"Wait, please wait a moment!"
Just as Hansen was about to turn the corner, Ritsuko Akagi, as if possessed, called out.
Barefoot, she chased after him for a few steps and grabbed Hansen's arm from behind.
"Don't go..."
Hearing the woman's plea, Hansen turned around.
What greeted him was Ritsuko's cherry lips, offered on tiptoes, cool yet soft, pressing against his.
Awkward, yet passionate.
Hansen was slightly startled, then readily accepted.
He wrapped his arm around Ritsuko's slender waist, pulling the slightly trembling woman deeper into his embrace.
The kiss lasted a long time.
It wasn't until Ritsuko was almost suffocating that they slowly parted.
She leaned against Hansen's warm chest, gasping for air. Her glasses had slipped off at some point, and her eyes, which usually hid shrewdness and calculation, now only held pure bewilderment and surrender.
As everyone knows, the troubles of a top-tier model are like this.
Hansen shrugged, then scooped up the blonde beauty who had thrown herself into his arms.
Ritsuko let out a gasp, instinctively tightening her grip around his neck.
The apartment door was easily opened, then heavily shut.
On the lamp-lit window, two dark figures intertwined wildly, eventually merging into one... The next day, NERV Headquarters.
Misato Katsuragi looked at her friend beside her, feeling that something was off.
"Ritsuko, you... seem a bit different today?" She leaned in curiously, observing closely. "You seem... more feminine? Did you switch to a new skincare product?"
"I just slept better last night."
Facing her best friend's probing, Ritsuko calmly pushed up her glasses, but a fleeting blush on her earlobe betrayed her inner turmoil.
"Is that so?"
Misato pouted, a suspicious look in the depths of her eyes.
She felt a familiar scent on her friend, but she wasn't Mari Illustrious Makinami, who could identify people by scent, so she couldn't yet sniff out pheromones.
Waving her hand, Misato didn't press further, walking briskly away: "Alright, you're busy, I should go to work too."
"Mm."
Ritsuko Akagi calmly pushed up her glasses, watching Misato's departing back, a huge sigh of relief escaping her heart.
—That was close. Misato's intuition is really sharp.
The madness and romance of last night involuntarily resurfaced in her mind, and Ritsuko's earlobes flushed even deeper.
Her two intertwined black-stockinged legs couldn't help but subtly clench... On the other side, Misato Katsuragi met Shinji Ikari and Hansen at Exit 13.
Today, her mission was to lead the two to visit the deepest forbidden zone of NERV Headquarters—the Central Dogma.
The massive elevator descended into the depths of the earth at an astonishing speed, surrounded by blood-red walls that resembled biological tissue.
"Where are we going?" Shinji Ikari asked, both uneasy and curious.
"Good question. I'm taking you to witness the truth of this world," Misato said, feigning mystery.
Hansen smiled beside her, remaining calm.
Heh, how could he not be calm?
Firstly, he already knew what was beneath NERV Headquarters, and secondly, Misato's work today was an instruction he had personally given.
You submit the report, I sign off on it. JPG
During the long descent, the scenery outside the elevator changed.
From cold modern steel structures, it transformed into a warm-toned primeval forest.
If one looked closely, they would notice that the towering giant trees resembled neurons magnified countless times.
It was as if this place was inside the cranial cavity of some colossal life form, filled with a mysterious aura that instinctively inspired awe in humans.
After a long while, the elevator arrived at the deepest part of the NERV Headquarters base, the top-secret EEE layer, Central Dogma.
As the strict and complex lockdown opened, the elevator doors revealed a vast underground space beyond imagination.
In the center of the space was a red ocean formed by LCL.
And in the very center of the ocean, a colossal white giant, reaching from floor to ceiling, was nailed to a massive red cross.
The giant before them had only half a body, with a bird-beak mask on its face similar to the Water Angel.
Its chest was pierced by a gigantic spiral red spear, and smaller steel nails were driven into various sutured wounds, seemingly trapped in eternal slumber.
However, from its abdomen down to its missing waist, it showed a distorted swelling, with pairs of long white legs, similar to human lower bodies, protruding from the giant's flesh, many of them eerily struggling and twitching as if trying to escape.
"This is... the Second Angel, Lilith," Misato said, looking up at the white giant with a solemn expression.
"She is the origin and end of all life on this planet, and the fuse for the Third Impact."
"The true purpose of our NERV's existence is to protect Lilith and prevent the occurrence of the Third Impact."
As Misato Katsuragi explained, Shinji Ikari was utterly shocked by the mythical scene and the cruel truth before him.
Hansen, however, watched calmly.
But in a dimension unnoticed by Misato and Shinji, his Imaginary Divine Power had already silently activated!
An invisible, intangible, illusory domain, independent of real space-time, instantly covered the entire Central Dogma.
In Misato and Shinji's perception, it was as if their minds momentarily blurred, and time consequently paused for a fleeting instant.
And in this eternal "instant," Hansen's figure had already appeared before Lilith.
He reached out, ignoring the Anti-AT Field that could decompose any human into orange juice, and gently touched Lilith's cold white body with one hand.
[Ding! Contacted replicable target'Second Angel: Lilith'!]
[Ability 1: 'Progenitor Lifeform (UR)': The root of life and soul's birth, the physical manifestation of endless vitality. Any injury can be instantly restored, making it almost impossible to kill.]
[Ability 2: 'Impact Origin (UR)': The energy source of 'Impact,' capable of releasing an Anti-AT Field that eliminates all human existence, the key to reshaping the world and a rule carrier.]
[Copying abilities...]
[Successfully copied UR-level abilities: 'Progenitor Lifeform' Lv1, 'Impact Origin' Lv1!]
[Current ability slots occupied: 2/30.]
[Consuming Origin Points...]
[Ding! Copied abilities 'Progenitor Lifeform (UR)' and 'Impact Origin (UR)' have reached max level, integrated into the main body as inherent abilities, releasing ability slot occupation!]
[Current ability slots occupied: 0/30.]
In the blink of an eye, conceptual powers symbolizing life, soul, creation, and destruction surged into Hansen's body, then were refined in an instant.
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