Ch'en warned Kenta with absolute gravity, "Listen to me very carefully. You must never reveal your Beast-kin identity. If the symbionts find out, you'll be in extreme danger!"
The primordial parasites and the Beast-kin were mortal enemies, and any encounter was guaranteed to end in a bloodbath. A complete rookie like Kenta didn't even know how to fight, he was practically offering himself up on a silver platter.
"I... I understand."
Kenta nodded nervously. This world was far more dangerous than he had ever imagined. He had actually believed he was the only one of his kind.
His romanticized fantasy of a dark vigilante's career was ruthlessly crushed before it could even begin.
KNOCK, KNOCK.
A knock echoed from outside the office door.
Not thinking much of it, Kenta stepped over to open it. But as the door swung open, he froze on the spot. He smelled the distinct scent of his own kind. Looking up, a towering, middle-aged man came into view.
Kenta took a sharp breath.
What were the odds of this?
The man's piercing gaze locked onto Kenta. It felt as sharp as a blade, making Kenta incredibly uncomfortable under the sheer weight of his presence.
"Well, kid. Looks like you took the same trip I did."
In an instant, Kenta's instinct screamed at him to run. Unfortunately, the middle-aged man was blindingly fast. He snatched Kenta by the scruff of his neck, hoisting him up like a helpless chick.
"Let go of my brother!"
Ch'en barked, stepping forward defensively.
...
Half an hour later,
Ch'en and Kenta finally managed to make sense of the situation. The hulking, bear-like man before them was named Inoue Jinji, a veteran Beast-kin.
Just how old was he? He was a survivor of the great war of a super-ancient civilization, having slumbered for tens of thousands of years. He was practically a living fossil.
The crushing weight of his primal presence left Kenta barely daring to breathe. Inoue Jinji loomed over him like a lion king, reducing Kenta to a trembling quail.
Once she confirmed that Inoue Jinji wasn't a symbiont hunter out to slaughter Kenta, Ch'en breathed a sigh of relief. She answered his questions one by one.
It wasn't that she fully trusted Inoue Jinji, but she had no other choice. Through her, Inoue Jinji obtained the name of a certain corporation.
"Deep Blue Biopharma?"
"Yes."
Inoue Jinji was well aware of DR Bio-Pharma's past activities, knowing they had engineered symbionts to covet the power of the Ultimate Lifeform. Those people had made far too much noise to be ignored.
However, Deep Blue Biopharma was a name he was hearing for the very first time. Had Ch'en not brought it up, he would never have paid it any attention.
Was the demise of the Ultimate Lifeform connected to Deep Blue Biopharma?
Inoue Jinji grew increasingly suspicious.
Having worked alongside them for a time, Ch'en was anxious to know their fate. "Forgive my intrusion, but what is the current status of the symbionts from DR Bio-Pharma?"
"All dead."
Inoue Jinji did not mince words. He stated flatly, "And not just the ones from DR Bio-Pharma. Every single primordial parasite and symbiont across the globe has been wiped out."
Hearing this,
Ch'en's heart sank.
If that was the case, Shin Habe and Wening were likely dead as well.
Wening had once mentioned that a mysterious boss pulled the strings behind Deep Blue Biopharma, someone who dismissed DR Bio-Pharma's Ultimate Lifeform project as mere child's play.
Connecting the dots, the mastermind behind Deep Blue Biopharma could very well be linked to the extinction of the primordial parasites. Inoue Jinji resolved to pay them a visit.
Could they be one of his own kind?
Listening on the sidelines, Kenta trembled. The global eradication of both primordial parasites and symbionts? To him, a systematic extinction of that scale was terrifyingly ruthless.
"Thank you for the intelligence. With that, I'll take my leave."
Saying this,
Inoue Jinji casually hoisted Kenta off his feet.
"Whoa! Wait! Am I coming with you?"
"The normal world has no place for you anymore. Accompanying me is your only choice. Or would you rather end up like the DR Bio-Pharma symbionts, silently erased?"
"Fine... fine."
The sheer scale of the symbiont extinction was genuinely horrifying. Kenta had never faced anything like this, and to protect his own skin, he had no choice but to follow Inoue Jinji.
...
On the road.
Kenta asked, "You must belong to some kind of organization, right? What's it called?"
Inoue Jinji replied.
"Vortex."
Their subsequent visit did not go smoothly. Upon arriving at Deep Blue Biopharma's headquarters, they were unable to secure a meeting with the mastermind. They only met with a board of directors.
Even when Inoue Jinji leveraged Vortex's political connections to apply pressure, they failed to yield any useful information. It seemed as though no one had actually seen the person pulling the strings.
It wasn't until they visited a decommissioned breeding base on the outskirts of the city that their expressions dramatically shifted. Even a rookie like Kenta could smell the suffocating, unmistakable scent of their mortal enemies.
Primordial parasites.
Even Inoue Jinji had never witnessed anything of this magnitude. His pupils shrank. He took a sniff, utterly shocked. "At least hundreds of millions of primordial parasites died in this place."
"Hundreds of millions?!" Kenta's teeth clattered. "What were they doing here? Operating a slaughterhouse for parasites?"
More than that.
According to their intelligence, Deep Blue Biopharma operated ten of these massive cultivation bases. Over the years, the number of primordial parasites liquidated within them numbered in the billions.
Inoue Jinji's scalp went numb. Even during the super-ancient era, primordial parasites had never existed in such staggering numbers. To breed them only to systematically exterminate them all, what on earth was that mastermind trying to accomplish?
"Why do I feel like we've just stumbled onto the mastermind behind the entire world..."
It was insane.
Kenta's worldview had been shattered yet again.
"But why do we absolutely have to meet this person anyway?"
"To determine if they are an ally or an enemy."
Vortex existed to suppress any non-human species that threatened human survival, ensuring the continuation of mankind. Any alien race that posed a danger to human existence had to be neutralized or eliminated.
Primordial parasites.
Symbionts.
They all fell under that category.
And behemoths were no exception.
Although Inoue Jinji was a Beast-kin, his self-identity had always been aligned with humanity. He would never consider himself to be on the same side as the behemoths.
If a behemoth threatened humanity, he would strike it down without hesitation.
By all accounts, the puppet master of Deep Blue Biopharma posed a colossal, hidden threat to the world. Inoue Jinji needed to determine their stance and allegiance as quickly as possible.
...
At this moment,
Deep within the ocean, in the Lumière Trench.
Hyuk drifted slowly with the ocean currents, sinking deeper. To her enhanced eyes, the fathomless darkness of the abyss was brilliantly vivid, painted with a strange tapestry of shifting light and radiation.
When a powerful, slow, and rhythmic heartbeat echoed in her ears, her descent stopped. She hovered suspended in the trench.
Suddenly,
A massive, golden eye opened.
Hyuk hovered directly before this colossal golden eye. Her entire body was smaller than its pupil. She stared quietly at the sight before her. She had found her first behemoth.
...
Vortex Headquarters.
Alarms blared in rapid succession. A monitor technician urgently reported, "Abnormal signal detected in the Lumière Trench. The behemoth codenamed Hades has likely awakened!"
"How is that possible?!"
The high-ranking Vortex officials were stunned.
"Its vitals have been perfectly stable until now!"
This sleeping behemoth within the Lumière Trench had been designated Hades by Vortex. Because the trench plunged more than ten kilometers below the surface, the organization was virtually powerless to implement any direct countermeasures against it.
Only specialized deep-sea submersibles could reach such depths, conventional submarines stood absolutely no chance. Their only option was to initiate over-the-horizon strikes from shallower waters.
"Commander! Hades has awakened and is moving toward the coast at extreme speeds. The submarine Swordfish is requesting permission to fire. Torpedo launch sequence is locked and loaded!"
"Permission granted! Open fire!"
No one was willing to bet that Hades was heading to the shore for a casual stroll. Human lives were paramount. They had to nip this threat in the bud.
The Commander's orders were decisive.
"Deploy the gulf fleet immediately. Do not let Hades reach land under any circumstances. You are authorized to use any conventional weaponry in our arsenal, excluding nuclear warheads. Order the coastal missile defense systems to prep for launch!"
"Yes, sir!"
Behemoths possessed intelligence. They did not merely act on basic animal instincts. Engaging even one of them in battle meant declaring war on the entire behemoth race.
This was precisely why humanity had held back from launching preemptive strikes despite knowing of their existence. Ideally, the behemoths would simply sleep forever.
But now, they had clearly reached the point where they were forced to act. Vortex had never anticipated that Hades would awaken so suddenly, leaving them completely caught off guard.
...
In the waters above the Lumière Trench.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Inside the Swordfish.
"Captain! We have a sonar contact rising toward the surface at extreme speed!"
"Is it Hades?"
"No, sir. Hades is heading toward the coast. This is a separate sonar contact of unknown identity. It's moving incredibly fast, resembling a torpedo."
"Destroy it!"
"Understood."
In the tense atmosphere of the control room, the Swordfish launched its prepped torpedoes. Several swam toward Hades, while one locked onto the mysterious rising contact.
The countdown began.
"Three!"
"Two!"
"One!"
"Direct hit on target!"
"The target hasn't slowed down! It's still surging toward the surface!"
Before the Swordfish could fire a second torpedo, the contact breached the shallower waters at a terrifying velocity, instantly slipping out of the submarine's sonar tracking range.
"Target lost..."
"Did it leave the area?"
The sonar operator was completely baffled. Was it really a torpedo? If it was, why had there been no explosion or reaction after a direct hit?
...
Elsewhere,
Inoue Jinji, who had been actively investigating Hyuk, received an urgent transmission from Vortex: "Inoue! Hades has unexpectedly awakened. It's closing in on the coast!"
"I'm on my way back!"
Inoue Jinji immediately realized the gravity of the situation. He had no time to spare on investigating Hyuk and rushed back to headquarters with Kenta at maximum speed.
A cataclysmic war was likely on the horizon.
A war between humanity and the behemoths.
...
In the sky high above the Lumière Trench, Hyuk hovered in mid-air. The howling winds quickly dried the seawater from her skin as she gazed at the bay fleet scrambling into defensive positions in the distance.
BOOM!
Compressed water vapor vaporized into a sonic boom as she instantly shattered the sound barrier. Hyuk vanished from the airspace. She had only awakened the behemoth, she cared nothing for the consequences.
She had no desire to interfere with Gulan's cycle of natural selection. She wouldn't play favorites with humanity, nor would she align herself with the behemoths.
Hyuk accelerated to Mach 10. At this staggering speed, the air ahead of her compressed violently, causing friction that superheated her surroundings.
Her surface temperature rapidly soared to 2,000 degrees. The surrounding air ionized into plasma, enveloping her in a glowing sheath that insulated her from the even higher external temperatures.
Thanks to Type Zero cracking the nanotechnology of the Deep Blue military uniform, she had successfully modified the battlesuit's appearance from rigid military gear to a casual civilian style.
It was the very outfit Hyuk was wearing right now.
As a result, her clothes remained completely undamaged, even within the searing, 2,000-degree heat.
A brilliant sphere of light cut through the sky. The plasma sheath enveloping Hyuk created a phenomenon known as plasma blackout, shielding and disrupting electromagnetic waves.
Consequently,
Her radar signature spiked dramatically, making her incredibly easy to detect. To any air defense system, she looked exactly like an incoming missile.
Sure enough,
Before Hyuk even crossed the airspace of the neighboring nation, their radar systems locked onto her. The massive signal immediately triggered red alerts across their defense monitoring stations.
...
"Unknown high-speed target detected approaching our airspace!"
"Speed... Mach 10!"
At that speed, it couldn't possibly be a fighter jet. No currently active fighter in the world could fly that fast, even the fastest models barely topped Mach 3.
Mach 10?
It had to be a missile, a hypersonic missile.
The radar data was relayed at top speed. Instantly executing emergency defense protocols, the military launched interceptor missiles. Even so, the probability of a successful intercept was staggeringly low.
On the command center's main display, the interceptors and the target rapidly closed the distance. They overlapped. The two interceptor signals vanished from the screen, but the unknown target's signature remained completely undeterred, its speed not dropping by even a fraction.
"Can we launch a third interceptor?"
"Apologies, sir. There's no time."
Before the sentence could even finish,
A blinding streak of light flashed across the sky. In the blink of an eye, it plummeted directly into an active volcano within their borders. The cataclysmic kinetic impact instantly sent waves of superheated magma geysering into the air.
A deafening boom vibrated through the horizon.
BOOM!
It wasn't a nuclear warhead.
And it hadn't even targeted a populated city.
The mysterious missile-like object had chosen an active volcano as its landing pad. But while the local military was left utterly bewildered, the leaders at Vortex were on the verge of a complete breakdown upon receiving the news.
...
"Which volcano did you say it was?"
"Mount Domino!"
A collective shiver ran down the spines of the Vortex leadership. Mount Domino was the resting place of another slumbering behemoth. This was absolutely no coincidence.
"Quick! Mobilize the military!"
"Evacuate the cities surrounding Mount Domino! Tell them to prepare for immediate shelter!"
First, Hades awakened in the Lumière Trench. Now, Mount Domino had been attacked. Someone was deliberately and systematically waking up the slumbering behemoths.
...
In a city just outside Mount Domino, a photographer stood on the rooftop of a skyscraper, capturing the rare and terrifying spectacle on camera. Magma erupted from the struck volcano, accompanied by thick, black smoke billowing into the sky.
"What a majestic sight!"
The photographer marveled.
Sirens wailed as citizens below began to flee. The photographer originally intended to evacuate alongside them, but what happened next made him completely change his mind.
He hurriedly raised his camera.
ROAR!
A colossal beast bathed in molten magma crawled out of the crater. Amidst the thick smoke, a faint, almost imperceptible figure soared away.
The behemoth, designated the Diablo, possessed a monstrous temper after being rudely awakened. Seeing the tiny insect that had disturbed its slumber trying to escape, it spread its wings, whipped up a terrifying gale, and gave chase.
The Diablo was immense, its wingspan stretching over two hundred meters. As it roared and flew directly over the city, it quite literally blotted out the sun.
ROAR!
Its massive frame coupled with its high-speed flight generated a violent shockwave that swept through the city below. In an instant, buildings crumbled, while cars and civilians were flung into the air by the raging winds.
"What... what on earth is that?!"
Onlookers in the distance stood frozen in shock as they watched the gargantuan nightmare soar over their city. The raw, terrifying impact of the scene shattered their worldviews forever.
...
Back at Vortex Headquarters, technicians shouted,
"The Diablo has awakened!"
"And it seems to be chasing a target!"
The monitoring equipment installed around Mount Domino had captured the entire awakening process of Diablo, including several shocking details.
"Zoom in!"
"Yes! Right there!"
Once the volcanic ash obscuring the feed was digitally cleared, a figure appeared on the main screen. The Vortex personnel could clearly see a youth hovering right over the crater.
"A single human?"
"Diablo is chasing him!"
This reality shattered their comprehension. A human, without any flight gear or aircraft, was flying in mid-air and breaking the sound barrier in direct defiance of physics.
Was this even possible?
Even Diablo required massive wings to fly, yet this person didn't have any at all!
Regardless of the mystery, their immediate priority was to eliminate Diablo. Just by waking up, it had already caused catastrophic damage to the neighboring city.
Allowing it to remain active would lead to unimaginable consequences.
"Order the neighboring nations to deploy their fighter jets for interception! We cannot allow Diablo near another populated area!"
Vortex was pushed to its limits. Following Hades, Diablo had now awakened as well. If other behemoths followed suit, the global situation would spiral completely out of control.
"Requisition every available satellite! Track Diablo and the human it's chasing. I strongly suspect he was the one who woke that thing up!"
"Understood!"
Despite mobilizing a vast satellite array, tracking remained incredibly difficult due to heavy cloud cover obscuring their vision.
...
Diablo flapped its colossal wings, pushing its speed to a maximum of Mach 3. Yet, even at its limit, it couldn't close the gap on the tiny insect flying ahead.
The beast roared in sheer, impotent rage.
ROAR!
"Huh?"
Hyuk glanced back.
Through the billowing storm clouds, Diablo was snapping at her heels. She only stayed within reach because she hadn't bothered to accelerate, otherwise, Diablo would have been left far behind.
That brief, two-second hesitation was all it took.
A furious Diablo burst through the churning clouds, its gaping maw lunging to swallow Hyuk whole. Yet, Hyuk didn't bother to accelerate away.
Who gave you the confidence?
BANG!
A deafening sonic boom cracked.
Dodging the strike in a blur, Hyuk raised her fist. In a fraction of a second, her entire body punched clean through Diablo's massive torso. Screaming in agony, the beast plummeted from the sky.
Its massive frame crashed into the ocean, triggering colossal waves alongside Diablo's agonized roars. A fighter jet patrolling nearby caught the entire scene.
The pilot looked up, locking eyes with Hyuk as she hovered in mid-air. She cast a brief glance at him before accelerating, disappearing into the horizon in an instant.
...
This was the first time in his life the pilot had seen a human fly faster than his jet.
"Command, Diablo has crashed into the ocean..."
Though Hyuk's physical size was tiny in comparison, the raw power she unleashed upon impact rippled outward as a massive shockwave, tearing a gaping wound into Diablo's flesh.
Blood sprayed violently.
Instantly dyeing the surrounding sea crimson.
Diablo thrashed in the water for a long time before managing to struggle back into the air, looking half-dead. The pilot dared not close the distance. Within moments, other fighter jets arrived on the scene.
Vortex's command came down immediately:
"Eliminate it!"
"Copy that."
"Firing!"
At that moment,
Air-to-surface missiles launched in rapid succession, raining a relentless barrage down upon Diablo. To avoid a counterattack, the jets maintained a safe distance, firing from beyond visual range.
Sometime later, the battle finally reached its conclusion after a hypersonic missile slammed into the target. The already severely weakened Diablo was stripped of its last breath.
Vortex Headquarters erupted in celebration.
This proved, at the very least, that humanity's modern arsenal could indeed inflict lethal damage on behemoths. They were not entirely defenseless. There was a path to victory in this war!
Meanwhile, the battle between Hades and the gulf fleet was still raging. The situation was far from optimistic, Hades could submerge into the deep ocean, severely limiting the military's offensive options.
Furthermore,
The most pressing mystery was uncovering the identity of the flying individual. Was she truly the one awakening the behemoths, and if so, what was her ultimate objective?
Vortex's investigative capabilities were formidable, and with nations across the globe cooperating fully in the face of an existential threat, humanity displayed unprecedented unity.
It didn't take long.
They successfully uncovered Hyuk's identity profile.
Inoue Jinji had previously only visited Deep Blue Biopharma, missing the opportunity to consult DR Bio-Pharma's leadership. Had he met with the board members of DR Bio-Pharma earlier, he would have recognized Hyuk's face immediately.
Hyuk had met with the DR Bio-Pharma board once before, and it was these board members who ultimately identified her.
According to their confirmation, the individual who had appeared over Mount Domino's crater was the shadow director of Deep Blue Biopharma, the very person who had personally terminated the Ultimate Lifeform engineered by DR Bio-Pharma.
Everything was falling into place.
Kenta was still deeply confused. "She looks completely human. Why on earth would she provoke a war between humanity and the behemoths?"
"Who knows."
Inoue Jinji had no answer.
As all the data on Hyuk was compiled, the Vortex leadership fell into a heavy silence. They could not believe that these metrics belonged to a human being.
Sustained mid-air hovering.
Near-instantaneous hypersonic acceleration.
Her current recorded top speed was Mach 11.
She was also highly suspected of severely wounding Diablo during their brief exchange, crippling the beast's combat efficiency and allowing the military to successfully eliminate it.
She was highly suspected of being physically capable of diving over ten thousand meters into the deep ocean. Her physical conditioning was so immense that she could entirely ignore the impact of flying at Mach 11, diving headfirst into an active volcano without taking damage.
The more they looked at the data, the more terrifying she became.
Inoue Jinji felt a chill run down his spine. Vortex's final consensus was that perhaps only nuclear weapons stood a chance against such a monster.
And that was only a "perhaps."
"Let me go speak with her," Inoue Jinji suggested. "Since she attacked a behemoth, it means she doesn't belong to their faction. Perhaps we can win her over."
"Is there any point?"
The Vortex leadership believed the likelihood of a successful negotiation was infinitesimally small. They didn't even understand what her ultimate goal was.
Inoue Jinji insisted it was worth the effort. "We have to try. Even if the probability of success is practically zero, I still believe it's worth a shot."
"If you insist, then go ahead and try."
Vortex approved Inoue Jinji's request. Simultaneously, they began amassing a massive fleet of warships around the Kemp Islands, with high-yield nuclear warheads locked and loaded.