NOVGO.NET Chapter 909: ’Fun Time’ in the Relic
Chapter 909: Chapter 909: ’Fun Time’ in the Relic
Far across the continent, in a fortified underground lab brimming with humming machinery and sterilized metal, the Black Dawn’s most ambitious scientific endeavor crawled toward collapse.
Project Vanguard Seed.
Or, as the director privately called it now,“Project Vanguard Career-Ender.”
The observation room stank faintly of burnt protein and disinfectant. Rows of incubation pods lined the walls, each one containing an embryo suspended within shimmering mineral-infused fluid. Most pods were dark.Dead.
Only seven glowed faintly—weakly—like dying fireflies.
The director, Rapport Hanzel, pinched the bridge of his nose until his vision sparked. His higher-ups wanted results. Investors wanted power. The recruiters wanted flashy success stories so that they could use to recruit more individuals.
But reality… reality refused to cooperate!
A lab tech approached, swallowing hard. “Sir… Embryo 17-B just failed structural integrity screening.”
Rapport’s expression didn’t change.
“Cause?” he asked flatly.
“Neurological collapse. Again. The infusion of abyssal-tainted energy destabilized the formation of the nervous system.”
Of course it did. Everything destabilized the nervous system. He exhaled through his nose.
“That leaves six,” he murmured.
The tech nodded miserably. “Sir… we’ve gone through over two hundred attempts in the past year. Funding is—”
“I know,” Rapport hissed, sharper than intended.
He lowered his voice. “If the Board cuts funding now, this project becomes my tombstone.”
He glanced at his terminal, where a draft budget report glared back at him, practically dripping accusation. His superiors were already discussing restructuring. A polite corporate term for stripping him of authority and demoting him to some irrelevant corner of the world.
He pressed a hand against one of the glowing pods, jaw tight.
If only they understood how close we are…
If only they understood how monumental success would be.
If only they understood that they would be at the forefront of creating a new race of humans.
A race of humans resistant to abyssal energy.
A race of humans that would need to honour him as their creator.
But for whatever reason, an intrusive thought, like the universe trying to tell him something, slipped unbidden into his mind.
What if somewhere out there… someone succeeded first?
He scoffed at the absurd idea.
Impossible. The corruption-resistant genome they pursued was at the cutting edge of human augmentation.
No one else was even trying.
No one had the right resources or technology.
No one…
He had no way of knowing that on the far side of the world, a dying woman over a decade ago had unintentionally produced everything he’d ever hoped for… for free.
A child who survived the impossible.
A child who would ruin every theory he’d ever sworn by.
But neither he nor the Black Dawn would learn the truth.
Unfortunately, this child was created for a completely different purpose than to create a race able to resist the abyss…his purpose was to house the spirit of an abyssal demigod.
———————————-
’The Boy’s’ resistance came in waves of fear, each one sharper than the last.
Inside the darkness of his mind, the dragon loomed—a black ocean of violet eyes and teeth carved from the strongest ore. Its presence crushed the air around him, folding his thoughts like wet paper.
But as the dragon’s essence sank into him—searching, consuming, claiming—something pushed back.
A flicker of will.
A spark of instinct.
A pulse of something forged even before he was born and had kept him alive even after his mom’s death, despite all the odds stacked against him—his soul.
The dragon paused mid-devouring.
“…Hm?”
Its massive head tilted, curiosity blooming in its cold violet eyes.
“You resist?”
The boy couldn’t speak. He couldn’t even breathe. His mind was stretched thin, thinning like silk on the verge of tearing.
But he resisted.
Barely.
The dragon hummed, amused. The vibrations rattled every nerve in the boy’s mind.
“Interesting. The sliver I sent into your mother… it changed you more than I expected.”
A slow inhale, a grin spreading too widely across a row of seemingly endless teeth.
“It made you durable and resistant. A vessel that can handle much more of me than an ordinary human. Making you the perfect vessel. But it also made you better able to resist me that an ordinary human.”
The dragon didn’t seem upset by this revelation and leaned closer while grinning to say in an almost taunting whisper:
“But resistance without cultivation?”Its grin widened.”Futile.”
“Perhaps if you’d already ’awakened’, as you humans call it, you’d be better able to resist, but now your resistance only serves to wet my appetite more.”
The boy tried to scream, but the sound died in the void.
The dragon surged forward—
—and the world collapsed into black.
—————————————–
Kain vaulted over a jagged crystal formation a heartbeat before the predator slammed into it, shattering the entire structure into glittering dust.
The creature moved like a machine built for one purpose: termination.
Its limbs cracked the ground.
Its tail sliced the air.
Its joints snapped and unfolded with surgical precision.
Every time its vertical blue “eye” brightened, a killing strike followed.
Kain wasn’t even sure it had a spiritual core. It radiated almost nothing. Its body felt like a dead zone—something he couldn’t anticipate, couldn’t sense, couldn’t—
’Wait!’ Bea suddenly shrieked in his mind.
Kain nearly face-planted.Wait? While being hunted by a glass guillotine?
“What?! Is there another one!?” he barked, dodging another tail slash by inches.
’No—’
“THEN WHY TELL ME TO WAIT?!” Kain snapped, twisting behind a translucent trunk as the creature bisected it.
’Because—think! You’re not the same as before! Your body was reconstructed with source energy! You survived decapitation! That thing might not even be able to kill—’
Kain barked a laugh so hysterical it bordered on deranged.
“Oh yes, Bea, how lovely! Should I just casually let myself be chopped into cubes to test your hypothesis?!”
’That’s not what I meant! Well—partially—but listen!” Bea’s voice pitched higher as the creature stalked closer, plates clicking beneath its feet. “If you pretend to die, the relic might stop pursuing! I can already sense that, in addition to this guy, more are quickly approaching from every direction. What will you do once surrounded anyways? Then you’ll have to do my idea. Might as well do it now when only when creature is slicing you than a bunch!’
Kain hesitated.
The creature’s eye glowed brighter.
Bea hissed urgently, “Decide faster! I sense others converging only a few meters away. A dozen. Maybe more. If unlucky, maybe the whole damn relic will mobilize!”
Kain’s stomach twisted.
He didn’t have options.
“Fine,” he muttered. “Fine! But if this hurts, I swear—”
“It will definitely hurt!” Bea chirped, unhelpfully.
“Oh, wonderful—”
The creature lunged.
Kain let his footing falter—let the creature strike, tail slicing straight through his torso—
He let himself go limp.He shut down his aura.He forced his breath to still.
He hit the ground like a dead weight.
The predator skidded to a halt, looming over him. Its eye dimmed. Its segmented head tilted, analyzing.
Bea whispered, ’Don’t. Move.’
’Duh’
Seconds stretched into forever.
Finally—
The creature retracted its limbs with a series of mechanical clicks.
Then it left.
Kain counted five seconds—
—then ten—
—and then groaned mentally.
“It worked,” he whispered.
’Of course it worked! I’m a genius—’
He was about to get up and begin reconstructing his body, when he noticed a glow.
Little sparks of light drifting toward him like curious embers.
“…Bea?”
’Yes, Kain?’
“What are those?”
Bea hesitated.
’That’s… probably fine.’
The firefly-like creatures landed on his “corpse.”
And ignited.
White-hot flames roared across his body.
Erasure fire.
A cleansing system in the relic designed to burn impurities down to ash.
’BEA—’ Kain shrieked mentally. ’THIS IS THE WORST PLAN YOU HAVE EVER MADE!’
’I DIDN’T KNOW—WHY WOULD I KNOW—STOP YELLING AND DISCONNECT YOUR SOUL—NOW!’
Kain forcibly severed awareness from flesh, retreating into his soul-state just as his body was incinerated. The sensation was… horrifically intimate. He felt every cell turn to dust.
When the fireflies fluttered away, satisfied, a small mound of ash remained.
Kain hovered above it like a ghost, furious.
“Bea,” he said with deadly calm, “you are never to suggest doing that again.”
’Noted.’
“No, Bea—I mean NEVER.”
’I said noted!’
He eyed the ash pile.
Then let his soul tug at the source energy within himself.
Light flickered.
His shape reformed—slowly—painfully—until he stood once more, whole but exhausted.
He inhaled.
Exhaled.
Then promptly doubled over.
“That cost me… way too much,” he groaned. “Ten, maybe fifteen percent of my source energy reserves… gone.”
And source energy, unlike normal spiritual power, wouldn’t just regenerate with time. He usually needed to absorb it from other things.
Bea sounded genuinely apologetic now. ’…Sorry.’
Kain rubbed his temples.
“It’s fine. We’re alive…”
He rolled his shoulders experimentally.
Everything hurt.
But he was whole.
And he was no longer being hunted.
Bea’s awareness spread outward, scanning the crystalline forest.
“The pursuers are retreating. For now.”
Kain nodded grimly.
“Good. Then we move.”
He looked toward the distant depths of the relic, where a faint pulse of something ancient and terrible throbbed like a distant heartbeat.