๐๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐๐ซ๐ค (4)
It had to be that the floor of the shower room’s bathtub broke and something burst out of it.
๐๐ณ๐ข๐ค๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ค๐ณ๐ข๐ค๐ฌ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐ค๐ณ๐ข๐ค๐ฌ. . .!!!
Something like the esophagus of a monster without teeth, face, or wrinkles pushed the tiles aside as it sprang out and went back in.
๐๐ถ๐ณ๐จ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐จ๐ถ๐ณ๐จ๐ญ๐ฆ ๐จ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฑ. . .!
Next, the floor of the bathtub collapsed into a deeper abyss beneath it. Damian reflexively threw his body outside the bathtub to avoid falling underground.
“Damian, Bellum Damian. Uh huh. . .”
Tosis walked out from within that abyss-like dark cavity.
“Why, why, why?!”
The face is Tosis. But his whole body was swollen flesh expanding and crushed like living earth boiling over chaotically, looking like some grotesque lump organism.
“With Aria gone, no one can stop me.”
“Tosis. . . Could it be you who took care of Aria?”
“If not you, then Kreion must have killed her. Heh.”
‘๐๐ฐ ๐ช๐ต ๐ธ๐ข๐ด ๐๐ณ๐ฆ๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ. . .!’
Tosis was already drunk on the feeling of victory.
“Now is the time for me to step up. The stage is set very nicely.”
“That’s right. Haha. . . Who would’ve thought the coming-of-age ceremony would progress this quickly?”
Damian desperately tried to defuse the situation with his glib tongue, sensing instinctively that his life was in danger.
“Once Kreion is dead, there will be no more variables. And I happen to know Kreion’s home address. If he killed Aria earlier, he’s probably lowering his guard now, fatigued after the battle. He might be recovering if he sustained any injuries. . .”
“I heard you went to Kreion’s company on the first day of the coming-of-age ceremony.”
“That’s right. Thanks to that I was able to trick Kreion and find out his address. Haha. . .!โ
“Vermin-like rulers who flutter here and there should be exterminated early for the future of our race.”
Although Damian made an effort to appease the situation, Tosis seemed to have already made up his mind.
๐๐ญ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฌ ๐ค๐ญ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฌ ๐ค๐ญ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฌ. . .! ๐๐ญ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฌ ๐ค๐ญ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฌ ๐ค๐ญ๐ถ๐ฏ๐ฌ. . .!
Tosis took damp, heavy footsteps.
‘๐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด๐ถ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฎ. . .!’
Damian desperately racked his brains. There was no future in trying to run away here, and in the first place he didn’t even know the extent of Tosis’s abilities. Attempting escape was equivalent to giving up on negotiation and begging to be killed.
However, fighting Tosis here and now was not something he was confident he could win.
‘๐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด๐ถ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฎ, ๐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด๐ถ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฎ, ๐ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฐ ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ด๐ถ๐ข๐ฅ๐ฆ ๐ฉ๐ช๐ฎ!’
He had to survive first of all. He had to turn the most fearsome enemy into an ally. Even if it ended today, as long as he survived until tomorrow and devised tomorrow’s plan, that was enough.
Cold sweat permeated his back.
“Tosis. For the sake of our race, it’s fine to be as vile and cowardly as needed.”
“Sophistry.”
๐๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฅ. . .!
Every time Tosis took a step closer, his heart felt choked.
“What I’m doing is practice for diplomacy with the various races.”
๐๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฅ. . .!
“A chimeraz ruler must be adept at politics and slick with words. Relying solely on force cannot last forever.”
๐๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฅ. . .!
“Look! See! What final ends did countries isolated from the rest of the world meet! There were no exceptions! Right! I still have value in being kept alive! At least as long as competitors like you who rely primarily on force, like you, are alive! Right now your enemy isn’t me but Kreion!”
“The only important thing is the evolution and power of our race.”
“Of course, evolution and power must be important. . .!”
“When we become so strong that tongues and politics become unnecessary, that’s enough. Continuing to evolve, becoming stronger, that’s chimeraz.”
‘๐๐ฉ๐ช๐ด ๐ค๐ณ๐ข๐ป๐บ ๐ฃ*๐ด๐ต๐ข๐ณ๐ฅ!!’
Tosis firmly refused Damian’s way, insisting that only power was important.
He was not a strong specimen. Not the most terrifying competitor either.
He was just, just a monster that did not communicate. A monster that had evolved haphazardly to become stronger.
“Uh, ugh!”
Feeling that there was absolutely no compromise with that uncivilized attitude, Damian eventually chose to flee.
He synthesized a highly toxic grenade from his palm and threw it at Tosis’s face.
๐๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ฎ!
“Ugh ughh, huh huh. . . Ha ha ha. . .!”
The lethal toxin entered Tosis’s respiratory and skin system, destroying his genes as if he had been exposed to radioactive contamination.
“Tastes good. . .!!!”
But the cells that make up Tosis’s twisted body ‘preyed’ on the highly toxic grenade.
Each cell seethes as if it were a living organism with muscles and consciousness on its own. It is disgusting like being covered with very small, round worms.
“Ugh ugh ugh. . .!”
And soon Damian, who had chosen to flee, realized that he had reached the threshold of the shower room, if something had not pulled his ankle from behind.
“Struggle more before you die! I want to see you fret before you die! Ugh hah!”
Something boiling and protruding from Tosis’s body, whether it’s a tentacle or an elongated piece of flesh, grabs Damian by the ankles and pulls him back.
“Let go! I said let me go! Ugh!”
Damian thrashes about like prey being dragged to the predator. Then suddenly, he realizes that the sensation of something grabbing his ankles has disappeared.
Looking back lying on the floor, Tosis was grinning hideously.
“Huh huh, run away again.”
“Ah. . . Ugh ugh. . .”
It was a torment.
Damian tried to get out of the shower room again.
But every time he reached the threshold of the shower room, something came out of Tosis’s body and dragged him back.
“Again. Again.”
“Sob. . . Sob. . . Ugh. . . “
Even when he jumped out the window, the toxins had no effect. Even when he scratched the flesh grabbing his body with his fingernails and bit it with his teeth, it regenerated quickly.
It must have been repeated five times or so, released and caught again.
“Do you understand now? Wriggling like an insect is your reality, Damian.”
“Ugh ugh ugh. . .!”
Tosis is enjoying it. He enjoys the sense of superiority he feels in the process of harassing Damian. Stepping on the weaker Damian proves his own strength.
“You freaking trash!”
But ironically, Tosis, who believes he is strong, cannot stand the rude attitude of the opponent who looks weak for even a moment.
“What did you say, trash. . .? To me?”
“You’re a tyrant! A crazy mentally ill b*stard. . .! I’m more afraid of the idea of a b*stard like you becoming the ruler of our race than I am of dying right now, you f*cker. . .!”
So Tosis gets angry easily. Especially in front of the weak.
“The scum doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.”
๐๐ญ๐ข๐ฑ!
The fleshy tentacles erupting from Tosis’s twisted body pierced through Damian’s shoulder and shattered the floor below.
“Aaahhhhhhh!!! Ahhhh. . . . Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!”
Damian’s cells began locally dying, necrosing, cannibalizing each other, committing suicide, and rapidly putrefying as they underwent chemical reactions. The cells comprising Damian’s body rioted like a deranged mob, thrashing and seething violently.
“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!”
The agony Damian felt then was akin to the torment of having itchy maggots boiling over his whole body, tearing into their own flesh.
With the sensations of each individual cell so vivid, he could not have felt any greater anguish. It was enough to make him want to retract every denial he had uttered about Tosis, to apologize profusely.
However, his mouth only continued piercing out screams, making it difficult to articulate words.
“Aahhhh. . .! Ahhhhhhhh! Uggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!”
He would have preferred jumping into a fiery pit to burn to death – that was how excruciating this was.
“Kill me. . .! Just kill me. . .! Hurry, I was wrong! Ah, aaaahhh!!! Please someone just kill me! Will someone please just kill me already! You son of a b*tch! You b*stard! Waaaahhh. . . . Ahhh. . . .!”
Yet Tosis did not end his life.
“Heh heh. . . .” “Heh heh heh. . . .”
Tosis simply watched with delight as Damian suffered and died in agony.
๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ
I got a glimpse of the memory of death from Damian’s body.
Tosis’ main ability was to infinitely evolve his own cells and drive those of his enemies mad.
Let me make a guess.
Tosis must have strengthened his wave ability to some extent to find out Damian’s address.
According to Damian’s memory, Tosis was most wary of Aria. The way Tosis becomes stronger is to evolve indiscriminately, and recently, he seems to have directed the direction of that evolution toward countering Aria.
First, I go to the bathroom following the fierce bloodstains and find a deep hole.
It’s not an underground tunnel, but a cave supported by some kind of living tissue.
I don’t know if this is a simple passage like Skeletunnel or some kind of experimental colony like an ant colony.
First, I send out meaningless waves widely like a detector into the deep hole in the bathroom.
Whether it’s because there are no chimeraz in the way or because Tosis’ army dominance is strong, the waves don’t come back.
The waves I just sent probably stretched all the way underground, pierced the small planet Nemea, and disappeared into the universe far beyond the opposite continent.
This way, I can’t tell what kind of underground structure is below this hole. There are no chimeraz in the way, and the planet itself is so small that there is no reflection at all.
It’s extremely dangerous to go into this lower structure without knowing it. I could be buried alive or attacked by Tosis, who might be in a favorable position inside.
Let’s think about it.
There’s a simple way to do this. Just like the old humans used to light a fire at the entrance of a cave, I’m going to fill this hole with viral gas.
I mutate my alveoli and use my body’s resources to produce viruses according to the genetic information I designed in advance. It’s a virus that kills all chimeraz except me with malignant tumors.
๐๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฐ. . .
My exhalation, carried by my respiratory system, carries the virus. The poisonous gas enters the hole below.
๐๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฐ. . .
I’m going to keep blowing until the gas escapes from this hole. I don’t know what the underground structure is like, but it will fill all the space in that underground area.
๐๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฐ. . .
Soon after, he reacted.
โ๐๐ซ๐๐ข๐จ๐ง!!!
๐๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฑ. ๐๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฑ. ๐๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฑ.
It’s a sound coming from deep down.
๐๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฑ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฎ๐ฑ!
“Kuaaaah!”
Tosis leaps out of the hole. He has the same body as I saw in Damian’s memory.
He doesn’t seem to be in perfect condition because of the virus attack. However, there’s a sense of euphoria in Tosis’ agonized voice.
“Kreion! Today is the day we finish our coming-of-age ceremony!”
“You enjoyed the death of your own kind.”
“Hehe. . . Is that strange?”
That confident face is so disgusting.
“Tosis. You’re not qualified to be a ruler.”
No chimeraz enjoys the death of their own kind. They may be happy for a while when they are intoxicated by victory, but there has never been anyone like Tosis who abuses his own kind and enjoys watching them die.
“Not qualified? With all these weaklings running around, where can you find a better candidate for ruler than me?”
“Trash like you must die for the future of our race.”
“Damian said that. He said you ate your own kind to evolve in the preliminary selection. How could you come up with such a disgusting idea?”
“It wasn’t evolution, it was a necessary action to ‘strengthen’ the race.”
I emphasized the word strengthen, but Tosis turned a deaf ear.
“If you want to be a true chimeraz, pursue relentless evolution and power! You weakling!”
He stretches out his twisted flesh like tentacles, just like he did to Damian.
๐๐ธ๐ช๐ด๐ฉ!
I know what those tentacles are going to do.
On the contrary, Tosis doesn’t know what I’m going to do next.
I dodge the tentacles by twisting my body and charge at Tosis. Then, Tosis’ massively swollen abdomen splits to the left and right.
๐๐๐!
The ribs, which had turned into teeth, spread out, revealing an empty hole. At the same time, the tentacles that passed behind me split into countless bundles and rushed in again.
He’s trying to catch and devour me.
“This is the end! Kreion!”
To think that such a flimsy experimental body was treated as the strongest who came out into society first in the 1st batch preliminary selection.
Rather, Bythos, who excelled in electronic warfare, Aria, who stimulated the fear of his opponent, or Damian, who survived until now without any special power, were much stronger.
This guy is just a brute with stupid strength. Considering his intelligence quotient, he’s no different from an uncontrollable mass-produced bioweapon.
“What the. . .?!”
๐๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ง, ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ง, ๐ฑ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐ง!
The bundle of tentacles that was about to attack me from behind passed me flexibly and stabbed Tosis’ open abdomen.
“Huh. . .? Ugh. . .?”
๐๐๐! ๐๐ฉ๐ถ๐ฅ!
As the open abdomen closed, it took the form of Tosis’ tentacles being chewed.
Tosis’ body is eating Tosisโ. His cells run wild out of control, fester, and rot.
I didn’t even have to move my body.
“What are you doing. . .?”
“I controlled your body with waves.”
“What, how. . .?”
If Aria and Tosis had clashed on the first day of the coming-of-age ceremony, Tosis would have been the one to break.
There’s no need to destroy the entire brain like Aria did. Just simple body manipulation will cause him to commit suicide. Even though his mental strength is weak, I think his army dominance is over 50 points.
“Don’t! Uuuugh! I can’t go on like this! Ah, aah! Guh-guh-guuuh!!!”
“Look at your hideous body.”
“Uwaaaah!!! I’ll kill you! Guh-guh-guh-guh!!”
“That hideous body is the end result of indiscriminate evolution.”
Evolution is not superior. It’s not about becoming stronger.
Evolution is about changing into a new form that suits the environment. That’s why when I create my children, I also degenerate useless organs.
Of course, evolution includes the process of degeneration in a broad sense. However, in Tosis’ body, genetic material had accumulated excessively, causing a runaway phenomenon in which cells could not keep up with the amount of information in the blueprint.
For Tosis, evolution is literally pure evolution without considering degeneration.
For him, evolution means addition and multiplication. That’s it.
“What do you know! What don’t you know!!! Aaaah!!!”
“You don’t know what you don’t know.”
Just evolution, evolution, evolution.
Only evolution. He thinks that’s what makes him stronger.
“What did you hear in the Foundation’s artificial evolution theory class? Did you even sleep during that time because your telomeres were damaged?”
“Aaaah!! Guh-guh-guuuh!!!”
Tosis is going through the same pain he inflicted on Damian. Flesh throbs and boils visibly on his twisted body, and every time it does, he screams at the top of his lungs. Then, he really bursts his throat, coughs up blood, convulses, and twists his whole body even more violently.
Even so, he never lets go of his desperate desire for life.
๐๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ. . . ๐๐ณ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฌ. . .
He tears off his necrotic lower body and crawls desperately on the floor with only his upper body.
“You enjoy the death of your own kind, abuse your own kind, and think that individual strength is everything. You just repeat evolution ignorantly.”
“You’re not a chimeraz. Subject 13.”
So I’m not abusing my ‘own kind’ right now. He might think my words and actions are contradictory, but it’s cheap to pay him back this way.
This is not a game.
It makes me sick to think about how many of his own kind he has bullied and abused for his own pleasure.
“Kaa. . .! Kak. . .! Kaak. . .! Krrrrgh!!!”
The last thing I heard from Tosis was an excessively high-pitched wail that was literally blood-curdling, mixed with uncontrollable rage.
If there is a creature that only evolves, it would be nothing more than a crude defective product.
๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ๐ธ
Tosis’ cells contain all sorts of genetic material, so there’s nothing useful. So I melted it all cleanly with Puker’s digestive fluid.
And into my body came the substance that made up Damian’s brain. As his nerve cells were absorbed, I felt a faint consciousness.
I told that vague consciousness.
‘๐๐ง ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ฅ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ณ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฆ๐ณ, ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ค๐ฉ๐ช๐ฎ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ข๐ป ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ง๐ถ๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ธ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ญ๐ฅ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ท๐ฆ ๐ฃ๐ฆ๐ค๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฆ ๐ข ๐ท๐ฆ๐ณ๐บ ๐ฅ๐ช๐ฑ๐ญ๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ข๐ต๐ช๐ค ๐ณ๐ข๐ค๐ฆ.’
Damian’s way of doing things is similar to my mother’s advice.
‘๐ ๐ฐ๐ถ’๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐ฆ๐ข๐ฅ, ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ต ๐’๐ญ๐ญ ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ด๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ถ๐จ๐ฉ๐ต๐ด ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ฉ๐ข๐ฅ ๐ธ๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฏ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ธ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ท๐ฆ. ๐’๐ญ๐ญ ๐ฎ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฆ ๐ด๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ๐บ’๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ง๐ญ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต๐ฆ๐ฅ ๐ช๐ฏ ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ง๐ถ๐ต๐ถ๐ณ๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐ช๐ณ๐ฆ๐ค๐ต๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ฐ๐ถ๐ณ ๐ณ๐ข๐ค๐ฆ.’
Now that’s all done.
It’s late, but I take out my cell phone and call Haber. Haber must be anxiously waiting for my report.
โ๐๐๐ฌ. ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ซ! ๐๐จ๐ฎ’๐ซ๐ ๐๐ฅ๐ข๐ฏ๐! ๐๐ฒ ๐ก๐๐๐ซ๐ญ ๐ฐ๐๐ฌ ๐ฉ๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐๐ข๐ง๐ ! ๐๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ก๐๐ฉ๐ฉ๐๐ง๐๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐๐๐ฆ๐ข๐๐ง?
“Tosis killed Damian, and I killed Tosis.”
โ. . . ๐๐๐ฌ?
How long have I been waiting for this moment to spit these words out to Haber?
“They’re both dead. I’m the last chimeraz alive in this coming-of-age ceremony.”
I’m looking forward to his reaction.
โ๐-๐๐จ๐ง๐ ๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ฎ๐ฅ๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐ฌ. . .! ๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ซ! ๐๐๐ก๐๐ก๐๐ก๐!
Judging by his reaction, Haber seems to be happier than I am.
That’s good.
“Tell the Foundation that I’ve become the ruler of the chimeraz race.”
โOf course! Of course! Yes! I’ll report it right away!
Finally, it’s all over.
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