THE ANATOMY OF DEGRADATION
12:15 AM WIB. Enver Eraly maintained his stance in the center of the vibrating concrete pipe. His physical balance was at a critical level. The ten-centimeter hair cutting in the previous chapter had caused a forward-upward shift in his center of gravity. Enver's trapezius and sternocleidomastoid muscles in his neck were under constant tension to prevent the 210-kilogram weight from snapping his C1 to C3 cervical vertebrae.
The Astral Gorgon in front of Enver expanded its volume. The creature, composed of accumulated soul waste, absorbed the purple liquid on the pipe floor to increase its mass. Thousands of tiny hands forming its skin texture moved asynchronously. Enver activated his Idea 2 contract vision. Through the golden spectrum of his right eye, he saw the monster's internal structure. The Astral Gorgon was not a single organism; it was a colony of 4,500 astral parasites locking their extremities to form a cohesive liquid mass.
Ibu Sumiyati darted toward the pipe wall. She used her astral hair to grip exposed rebar. She pulled herself away from the reach of corrosive fluid globs sprayed by the Gorgon. Enver saw her face—flat, devoid of human anatomical features. Enver's brain logged the visual data as a foreign object, though his logic system still recognized the entity as his vassal.
The sound of explosions echoed from the pipe ceiling. The Eraser forces on the surface began dropping Sonic Depth Charges. These were metallic tubes filled with high-frequency sound explosives. One tube fell through a ventilation shaft and exploded three meters behind Enver. A shockwave of 160 decibels struck Enver's central nervous system. The cerebrospinal fluid inside his skull vibrated, causing intense vertigo.
"Mother, use the counter-resonance frequency," Enver commanded.
Ibu Sumiyati opened the area that should have been her mouth. She emitted high-frequency sound waves directed exactly at the Gorgon's core. The vibrations from above and the vibrations from Ibu Sumiyati met at the midpoint of the monster's body. Destructive interference occurred. The parasitic colony structure inside the Gorgon began to disintegrate as the molecular bonds of its ectoplasm were disrupted by the sound pressure.
Z'loq manifested on the surface of the overflowing water. His face appeared through the distortion of the waste light. "That Gorgon holds the memories of the soul remnants it has consumed, Enver. If you touch its core with your golden veins, you will receive the memory data of thousands of deaths at once. Your human brain will suffer data overload within five seconds."
Enver did not reply. He saw The Eraser tracking drones beginning to enter through the blast gaps in the ceiling. The drones were equipped with carbon laser rifles. Enver faced two active threats within this cramped space.
Enver plunged ten golden veins from his fingers into the pipe floor. He did not attack the monster directly. Instead, he searched for the underground utility cables carrying high-voltage electricity for the city's sewage pump system. After finding the cable, Enver severed the insulation layer using the sharp tips of his veins.
"Mother, pull the central core now!" Enver shouted.
Ibu Sumiyati extended her astral hair into the unstable liquid mass of the Gorgon. She gripped a pitch-black sphere—the parasite unit regulating the colony. As the core was pulled out, the Astral Gorgon's body lost its integrity and turned into a motionless puddle of liquid.
Simultaneously, Enver channeled the entire Pure Essence energy from his remaining injection into the exposed power cable. An electrical current of 20,000 watts flowed through Enver's golden veins and exploded out through the surface of the wastewater. The purple liquid acted as a highly effective conductor. A massive electrical surge struck the remnants of the Gorgon and created an electromagnetic pulse throughout the room.
The Eraser tracking drones in the air suffered circuit failure due to the surge. They exploded and fell into the water. The sequential explosions caused the concrete pipe structure beneath Enver's feet to collapse. Blocked water pressure propelled Enver and Ibu Sumiyati out of the end of the pipe at high speed.
Enver was thrown down fifteen meters. His body landed atop a pile of hard objects that produced a metallic clinking sound. Enver winced as the weight of his hair pressed his chest downward. He switched on the backup flashlight on his belt.
Enver was in a vast underground chamber called the Final Disposal Bunker. Surrounding him were piles of thousands of mechanical skeletons. These were old Model-X and Eraser units no longer used by the Council. It was a graveyard for purification technology that was obsolete or permanently damaged.
The cloth filter on Enver's mouth was completely destroyed by water pressure and explosions. Enver's lungs were exposed directly to methane gas and acidic astral waste vapors. The mucous membranes in Enver's throat began to suffer chemical burns. Enver calculated his time. Based on the rate of cellular damage to his lungs, he had only fifteen minutes before his respiratory system failed completely.
Ibu Sumiyati approached and stood atop a pile of mechanical skeletons. She pointed toward a mound of metal ten meters ahead. Enver listened intently. Amidst the pile of dead metal, there was the sound of an incredibly slow organic heartbeat. The frequency was one beat every ten seconds.
Enver dragged himself over the rusted Model-X remains. Every movement of his hands touched sharp parts of hardened liquid metal. Golden blood dripped from Enver's palms, soaking the mechanical frames beneath him.
"Who's there?" Enver asked. His voice was barely audible due to the damage to his vocal cords.
A real human hand, not metal, emerged from beneath a pile of Model-X heads. The hand looked ancient, with wrinkled skin covered in faded digital number tattoos. A figure began to crawl out. He was an old man wearing tattered robes woven from dried human hair.
"You carry a very heavy burden, young man," the old man spoke without the aid of a voice device. "The Council threw me here because I know how to release that burden without having to die."
Enver was stunned. Based on his data, no human could survive inside the Final Disposal Bunker for more than an hour. This old man was a biological anomaly that bypassed the Council's logic.
Above them, the sound of a giant drill began to penetrate the bunker ceiling. The main Eraser force was attempting a vertical entry. Enver had twelve minutes left. Ibu Sumiyati let out a low growl that vibrated the metal frames around them.
Z'loq manifested on the surface of the old man's eyes. "Be careful, Enver. This man is not part of the Idea 2 contract. He is a remnant of the era before the 7 Councils took power. He holds the secret to the origin of your hair."
The old man gripped the end of Enver's hair and pulled it with one strong jerk. Enver felt his entire nervous system being pulled out of his spine. The old man stared into Enver's golden eye with a sharp gaze. Behind the man, thousands of dead Model-X skeletons began to show signs of red sensor activation.
"The choice is to release this burden or become part of this metal heap forever," the old man said.
The chapter ends as the upper bunker door shatters and dozens of elite Eraser units begin descending on steel cables. Enver is caught between the aerial threat and the dangerous secret beneath his feet. Enver's breath becomes very shallow. His consciousness begins to fade from the acidic gas poisoning.