Chapter Twenty-Four: Mortal

Looking at the pile of red and white before him, Angsar sighed. He knew his earlier disarray had triggered Arthur’s sadistic streak, and what would follow could only be a bloody scene.

The enhancements of a cyborg were not limitless—each use was rationed, and the intervals between were long. Angsar was not one to hold back and drag down his comrades out of misplaced mercy. He simply reminded them, “Make it quick. The mastermind has yet to show.”

“Understood,” Arthur responded lazily. Raising both hands, he abruptly shifted the mass of matter in the area.

Those hulking machines, untouched for years and thick with dust, suddenly shuddered and began to float, while the cats that had been suspended in the air dropped to the ground in a cascade, their bodies crushed into pulp beneath a sudden, tremendous weight. The thick, metallic stench of blood filled the air.

Arthur inhaled deeply, relishing the scent as if it were a delicacy.

He even looked faintly disappointed at the end.

Angsar shook his head helplessly—he knew exactly what Arthur regretted.

Arthur was a latent sadist, enamored with bloody slaughter, especially when it came to killing his own kind; it gave him a thrill akin to ecstasy.

Angsar did not want to dwell on his colleague’s perversions, yet he could not suppress a sigh within.

Calmly, Angsar spread his psychic senses, scanning the area—a basic skill for any mentalist.

This kind of probing was essentially a form of detection unique to Detapol: precise for humans, but less so for animals. That was why he had only sounded the alarm when the big cats were nearly breaking down the door.

A sweep of his mind yielded no further fluctuations, making Angsar even more wary. These cats were clearly the result of bioengineering, their attacks so coordinated they could only be under someone’s control. Surely this wasn’t the extent of the onslaught?

If someone could command bioengineered cats, then dogs—and worse—were surely within their grasp.

A dreadful possibility occurred to him, and Angsar suddenly cried out, “Below us!”

But before the words left his lips, the ground began to tremble violently. Jagged cracks split the concrete floor, which collapsed beneath them.

The factory caved in; steel beams hurtled downward, threatening to crush them all. Arthur, caught off guard, quickly levitated the entire factory, but only after dropping two meters himself did he manage to reduce the mass of himself, Angsar, and their cyborgs, leaving them all floating somewhat comically in midair.

Angsar shouted, “Rats!”

The earth had shielded them from his psychic scan; only now could he sense the true threat.

A swarm of shadows surged from the pit—fat, monstrous rats with red, bloodthirsty eyes, clambering atop one another in a living ladder, swarming toward them.

One cyborg, not quick enough to rise, had rats crawl up his leg and swarm over his body, tearing him to shreds. No matter how strong a cyborg’s regeneration, in moments he would be gnawed to the bone.

The sight was enough to make even the twisted Arthur shudder and slap down a mountain of rats, crushing them into paste.

But the rats seemed endless. Where there was one, a hundred more hid nearby.

Their frightening reproductive power was their guarantee of survival, but they rarely hunted en masse. Now, that same power had become a terrifying force.

Angsar extended his psychic senses through the tunnels and caverns underground, but even at the limits of his reach he could not find the edge of the rat tide.

Arthur, growing excited, clapped his hands and summoned a ton of mass to crush the rats below, their bodies piling at the bottom of the pit.

Angsar grabbed the feverish Arthur. “Don’t get bogged down! There are too many—we’ll be dragged under!”

Arthur pressed a hand to his forehead. Large-scale, prolonged use of mass control was a strain even with a cyborg’s mental enhancements.

He and Angsar pulled out several nitrogen canisters, ready to use them to escape—though the thrust was weak, everyone’s mass was now negligible, and speed was not a concern.

Angsar was tense. The ground was lost to the rats—could the sky be safe?

Sure enough, a flock of birds rose from the night, swooping toward them in attack.

Arthur’s face twisted, half ferocious, half twitching. He was nearing his limit—the overload of his powers felt as if his skull had been torn open to the wind.

He crushed a swath of birds with gravity, and he and Angsar made a desperate break for it.

Suddenly Arthur felt something cold and wet drip onto his forehead.

He wiped it away and found a streak of foul, blue-green slime.

Without a thought, Arthur triggered the nitrogen canister and shot sideways two meters, dodging a blue-green wraith that fell from above.

The wraith brushed past him, its cold, unnatural aura making death itself seem gentle by comparison.

Angsar shrieked, “Tindalos! How is it here?”

Arthur spat, “Isn’t it obvious? Fran, that treacherous whore, betrayed us!”

He slammed a ton of mass onto Tindalos, but the creature slipped into the shadows of the pit, vanishing from his control.

Angsar’s eyes went wide with horror as he stared at Arthur.

Arthur was about to ask what was wrong when suddenly darkness engulfed his vision as something smothered his face, forcing its way into his eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.

Caught so off guard, he didn’t have time to use his mass control. A jelly-like mass forced its way down his throat, a spike of pain lancing through his mind.

As Arthur’s consciousness faded, his mass control failed, and everyone tumbled into the sea of rats below—ironically cushioned from harm by the soft, thick bodies.

But as Angsar looked around at the seething rats, he felt a surge of despair. The sensation of their warm, soft bodies was enough to make even the toughest man shudder like a child.

It took all his strength not to scream.

He shook uncontrollably—not just from the rats, but from what he had just seen.

A purple, octopus-like, or perhaps slime-like creature had dropped onto Arthur's head while their attention was fixed on Tindalos—likely carried into the air by a bird.

Its secretions must have been numbing, for Arthur hadn’t noticed until it forced itself down his throat.

The rats stopped their attack, silently retreating.

Angsar saw Arthur lying motionless in the pit, his psychic sense revealing that though Arthur’s consciousness had vanished, his vital signs were strong—if anything, stronger than before.

This horrific transformation filled Angsar with terror so deep he nearly lost control of his bowels.

Suddenly, Arthur sat bolt upright, his eyes open and calm.

Angsar’s voice trembled. “Arthur, are you all right?”

“I feel…amazing. Better than ever before.”

Arthur’s tone was manic, though his expression was stiff.

Like a puppet, he stood, looking at his own body as his muscles bulged and relaxed, his form shuddering and hunching like a Parkinson’s patient.

“It’s as if I died, and yet I didn’t. I remember everything, but none of it feels like me. The old me looked like a crippled penguin—a joke. Now, I’ve transcended.”

He looked at Angsar, who stumbled back, his legs weak. His companion had become something monstrous.

“Stop! Stop!” Angsar’s shout became a spasm of psychic command, forcing Arthur to halt.

Arthur chuckled. “An absolute command… Your power can only give orders so simple that even a dog would disdain them. But…”

He took a stiff step forward.

“I have transcended humanity. Your command no longer binds me.”

Angsar felt a crushing weight, triple gravity forcing him to the ground, suffocating him.

Arthur strolled over, smiling. “Come on, try it for yourself.”

Then Angsar’s vision went black as something forced its way into his mouth and consumed his mind.