Chapter 36: Awakening

The first thing Arlo saw was pure white surrounding him from every direction.

He blinked repeatedly until his vision finally regained focus, allowing him to see clearly enough to realize that he was staring at the ceiling.

Turning his head to the side, he spotted a figure resting her head beside the bed, her blue hair splayed across his hands.

"Captain Ennessa?" Arlo called out.

Captain Ennessa opened her eyes before immediately sitting upright, and the moment she saw that Arlo was awake, shock bloomed across her face.

"Arlo?" she asked.

Arlo tried to sit up, but the moment he attempted to lift himself, he immediately collapsed back onto the bed.

"What the? Why am I so heavy?"

Captain Ennessa smiled. "You have been unconscious for four days now."

"Four days? That’s a lot,"

He mused as he tried to raise his hands.

Afte a couple seconds of struggling against the heavy weight, he finally managed to lift them, and after repeating the motion twice, he no longer felt the same resistance when he tried to raise them again.

"Oh? So that’s how it works?" Arlo asked.

Captain Ennessa firmly shook her head.

"No. You have to activate your core to move properly for now, and later, your body will naturally adapt to it."

"That will be much better than your childish method of simply forcing it to adapt," she cautioned.

Arlo raised a hand to his chest and felt the silent ripple just beside his heart. Now, it could almost be said that he possessed two hearts.

"And how do I activate the core?" he asked.

Captain Ennessa smiled.

"Never let anyone know this, Arlo, but the normal method of activating a core is for a cybernetic expert to touch their chest with either their right or left hand."

"The Vorath know that which is why a cybernetic expert can sometimes be rendered completely immobile simply by having both hands cut off."

"Without them, they would have no way to activate their core."

"But there are a few cybernetic components that stray from that path, forbidden cybertech, and yours is one of them."

"Activating your core requires a different process, and in your case, all you have to do is smash your teeth against each other. Simply bite down hard,"

Captain Ennessa said, and Arlo’s eyes flashed.

"That’s really abnormal."

If the regular method required someone to touch their chest, then chopping off both of a cybernetic fighter’s arms could truly render them useless.

After all, their main source of power came from their cores, meaning the majority of cybernetic fighters shared the same potentially fatal weakness.

But simply biting down hard to open his Gate was something no one would see coming, let alone imagine.

Arlo opened his mouth wide before biting down as hard as he could.

The moment he did that, a red light rippled outward from his chest as the outline of the cybernetic technology within his body shone through his skin.

"Nnghh."

A slight groan of pain escaped him due to the sudden surge of intense energy, though it gradually subsided after ten seconds.

He opened his eyes once more and, with some effort, managed to sit upright on the bed, his backbone crackling from four days of inactivity.

"The pain from activating your core is pretty normal and will disappear soon enough. Now come..."

The place Captain Ennessa led him to was the dining room, and Arlo had absolutely no intention of complaining when he saw the array of steaming hot food spread across the table.

"Nice," Arlo said aloud, though his face suddenly contorted just before he dug in, causing him to turn toward Captain Ennessa.

"What?" she asked.

Arlo looked back at the spread of food. "You said I’ve been asleep for four days. How is all of this still steaming?"

She shrugged. "Delaney told me it would take anywhere from three to five days, so I simply cooked fresh food each day. Seems it was worth it."

Arlo smiled, giving an appreciative nod before quickly digging in.

"So, are you willing to talk about the fusion? Your experience?" Captain Ennessa asked.

His hands stopped halfway to his mouth as memories of what had happened flooded back into his mind, causing his heart to lurch.

"I’d rather keep that as a personal nightmare," he replied.

Captain Ennessa grinned evilly. "She said you even had enough energy left to break out of the glass afterward. That’s some serious stamina."

Arlo’s face dropped. "Was that all she said?"

"Yes. You have quite the abnormal amount of energy and willpower to pull something like that off. Also, I now owe her tremendously."

"For what?"

"For that," she said, pointing toward him.

Arlo followed her finger to his chest, where his core rested.

"Yes. I heard her say she put quote the effort into your core. It has enough energy to rival that of a third-grade cybernetic fighter."

"So, that’s what the core does? Hold energy to power the cybernetics in the body."

She nodded.

"That’s right. It holds a nearly inexhaustible reservoir of energy, though you can’t access all of it at once. Only a small percent is available to you right now, and the more your body adapts, the more of that energy you’ll gain access to.

"The quality of a core also matters."

"A good one is judged by its total energy capacity, which is called the Potential Value, while the second most important factor is its replenishment rate."

"The faster it replenishes energy, the better. As for yours, it’s roughly three times superior to the standard cores currently available for your level."

"Wow!" Arlo exclaimed.

"Yes, and it’s a miracle you even survived. It’s simply too powerful. You can thank your Godbreaker for containing it, because otherwise, you would have been blown into gore."

Arlo’s face dropped. "Well, everything worked out in the end."

"With that settled, let’s return to the main issue that started all of this, the mission."

Captain Ennessa called out.

"Five days have already passed, leaving us with only two before it begins, and I’m starting to hear some disturbing things from the sector where we’ll be going."

"Disturbing...things?"

Arlo asked.

"There are reports of humans suddenly transforming into Vorath creatures."

"WHAT!?" Arlo nearly jumped out of his seat.

Captain Ennessa nodded.

"It truly is alarming."

"But the people who have been converted are ordinary family men who would never willingly do such a thing, which means the Vorath are capturing humans and attempting to turn them into one of their own."

"So far, it has been a failure, resulting in nothing more than walking zombies with no awareness that simply attack everything on sight."

Arlo furrowed his eyebrows.

"Still, this has to be stopped before they succeed. I can’t imagine how devastating it would be if the Vorath perfected this experiment."

"It would be a catastrophe," Arlo finished.

Captain Ennessa suddenly slammed her hands against the table.

"Bastard aliens! Extending their inferior, god-forsaken genes into the human genome."

"They deserve to die a thousand times over for having those genes, and a million times over for corrupting the human race with them!"

Veins popped across her forehead as Arlo sensed an overwhelming rage radiating from her, her words dripping with such uncontrollable bloodlust that it nearly froze his heart solid.

"It’ll be okay, Captain Ennessa. It’ll all be fine."

Pure, feral rage burned through her as she struggled to rein it in, but suddenly, a warm hand wrapped around hers.

Turning her head, she saw Arlo offering her a reassuring smile before slowly releasing her hand.

"Huuuu..."

Captain Ennessa finally exhaled deeply, the veins on her forehead gradually subsiding as she sat back down and continued eating.

"Sorry for the outburst," she said.

Arlo shrugged it off, but inwardly, he had reached a definite conclusion.

’She would kill me if she learned that I’m a Vorath.’

He continued eating quietly.

Arlo had expected someone whose entire family had been murdered by the Vorath to be vengeful, but he had simply underestimated just how deeply that vengeance ran beneath Captain Ennessa’s normally neutral expression.

Her rage was pure and burning, directed toward every Vorath as a whole rather than any particular individual, and all Arlo could do now was avoid bringing his Vorath side to the surface until he was far beyond her reach, or at the very least, capable of protecting himself from her.

Something he wasn’t sure would happen anytime soon.

"With only two days left before the mission, and with the situation continuing to grow more dangerous, I want you to spend most of that time learning how to control your cybernetic powers and defend yourself if you come under attack from a Vorath," Captain Ennessa told him as he finished his food.

"Then let’s get moving right now," Arlo said as he jumped down from the platform, landing on the ground without his feet shaking in the slightest.

"My strength really has increased," he mused, feeling another impact beside him as Captain Ennessa landed next to him.

She began climbing the stairs, with Arlo following closely beside her.

__________________

"In a battle against the Vorath, barehanded fighting is useless because they’re naturally superior in close combat."

"With their clawed hands and fangs, fighting them unarmed is practically asking for death, so the best approach is to use a weapon."

"Right!"

"As you know, there are three cybernetic fighter classes."

"Deadeyes rely primarily on firearms, though some of them also carry knives and daggers."

"Colossus use heavier weapons, mainly battle hammers, axes, or halberds, to maximize their striking power, while Primes, being a combination of both, typically wield more ancient weapons such as swords, scythes, and nunchaku."

"Some Primes even use guns in battle, mainly handguns or smaller pistols," Captain Ennessa explained before turning toward Arlo.

"You fused with the Godbreaker, a Prime-class cybertech, so you’ll have to choose accordingly. Tell me, Arlo, which weapons are you most familiar with?"

"I’m familiar with two, a chained dagger and a sword."

Arlo answered honestly.

As a member of the Eclipsion Dynasty’s royal family, they were all required to attain at least above-average proficiency with a sword, though the standard expected of a prince was even higher.

As for the chained dagger, it was Arlo’s favorite weapon, and he had been personally taught how to use it by his elder brother, Orion.