The black swamp pool looked alive.
The mad scientist who had sunk into it was being covered by the writhing black mud.
No—that was not right. It was not covering him. It was pouring into him.
It surged into him not only through his pores, but also through his mouth, ears, and every other opening. The sight alone was enough to make anyone physically ill.
And his body seemed like a bottomless pit. No matter how much black mud flowed in, it looked as though it could never be filled.
Only after he had absorbed what seemed like half the pool did changes finally begin to appear.
The black, writhing, vaguely humanoid, twisted body began to transform. Pure black wings grew from its back—bony wings without so much as a trace of feathers.
No. Feathers were growing now.
But they did not have a soft, downy texture. They looked more like metal plates.
His head was changing as well. Horns emerged from it.
As for the exposed skin, portions of it were covered in something chitinous, forming what looked like armor.
Strange patterns ran across his body, like the channels carved into earth by flowing lava. The difference was that these glowed green.
It made his body look as if it had been built from green molten rock.
And that molten structure was gradually solidifying, shifting from liquid into something fixed and stable.
Suddenly, as if sensing something, the wings on his back snapped open and formed a shield above his head.
Almost at the same time, the ceiling overhead turned red-hot and opened into a hole. A streak of orange light struck the wings.
There was no explosion like one might expect. Only a brighter flash of light.
It was a special kind of bullet. If it struck a person, they would be vaporized outright. If it struck metal, the metal would instantly melt.
Before the blazing orange light could fade, more projectiles traveling at several times the speed of sound plunged through the ceiling one after another, flaring as they struck.
In the blink of an eye, the entire black swamp pool was drowned in orange light.
When the radiance dimmed, the black mud pool that had been there before no longer existed. In its place was a magma pool several meters lower than the original floor.
It looked as if the attack had punched straight through the ground and caused underground magma to surge up. In truth, part of the matter there—metal—had not been vaporized by the attack, but had instead turned into red-hot molten iron.
The attacker dropped down through the hole melted through the ceiling. Then, sensing something, he abruptly spun and attacked behind him—toward the ceiling.
Bang!
His spinning kick collided with the black shadow lunging at him from the edge of the ceiling hole, and both were knocked back.
The shadow shot back along its original path like a cannonball and slammed into the ceiling. Only after it briefly paused there did its form become clear.
It was Hojo after his mutation.
After crashing into the ceiling, his body twisted and deformed. If this had been an ordinary human, that kind of distortion would have been instantly fatal.
But Hojo seemed almost rubber-like. He recovered rapidly, while the wings on his back—now seemingly burned bare—began to regenerate little by little.
The next second, a streak of orange light cut through the dark laboratory, melting the ceiling where Hojo had struck it. But before the bullet could hit, his body seemed to mist apart and vanish, merging into the darkness.
Where was he?
Just as Kain was about to search for the monster Hojo had become, a sudden spray of sparks drew his attention. Only the violent collision of metal against metal had made the figure visible.
Hojo was already engaged in close-quarters combat with the intruder to his laboratory.
His wings, which seemed as hard and sharp as metal, transformed into countless sickle-like blades that tore through the air, attacking in a frenzy and ripping at Kain again and again.
Without any defenses, a person would have been shredded into dozens—or even hundreds—of chunks in less than the blink of an eye.
Hojo's current performance had already surpassed humanity. Even a 1st Class SOLDIER from Shinra might not compare to him.
And yet, even after reaching this level, Hojo still seemed slightly inferior.
Suddenly, the scattering sparks vanished. At the same time, an inhuman shriek rang out, sounding almost like a scream.
For an instant, it was as if time itself had stopped.
Something white had struck Hojo in the eye socket, causing him unbearable pain.
With another even sharper roar, Hojo's figure vanished. Left behind in his place was what looked like half a face—or perhaps a small portion of his skull—torn away.
It was similar to a lizard being caught and forced to shed its tail to escape.
"Yuffie!"
Tifa tugged at Yuffie, who had been staring at the battle footage so intently that her eyes looked as if they were about to sparkle.
Tifa cared about the battle as well, but from what she could see, Hojo's current abilities still did not match the teleporting monster Kain had encountered among the Necrons. Even the weakest individual among the so-called Astartes warriors would probably be beyond Hojo's ability to kill.
Right now, she had to focus on their own situation. She could not become a burden for Kain. They needed to let him return to support them as soon as possible.
But because of Hojo's special nature, Kain seemed to need physical contact to inflict true damage on him. That was why he had not worn his power armor, which made it difficult for him to land an instant kill.
That meant they had to hold out until he finished dealing with Hojo. They could not become dead weight.
"Huh? Oh!"
Tifa's reminder snapped Yuffie out of her focus on the live feed from the underground research facility.
The Whispers were no longer approaching for now, but a group of strange black-robed figures was closing in on this floor. They were clearly not friendly.
So Yuffie stopped watching the battle below.
In any case, Hojo had called himself the god of fate, but he was still being suppressed.
A god? So much for that.
She tightened her grip on her shuriken.
The black-robed figures were about to reach this floor.
Then—
Crash!
The floor-to-ceiling windows of the president's office shattered, and Yuffie's expression shifted slightly.
She had not expected some of them to climb up from outside.
...
Boom!
Once again, Hojo was caught by the other party and had no choice but to abandon part of his flesh.
Because once that bone spike struck him, his body became completely fixed in place, unable to change shape.
And each time it pierced him, the agony was not physical. It was spiritual, as if his soul itself had been impaled.
Most importantly, Hojo was certain of one thing: he absolutely could not allow his opponent to properly grab him. He could not allow his opponent's body to make contact with his.
Once contact occurred, the other party would destroy his spiritual will—his soul.
To put it simply, their battle was like a clash between two machines. Hojo's flesh absolutely could not physically touch Kain's flesh. If it did, it would be the same as establishing a wired connection to his machine, allowing Kain to instantly invade and destroy his system.
The bone spike in Kain's hand was equivalent to a wireless device. If it hit him, it could affect him, but the effect was not as direct as a wired attack.
That physical connection was an instant-death strike.
Damn it.
He had been only a little short of evolving into something even more perfect, but Kain's intrusion had destroyed the cultivation pool.
At this rate, defeat was inevitable.
Ultimately, the problem was that Hojo's original body had not been properly adjusted first. It had not undergone the necessary upgrades.
He needed a better body.
He needed to upgrade again.
And of course, he had prepared that better body in advance.
He had to hurry.
He had to reach it and seize that body.
(End of Chapter)
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