Rampage

Yang Ming was thinking about how to refuse the reward.

On the projection screen, several pale-red lasers flashed. Thick, thumb-sized holes appeared in the Valkyrie's hands and feet as she lay on the ground.

There were two more wounds than Yang Ming had suggested, both at her shoulder joints.

The Captain in the fire-control room below asked over the radio, "Do we need to inflict any more injuries, Professor?"

"That's enough," Geglov replied at once. "More than enough. Don't hurt her any further. Send in the assault team, and put all the Modified humans into deep hibernation. They're all precious results of our work."

"Understood, Professor." The Captain's voice sounded reluctant to stop.

On the projection screen, two rows of Imperial soldiers in protective suits rushed into the lower deck, their Laser Guns at the ready. They quickly pinned the Modified humans to the floor with their knees pressed against their necks.

The Valkyrie suddenly opened her eyes, and another red wave of energy burst forth.

But pale-blue protective membranes appeared on the soldiers' helmets, shielding their vulnerable brains and sensitive brain waves.

Just as Yang Ming had said, once the Valkyrie sustained multiple penetrating injuries, she would lose the ability to move.

Several needles tried to pierce the Valkyrie's smooth, fair skin. Her hands and feet kept twitching, but she couldn't move.

The assault team's chaotic voices came through the control console's built-in speakers:

"My God! Captain, look! The Valkyrie's wounds are healing. The burn marks are already gone."

"Her cells are multiplying without limit? Did she fuse with the Swarm's genes?"

"What kind of monster is this? She's beautiful, sure, but—damn it, get me the thickest syringe you can find. I can't get this one through her skin!"

"Inject the hibernation agent through her wounds. Her skin is incredibly tough... She really is a monster."

Geglov said coldly, "Captain, tell your men to shut up!"

"Yes, Professor."

The Captain cut off the assault team's audio feed. Silence fell over the control console once more, broken only by Geglov's quick, labored breathing.

Behind him, Yang Ming opened his mouth, then hesitated.

Geglov's breathing gradually settled. He slowly turned around, the dark-red speckles in his Mechanical Eye shimmering.

"Come on, Hanton." Geglov rallied himself. "I'll perform your modification surgery myself."

Yang Ming immediately said, "Professor, I think... at a time like this, I should be maintaining the ship's equipment. There's been a major disturbance, after all."

"Isn't this what you've always wanted?"

Geglov stared at Yang Ming. "Why don't you look happy at all, Hanton?"

"Professor..." Yang Ming forced an awkward smile. "I was just injured in the head, and I'm still getting dizzy. I'm worried it might affect the success of the procedure."

"That won't have any effect." Geglov seemed to be searching Yang Ming's face for something. "This is the reward you deserve, Hanton. Why do I feel like you've suddenly become a different person?"

Oh, hell. Am I about to be found out?

Yang Ming was shocked by Geglov's perceptiveness, but at the same time, he quickly considered his situation.

Brother Ji might seem amiable for now, but deep down, he was a deranged killer who valued lives less than weeds.

If Brother Ji grew suspicious of him, Yang Ming would be in serious danger.

But that thirty-five percent death rate...

"Professor, why don't we wait until this is over? I still have a lot of work to do."

"I don't make promises lightly, Captain Hanton. And once I've made one, I don't change my mind."

"But, Professor!"

Yang Ming lunged half a step forward. Abrupt footsteps sounded beside him, and four guards appeared on either side. The red laser sights of their guns settled on Yang Ming's forehead.

"Don't be nervous, Hanton. I understand."

Leaning on his cane, Geglov walked toward the stairs without looking back at Yang Ming. Instead, he turned his head and said:

"Captain, escort Third Mate Hanton to the Backup Lab yourself. Give the young man some encouragement, and have my assistants make the necessary preparations for him—if they're still able to move."

The Captain had just left the control console. He gave Yang Ming a complicated look, then gestured for him to go ahead.

"Thank you, Professor."

Yang Ming forced a smile and walked toward the Captain without looking back.

On the projection screen, soldiers carried the Valkyrie to a nearby examination table. They quickly tied her up like a bundle and began injecting her with more hibernation agent.

The Captain was a meticulous soldier, completely loyal to the Empire and to Professor Geglov.

On the way to the Backup Lab, where he was being "escorted," Yang Ming kept looking for a chance to break free. The moment they left the bridge, the moment they entered the elevator, the moment the elevator switched to microgravity...

The experienced Captain had shut down every opportunity for resistance.

From Hanton's memories, Yang Ming knew what it meant when the soldiers on this ship disengaged the safety on their Laser Guns and aimed at the heads of experimental subjects: they were prepared to shoot at any moment.

There had been cases where experimental subjects had been shot straight through the head.

Right now, undergoing the modification still gave him a chance to survive. If he fought them, his chances would be slim, and the procedure itself still left some room to buy time.

At least there's still a sixty-five percent chance I'll survive...

Yang Ming tried to look on the bright side.

The Backup Lab was one deck above the lower deck. The elevator had resumed operating, and carried them straight to the lab door.

The silver-gray alloy doors slid open. Several lab staff, already alerted, waited by the entrance, their faces taut with lingering fear.

"Hanton." The Captain patted Yang Ming on the shoulder. "Thank you. You may really have just saved us from a disaster."

Yang Ming clenched his fist slightly.

If the real Hanton had been given this opportunity, he would have been overjoyed. But Yang Ming's anxiety and resistance had already aroused Geglov's suspicions.

He even had a vague sense that Geglov was watching him right now.

The soldiers stood to one side with their Laser Guns in hand, fingers near the triggers. The guns' biometric safeties were already disengaged.

In other words, the soldiers had been ordered to kill Hanton at any moment. And the only person who could have given that order was Geglov.

"Captain," Yang Ming said quietly, "if you can, please advise the Professor to use some of the more established techniques on me. I can only serve the Empire if I'm alive."

Before the Captain could reply, the usually unremarkable Third Mate lowered his head and walked into the lab. He calmly lay down on the examination table, without waiting for the soldiers to "help" him. He put his hands and feet in the right positions, and restraints sprang up from beneath the table, locking him in place.

Perhaps the Professor has made a rather unwise decision.

The thought came to the Captain out of nowhere.

He told the soldiers to remain in the lab, then turned and hurried toward the lower deck, carefully considering what he could say to plead for Third Mate Hanton without angering Professor Geglov.

The wait on the examination table felt unbearably long.

Yang Ming's anger and frustration gradually gave way to calm and restraint.

He'd already gotten this life back once. Now he just had to find a way to stay alive.

Beep, beep, beep.

The sound came from some machine. Its rhythm happened to match Yang Ming's heartbeat.

Needles pierced the backs of his hands and feet. Cool liquid flowed into his veins. His thoughts grew hazy, and before long, he fell asleep.

Beep, beep.

Yang Ming drowsily opened his eyes. Geglov, wearing a surgical cap and mask, was the first thing he saw. The Professor was intently watching the instruments beside him.

"Professor, the Gene Stabilizer has an extremely low rejection rate. He's an excellent subject."

"Should we try Type-2 Gene Fluid, Professor? Or play it safe and use Type-1 Gene Fluid? He is a loyal Imperial Soldier, after all."

Geglov said, "Go get Gene Fluid No.6. This time, it might work."

"No.6? Professor, that's the gene sample extracted from the Valkyrie... It's only theoretically possible—"

"Several of his key readings are very close to Posa's back then." Geglov's voice betrayed his impatience. "If the Ancient God's cellular tissue hadn't dwindled to a mere clump, I'd modify Hanton the same way I modified Posa! Hurry up. Don't miss the opportunity!"

"Yes, Professor."

Posa?

Was that the Valkyrie's name? What an odd one.

Yang Ming wanted to give Geglov the finger, but he was under anesthesia, and his thoughts soon cut out.

He was unconscious for who knew how long. Perhaps only a moment, perhaps several hours.

A searing pain shattered the empty dream woven by the anesthetic.

The agony of being burned by the earth's fires returned. Yang Ming felt as if he'd been anesthetized and thrown into an incinerator, but the flames were surging out from beneath his own skin.

"Hold him down with the robotic arm!"

"Two doses of Gene Stabilizer! Inject them rapidly!"

"Bleed him! Open an artery and inject the stabilizing agent!"

You bastards!

Yang Ming roared, his voice like that of a wild beast.

Vmmm—

A sound suddenly filled his head, like ten thousand bees beating their wings at full speed.

Amid the pain, Yang Ming saw several images flash past.

[A dark cloud drifted through the silent starry sky, far from any celestial bodies, without a destination. It was matter belonging to this universe, a gift from the universe to possibility. It could think. It could feel itself existing. It was a lifeform.]

An Ancient God Lifeform?

In the midst of the agony, Yang Ming forced himself to think.

Ancient Gods were creatures from the universe of Abyss—special lifeforms that could survive in a near-vacuum without relying on any external support.

In the game, they usually appeared as world bosses for entire armies. They possessed astonishing destructive power and typically had abilities such as Mental Control, devouring, and unlimited reproduction. Every time they appeared, they brought about a massive disaster.

If Ancient God Lifeforms represented the ultimate path of evolution for an individual, then the classic villains of Abyss, the Second Calamity Swarm, represented the ultimate evolution of life as a collective.

Research into Ancient God Lifeforms is our shortcut to immortality.

That was a line from one of Abyss's story arcs.

Yang Ming suddenly understood.

The Valkyrie was the Sherman Empire's result of researching Ancient God Lifeforms. She was a monster created by fusing an Ancient God cellular collective with a human being. That Ancient God had already revived inside the Valkyrie!

More images continued to surface, but they were broken and incomplete, mixed with the memories of two different lifeforms.

[The "Dark Cloud" was surrounded and gradually dissolved beneath the bombardment of a Star Destroyer. The Ancient God Lifeform had reached its end.

A sweet little girl with a ponytail held her father's hand as she played in waves the color of glass, kicking at the water with her tiny feet.

"Posa."

Her father gently stroked her head.

"You'll become a perfect lifeform."

"Daddy, what does perfect mean?"]

What?!

Yang Ming stared at the fragments of memory. The pain and torment in his body seemed to fade a little. Like the little girl, he slowly looked up, and Geglov's face came into view—before he'd had his Mechanical Eye installed.

Brother Ji and the Valkyrie were father and daughter!

That old bastard had modified his own daughter!

The broken images vanished like sparks. Yang Ming's pain rapidly receded, leaving only an ache throughout his body.

Had he made it through?

Just then, Yang Ming heard Geglov laugh. "Excellent. Hanton's modification was a success. His genetic stability coefficient is zero point nine two. That's an excellent result. Make sure he has plenty of Gene Stabilizing Potion and Nutrient Fluid..."

Geglov went on and on, his voice full of pride and satisfaction.

But Yang Ming had no interest in listening.

In a daze, he seemed to be floating in a starry sky, with glittering nebulae above and below him.

He faced the girl floating in front of him.

It was the Valkyrie. She was enveloped in a sacred, pure white radiance. Though she wore nothing, there was nothing lustful or indecent about her.

Goo-goo, woo—

A deep-sea whale song echoed through the stars.

Words surfaced in Yang Ming's mind, as if the Valkyrie were confiding in him, calling to him.

How could he describe what the Valkyrie was conveying to him?

It was complex, yet simple. It was a direct form of communication on a level beyond language. If he had to put it into words humans could understand, it might be...

Unite? Devour? Return? Become one?

No. None of those were quite right.

The most accurate translation was:

I want to eat you.

Yang Ming's whole body trembled uncontrollably.

The girl had directly revealed her desire for Yang Ming!

In the Lower Deck Lab and the Backup Lab, on two similar examination tables, a man and a woman bound in the same way opened their eyes almost simultaneously.

The Valkyrie's pupils filled with densely packed compound eyes, which instantly arranged themselves into a tightly packed crystalline structure.

She opened her mouth and let out a soundless shriek. A wave of red energy spread from her forehead, sweeping through the entire room in an instant.

The soldiers wearing anti-neural-interference helmets clutched their heads and screamed. More than a dozen figures without adequate protection slowly collapsed to the floor, their eyes bloodshot and blood running from their nostrils.

Explosions sounded from the instruments around them.

The high-energy beam emitters that had kept the Valkyrie locked in their sights lost contact with the bridge!

Meanwhile.

Inside the Backup Lab.

Yang Ming abruptly shook his head. The red light in his eyes vanished in an instant.

He had no time to think. He looked at the panicked staff beside him and shouted:

"Get me out of these restraints! The Valkyrie was hiding her true strength so she could hit you with a big one! Now she's going to eat me!"

The few lab staff left behind stared at him, at a loss.

Geglov was not in the Lower Deck Lab at the moment.

"Believe me!"

Yang Ming looked the staff in the eye, his face utterly sincere. "I'm the only one who can stop the Valkyrie. The Professor gave me a secret mission! For the glory of the Empire! The Emperor Star shines upon us all!"

The staff hesitated, just a little.