That was the earliest and most primitive stage of change, and those cells were easily synthesized into superpower gene serums.

The second wave had been cells from before He-El possessed psychic abilities. Even then, it was faintly apparent that He-El's will was opening his surface cells, making Ciri's research easier.

The third wave came after he gained psychic abilities. The cells He-El provided became even easier to turn into superpower agents.

The cells were influenced by He-El's will.

He-El was opening up his own cells. That was why the medical PhDs in Medical City encountered almost no difficulty and made exciting new discoveries every day.

Yet no matter what she discovered, Ciri could not develop a targeted superpower agent. It would always ultimately become a universal superpower gene agent suitable for anyone.

"Did I get the superpower DNA sequence wrong?"

Ciri unconsciously bit her thumbnail, her brows tightly furrowed.

After thinking for a while.

She took out several different batches of Original Blood provided by He-El and began overturning all her previous theories, preparing to conduct new research.

Buzz----

The infrasonic waves traveled from the Pacific Ocean into Anchorage Medical City, their amplitude lingering endlessly as they entered Ciri's ears.

Ciri's cold, beautiful face froze. Her furrowed brows relaxed, and purple light flickered in her stunned eyes. The test tube of Original Blood slipped from her hand and struck the floor with a sound that echoed through the quiet laboratory.

The hidden Precursors genes within her body were activated, spreading like darkness over the genetic sequences that controlled behavior and the five senses. The infrasonic waves continued in orderly succession, playing frequencies that controlled her actions.

"Dr. Ciri, are you all right?"

Seeing the test tube fall from Ciri's hand, an assistant hurried over to ask, beginning to salvage the Original Blood on the floor.

"I'm fine."

Purple faintly glimmered in Ciri's eyes. Her gorgeous face was expressionless as she turned, took two more tubes of Original Blood, and walked stiffly out of the laboratory.

As the assistant cleaned up the spilled Original Blood, she looked up and saw Ciri's white-coated back leaving the laboratory like a puppet. Her movements seemed somewhat strange.

She found it odd.

But in their eyes, Ciri had always been a rather strange person.

So the assistant did not think much of it.

Not until she had completely cleaned up the Original Blood Ciri had dropped did that strange image of Ciri walking out of the lab rise in her mind again.

At the same time, she remembered how an elderly expert had once suggested using a few drops of Original Blood for insect experiments. Ciri had caught him and cursed him out so fiercely that the old expert nearly suffered a heart attack. He cursed back at her, nearly rolling up his sleeves to fight her. Ciri immediately flung off her lab coat and declared that she could still beat an old man, that no one should help, and that today she would put that insect-obsessed old man into a hospital bed.

It had taken everyone's earnest efforts to restrain Dr. Ciri and stop her from beating up the old man.

And now Dr. Ciri had merely said, "I'm fine"?

She had not even shown any distress over it. The assistant found it extremely abnormal.

She knew just how much Dr. Ciri treasured Original Blood. It was the kind of affection that extended to everything associated with someone she loved. Sometimes, the assistant had even seen Dr. Ciri staring at Original Blood with a strange, delighted smile on her face.

She could not help activating the issued watch communicator to make a report.

"Dawn, Dr. Ciri is acting strange. It seems like she's being controlled." Thinking of Dr. Ciri's back, she had looked just like a puppet.

"Understood. Thank you for the information."

Hearing Dawn's reply, the assistant relaxed and continued working.

By then, Ciri was already walking like a puppet, leaving Medical City and heading toward the coast.

Wave after wave of infrasonic sound seemed to stack faster and more cheerfully atop one another.

The sun was high.

Ciri wore white flat canvas shoes, knee-length denim shorts that exposed her long, pale calves, a small suit jacket beneath her lab coat, and her long hair draped over her shoulders. With an expressionless face, she walked alone toward the shore.

"Shit! I knew it. You disgusting Precursors bastards were definitely going to make a move against me."

"You don't beat a dog without considering its owner."

"I'm He-El's acknowledged dog!"

"You Precursors are finished. He-El will definitely destroy you and avenge me!"

Her heart raged as she cursed. Purple light flashed in and out of her eyes, and her stumbling steps began struggling against the control. Yet increasingly rapid infrasonic waves acted upon her genes, controlling her movements and making it difficult for her to break free.

Crash----

Ciri gazed into the distance and saw a gigantic monster emerge by the coast, pushing up sheets of white spray as seawater surged onto the shore.

The monster's skin was rougher than mountain rock. It stood nearly two hundred meters tall, resembling an anglerfish. Before its two protruding, goldfish-like eyes hung a huge lantern antenna. Countless irregular glowing spikes covered its back, and its mouth was lined with sharp, jagged teeth.

"So ugly!"

Ciri was controlled into approaching the hideous Lantern Goldfish Monster. The waves of infrasonic sound had become so intense that she could no longer resist.

The Lantern Goldfish Monster proudly opened its huge mouth, packed with dense, sharp teeth.

Controlled by terror and despair, Ciri leaped toward the monster's open jaws.

"It stinks!!!!"

What made her despair was not being controlled and used by the Precursors.

Nor was it the helpless loss of control over her body.

Nor was it the future ahead, where she would never see daylight again.

What truly made her despair was that the monster's mouth stank too horribly. The mucus inside was like thick phlegm. As a hybrid who loved the perfect appearance of humans and firmly upheld human beauty standards, she could not accept such an environment.

That was also why she had never considered going over to the Precursors' side.

Sorry, too ugly. Rejected!

If the environment had been a little better—if the monster's insides had been a spacious two-bedroom apartment with its own bathroom—Ciri would not have been so despairing. Knowing she could not resist, she might even have cooperatively allowed herself to be captured.

But clearly, the Precursors did not care about Ciri's wishes. They only wanted to bring Ciri and the Original Blood back. As for how much psychological trauma the process caused her, that was Ciri's problem.

If there was a future, then future Ciri would forever refuse to think about the process of entering the monster's mouth. Going through that process made her want to die.

Just as Ciri, under control, leaped toward the monster's jaws—and while suspended in the air, could clearly smell the nauseating stench—

The entire world suddenly froze.

The air solidified at that moment, and the currents could no longer move.

The seawater was pressed flat, unable to splash even a single drop.

The silence was as still as a dead world.

Ciri hung in midair, frozen in place.

The monster remained on the sea with its mouth open, while its enormous eyes spun ceaselessly behind their membranes.

It was not so-called time stoppage, but an immense force pressing this entire area to a halt.

He-El slowly descended from the sky, using his power to halt everything in the area.

With a gentle wave of his hand, he drew Ciri back through the air to his side. His right hand pressed against Ciri's back as he set her down on the ground.

"Bleurgh... He-El... bleurgh... thank you..."

Ciri turned around and vomited without the slightest decorum. Her stomach convulsed, and she even threw up last night's dinner, utterly bedraggled.

He-El ignored Ciri and stared at the Lantern Goldfish Monster. It was a viewing organism created to transmit information and images.

Behind those eyes, perhaps all the Precursors were watching.

"You attacked my subordinate and wanted my blood. Why not come and negotiate with me? Perhaps if you had negotiated properly, I would have given you everything you wanted."

He-El smiled lightly and raised his left hand, manipulating the biological magnetic field to lift the Lantern Goldfish Monster, over two hundred meters tall, above sea level.

He gently clenched his left hand in the air. The monster, unable even to make a sound, began to compress into a ball.

"He-El, stop... stop first... Let me enter its body and go over to the Precursors' side."

"???"