Chapter 75: Color of the Stars

Chapter 75: Chapter 75: Color of the Stars

Chapter 75: Color of the Stars

Axel Vance could clearly feel the impossible Color probing the Psionic Power wrapped around his enchanted chainsaw. It was not merely resisting him; the alien force seemed to be analyzing the energy, learning its characteristics, then answering with something even more distorted. Two completely incompatible powers collided around the small lead-lined box, grinding against each other while cracks began spreading across the floor beneath Axel’s boots.

His Psionic Power was disappearing far too quickly. Darkness crept into the edges of Axel’s vision, his arms began to tremble, and he knew that if the stalemate continued for even another minute, he would be the first one to collapse. The Color did not seem capable of exhaustion in any human sense.

Axel clenched his teeth and forced out a low growl. He gathered the final scraps of power remaining inside him and drove everything into the enchanted chainsaw at once. "Come on... break."

A sharp metallic crack rang out through the unnatural silence.

The balance shattered.

The Color suddenly bloomed outward from the lead container, no longer thick and concentrated like liquid but spreading through the control room in twisting vapor-like currents. Whatever physical anchor had kept the fragment stable in reality had been destroyed by the collision, and under normal circumstances, the remnants might simply have dispersed.

They did not.

Axel had been fighting the phenomenon with Psionic Power for too long.

His energy now carried traces of its presence.

The ownerless remnants sensed something familiar and surged toward him all at once.

Axel barely had time to understand what was happening before the Color flooded into his body. The contamination hit his consciousness first, filling his senses with overlapping impressions, impossible shapes, alien heat, freezing darkness, and contradictory sensations that seemed to tear his identity apart from several directions at once. He dropped to one knee as the chainsaw slipped from his hand.

For an instant, Axel felt as though his soul had been thrown into a machine designed to grind thought itself into pieces. Then the purified Jason-bone protective effigy at his waist ignited with a faint glow. The mental barrier surrounding his inner consciousness immediately tightened.

Warmth spread across Axel’s mind.

The Color struck the barrier.

It failed to break through.

Unable to force its way into his soul, the alien energy redirected itself into the rest of his body instead. Axel’s skin darkened and began breaking down in patches, while sharp waves of pain traveled through his muscles and bones. His flesh was starting to decay under the contamination.

"Damn it..."

Axel instantly understood the problem.

His mind might survive.

His body would not.

With shaking fingers, he reached into his clothing and pulled out the strongest bottle of Vain Holy Water he still carried. He had originally prepared it for a powerful ghost or supernatural creature, not himself, but there was no time to appreciate the irony.

Axel opened the bottle and poured the Holy Water over himself.

The reaction was immediate.

Instead of purging the alien energy, the Holy Water mixed with it.

Axel’s eyes widened.

The sacred energy flowed through the contaminated flesh like a stabilizing medium, diluting the Color rather than destroying it outright. The violent decay slowed, then stopped, while the foreign power spread more evenly throughout Axel’s body instead of continuing to tear him apart.

His entire body swelled with pressure.

It felt as though something enormous had been compressed beneath his skin.

Then, little by little, the alien energy stopped fighting.

It settled.

It fused.

System prompts suddenly appeared across Axel’s fading vision.

[Detected: Host dispersed a fragment of the Color from the Stars.]

[Detected: Residual alien energy successfully absorbed.]

[Physique +0.5]

[Physique: 3.6 (3.1 + 0.5)]

[Psionic Power +0.5]

[Psionic Power: 2.5 (2.0 + 0.5)]

[Specialization Activated: Color of the Stars]

[Color of the Stars Lv.1 — 50/1000]

[Specialization Bonus: Psionic Power +0.1]

[Color of the Stars: The host’s body has fused with a trace of the mysterious alien Color. By mobilizing it through Psionic Power, the host may absorb vitality and energy from organic matter through direct physical contact. Absorption rate scales with Psionic Power.]

[Psionic Power: 2.6 (2.5 + 0.1)]

Axel barely managed to process the final line.

Then his vision went completely black.

He collapsed.

At almost the same moment, the sickening wrongness filling the control room disappeared. Walls stopped rippling, colors returned to normal, and the stale underground air suddenly felt breathable again. The impossible pressure crushing everything in the room vanished as though it had never existed.

A violent coughing fit broke the silence.

Lionel Cosgrove lay flat on his back, panting hard as he spat another mouthful of dark blood onto the floor. He stared weakly at the ceiling and muttered, "I feel like somebody shoved me into a juicer and left me on the slow setting for an hour."

A few yards away, Seth Brundle slowly regained awareness.

He sat up unsteadily, wiped the dried blood from his face, and looked around with an expression that was disturbingly close to excitement. Fear should have been the natural response after nearly having his brain destroyed by an impossible extraterrestrial phenomenon, but Seth’s eyes were already sharpening with scientific obsession.

He crawled toward Axel and immediately froze when he saw the amount of blood covering him. "Axel?" Seth leaned down, checked him quickly, then raised his voice. "Axel, can you hear me?"

Axel’s body felt as heavy as concrete.

He could barely move.

Still, he forced one eyelid open.

Then blinked once.

Seth exhaled hard. "Good. Alive is good."

His relief lasted roughly three seconds.

Then Seth turned toward the empty lead-lined box.

"What the hell was that thing?" he whispered. "I feel like somebody dumped an entire new branch of physics into my head."

Lionel turned his head toward him.

Seth’s excitement rose with every word. "Energy behaving like information, biological conversion, structural contamination, nonstandard perception—if even a fraction of what I experienced can be translated into mathematics, my telepod work could—"

Blood suddenly ran from Seth’s nose.

He stopped.

Lionel stared at him. "Uh... Seth?"

Seth touched the blood with one finger.

Then touched his forehead.

His skin was burning hot.

Lionel immediately pushed himself upright despite the pain. "Stop thinking right now. Your head looks like it’s about to start smoking."

Only then did Seth seem to realize how close he was to overloading himself again. He shut his eyes, forced himself to stop analyzing the experience, and took several slow breaths until the pressure in his skull began to ease. "Fine. Science later."

He dragged the medical kit from his pack and checked both Axel and Lionel as best he could. Since neither man’s condition resembled anything covered in ordinary emergency medicine, Seth limited himself to basic supportive care and a normal dose of pain relief. "I have no idea what either of your bodies is doing right now, so this is purely for the pain."

Lionel swallowed and grimaced. "Comforting."

Axel felt the burning throughout his body gradually become more manageable. The exhaustion remained crushing, but the sharpest edge of the pain faded enough that he could finally breathe without every movement feeling like another injury. He still could not stand on his own.

Then the entire underground base shook.

Dust poured from the ceiling.

A deep cracking sound traveled through the walls.

Seth’s expression changed immediately.

He scrambled back toward the damaged control console and checked the equipment he had already recovered. Once he confirmed the magnetic storage containing the test data was still secured inside his pack, he looked toward the others.

"We need to leave."

Lionel frowned. "That sounded obvious."

"The energy release damaged the structure," Seth said. "This place is starting to come apart."

Another tremor answered him.

Seth hurried back to Axel and pulled one of Axel’s arms over his shoulder. Axel could barely support his own weight, forcing Seth to carry much more of him than either man would normally have tolerated. Lionel staggered upright behind them and collected the heavy weapon along with Axel’s enchanted chainsaw.

"This mission has been ridiculous," Lionel complained as they moved toward the corridor. "Next time you drag me into something that can melt my organs, stab me through the chest, and make me fight flying cannibals, I want hazard pay."

Axel managed to open his eyes.

He looked toward Lionel’s back.

"Sure."

Lionel smiled.

Axel added weakly, "I get a cut."

Lionel almost tripped. "You’re unbelievable."

The three men pushed through the collapsing underground passage while debris fell behind them. Seth kept Axel moving, Lionel carried their remaining equipment, and the distant groaning of old concrete followed them all the way toward the surface. Eventually, bright daylight appeared ahead.

They emerged into the crater under the harsh noon sun.

After hours underground, the light was almost painful.

The settlement had changed completely.

The surviving mutants had disappeared.

Caves stood empty, crude shelters had been abandoned, and not a single member of Papa Jupiter’s clan remained visible anywhere around the crater. With Papa Jupiter dead, the Creeper gone, and the underground base collapsing, whatever belief or command structure had held the surviving clan together had apparently shattered.

Lionel supported his lower back and released a long breath. "Finally." He looked toward the crater rim and added, "I’m going home, taking the longest shower of my life, and eating something that wasn’t stored next to a corpse."

Axel almost agreed.

Then came the sound of wings.

A heavy whoosh cut across the sky above them.

All three men froze.

A massive black shadow passed over the sunlight.

Seth slowly looked up.

Lionel followed.

Axel’s exhausted eyes widened.

The Creeper was alive.

Not merely alive.

Whole.

Its arms and legs had fully regenerated, the wounds from the chainsaw were gone, and the massive bat-like wings spread behind it without any visible damage. Somehow, after Axel had torn apart its body and decapitated it in midair, the monster had reconstructed itself yet again.

Lionel stared upward. "You have got to be kidding me."

The Creeper folded its wings and dove.

Seth and Lionel immediately reached for their weapons.

"Axel!" Seth shouted.

But the Creeper was not coming for them.

Its hollow eyes were locked entirely on Axel.

There was no curiosity in that stare now.

No hunger.

Only hatred.

The monster came down like a falling shadow.

Lionel tried to bring the heavy weapon around, while Seth raised his rifle, but the Creeper ignored both of them. Its claws closed around the nearly helpless Axel before either man could stop it.

"Axel!"

The wings slammed downward.

Dust exploded across the crater floor.

The Creeper shot back into the sky with Axel in its grip.

Seth fired after it.

Lionel did the same.

Neither could risk enough fire to stop the creature without hitting Axel.

Within seconds, the Creeper was already hundreds of feet above the crater.

Then farther.

Then farther still.

Until the monster carrying Axel Vance became nothing more than a black dot against the sky.

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