"I'll pretend to be a Hybrid."
I blinked. "Okay… and ?"
"You'll pose as a newcor," she said. "Soone who wants to beco a Hybrid."
"I guess that's a plan," I said, crossing my arms. "But do you really think they'll buy it?"
Roda shrugged with confidence. "I just need one of their uniforms. That'll be enough."
Before I could reply, the door in front of us hissed open with a chanical sound. A man walked in—no, a Hybrid. He was dragging sothing behind him… a body. A failed transformation, no doubt. Lifeless. Bloody.
The Hybrid froze the mont he saw us.
"You—ugh!"
He didn't get another word out.
I moved.
In the blink of an eye, I was in front of him. My hand wrapped around his throat, and I slamd him against the cold tal wall. His breath froze as I tightened my grip, fingers digging into flesh and bone. He flailed, hands clawing at mine, eyes bulging with desperation.
But I didn't let go.
His movents slowed. Then stopped entirely.
I held him a second longer, then released my grip and let his body slump to the floor with a dull thud.
"Now you have your lab coat," I said, yanking the blood-splattered garnt from his corpse and tossing it to Roda.
She caught it, stunned.
Without ceremony, I grabbed the Hybrid by the ankle and dragged him back toward the well. With one last heave, I hurled the body into the darkness, where it joined the others with a faint splash.
Then I stepped onto the tal tray the Hybrid had been pushing and looked at Roda.
"Let's do it."
"Right…" She nodded, still shaking off her shock. She slipped into the lab coat and adjusted it quickly, patting down her hair and brushing imaginary dust from her armor beneath to look more 'presentable'. Then she gripped the handles of the cart and began to push.
We moved down the corridor.
The facility was alive with motion. Other Hybrids in identical coats walked in and out of adjacent chambers, so carrying tools, others leading dazed test subjects. The hall reeked of sterilized tal, antiseptic, and sothing coppery that clung to the air.
Roda leaned in and whispered, "Edward, I think we should find the control room first. We have to destroy it before they alert Behemoth outside."
She was right. If word got out, the elent of surprise would be gone—and with it, our best chance.
"Do you know where it is?" I asked quietly.
"Not exactly. But I know there is one."
"Then look for a map or sothing."
"As if they'd post a map labeled 'Control Room' in a place like this," she muttered under her breath.
Before I could respond, a voice cut in.
"Well, well… I don't think I've seen you around before."
A tall man stepped out from a side corridor, blocking our path. His smile was unsettling—wide, too wide—and his eyes slid from Roda's face to the rest of her with poorly disguised interest.
Hard not to notice her distinct white hair and white eyes, even under the coat.
He wore a lab coat too, but he bore an embroidered patch on the chest. A na: Crenan. Clearly soone higher up.
Roda lowered her gaze slightly, adopting a submissive tone. "I was newly affected, sir. It's an honor."
She said it with the perfect humility.
Crenan chuckled darkly, stepping a little closer.
"Newly affected, huh? That explains the eyes. And the… elegance," he said.
Elegance?
I turned my face away holding back quickly a scoff.
Roda since had her head lowereed saw it and clenched her fists but kept her smile.
"You've got blood on you. A lot of it," Crenan said, his nostrils flaring slightly as he sniffed the air. "You infected with… dumpings?"
"Y-Yes…" Roda nodded, though the way her eyes flicked to the side told she probably had no clue what he was talking about.
Crenan's slit eyes narrowed, glinting with suspicion. "Then who's this one?" He asked, tilting his chin toward . "You ca from the discarding room, and this one's clearly not dead."
"Ah—yes, Sir," Roda answered quickly, straightening up. "He appears to be a successful Hybrid. I was bringing him back for further analysis."
"A successful Hybrid, hmm…" Crenan muttered, almost to himself.
I felt his eyes crawl across like sothing alive.
"Interesting…" He said slowly. "In that case, I'll take him from here. He's under my jurisdiction now." Without waiting for a reply, he stepped toward and casually took the lead, as if I were so package being passed around.
Roda hesitated, frozen mid-step.
Damn it, don't freeze now.
I gave her a tiny nod when his attention shifted. A subtle one, but enough. I could handle myself for now—but she had to do it on her own. That control room had to be destroyed.
Her eyes locked onto mine, torn with uncertainty but after a breathless pause, she gave a reluctant nod back and slowly backed away.
"What's your na?" Crenan asked, turning his attention fully to .
His presence up close was… jarring. A jagged black horn jutted from his forehead like a malford crown, and one side of his face was overrun with dark, rough scales. The other half, human. Barely.
"John," I answered.
"John, tell why did you choose to beco a Hybrid?"
I let out a breath, pretending hesitation. "Because… I love my sister."
Crenan's face twisted into a grimace. "Your sister?"
"She rejected ," I continued. "For another man. So I decided to change… to beco stronger. Maybe then she'd see ."
There was a long pause. Crenan stared at like I was a particularly strange insect.
"You beca a Hybrid to get your sister's attention," he said slowly, still grimacing. "That's… sothing."
"Yeah." I said it like I ant every word.
Crenan gave a short, amused sigh—sothing between a laugh and a cough. "I see," he said, not offering judgnt but clearly storing it away. "Well then, let's see what kind of Hybrid you've beco. With my help… who knows? Maybe you'll even get to kill the man who stole her."
He chuckled darkly, turning away.
He knew exactly how to worm his way into people's minds.
Still… I couldn't help but wonder. If the real John had been given this choice, revenge wrapped in a promise—would he have taken it?
Knowing John—that obsessive, delusional stalker with a raging sister complex—he definitely would've hesitated. Especially considering how many tis he'd lectured that I didn't deserve Layla. The irony of pretending to be him now wasn't lost on .
As that thought lingered in my mind, the atmosphere around us shifted.
Crenan led down a dim, tallic corridor that gradually gave way to a quieter, colder section of the facility. The air here was crisper, sterile in a way that made the back of my neck itch. A silence lingered there, far removed from the chanical buzzing and constant movent of the outer labs.
The room we entered was clean and silent, the kind of place where pain probably didn't echo far enough for anyone to care. n and won in white uniforms sat hunched in front of high-tech workstations, typing away or analyzing data displayed on glowing screens. Anatomical diagrams rotated in three dinsions—scans of twisted hybrid bodies, organs pulsing artificially, spines reconstructed with tal and sothing black and veiny I couldn't identify. I didn't understand any of it, but I didn't need to. I could tell whatever they were doing wasn't… ethical.
Crenan ca to a stop beside . "You know, John, Lady dusa trusts more than anyone else. Any idea why that is?"
I blinked at him with feigned innocence. "Because… you've got a horn growing out of your forehead?"
He barked out a short laugh. "I am proud of it," he said, fingers brushing the twisted black spike jutting from his skull. "She gave this—Lady dusa. It marks as the one who created the Hybrids. But trust? That goes deeper. She trusts because she knows exactly what I'm capable of. Many have died thanks to my thods, yet my results speak for themselves."
He stepped closer. "Every successful Hybrid I've made has gone on to beco sothing… more. I make Elites, and no one—not even the so-called geniuses outside—can do what I do. Only Lady dusa herself outmatches in creating perfection."
I widened my eyes a little, adding just enough awe to make it believable. "So… does that an I can beco an Elite Hybrid too?"
Crenan's lips curled into sothing resembling a smile as he reached out and gently patted my cheek—like a father comforting a child right before pushing him into a furnace. "If you survive my test… maybe. But it's going to hurt."
"I'm ready for the pain," I said.
He gave an approving nod. "Brave boy, John. I like that."
Without warning, he pushed my back and dragged toward a large cylindrical scanner embedded into the wall. It humd faintly, opening with a soft chanical sigh like it was hungry.
I kept the act up, calm on the outside, all while my mind scanned for weak spots in the room.
So far, no visible caras. That was interesting—and concerning. If Crenan deliberately kept this room isolated, it was because he didn't want anyone watching what happened in here. It gave room to act, but also ant there'd be no witnesses if things went sideways.
My eyes flicked toward the far end of the room, and a quiet grimace appeared on my face.
Beds—lined in two rows. Bodies—so twitching, so limp. People suspended in half-transford states, restrained by leather straps and thick cords, floated just inches above the beds like test subjects in a horror vid. So looked like they'd given up completely—dead eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Others were still clinging to sothing—hope, rage, maybe revenge.
Behemoth wasn't just transforming people. They were targeting the broken ones. The ones who'd lost everything and wanted vengeance more than they wanted a future. The perfect prey.
"Start the scan," Crenan said, waving his hand toward one of the white-coated technicians like a noble giving orders to a servant.
The tech nodded silently, pressing a series of holographic keys. With a low chanical hiss, the scanner unit closed around , sealing inside like a coffin made of chro. The walls were tight but smooth, lit only by a single pulsing red line that swept slowly from head to toe. I felt the warmth of the beam travel over my skin as it analyzed every inch of my body—every muscle, bone, and cell.
My heartbeat spiked.
If this machine picked up on the fact that I had absolutely zero Hybrid genetics in … then that was it.
My fingers twitched slightly, already preparing to spring into action if I had to.
But then…
"What in the world is that…?"
Crenan's voice filtered through the scanner's shell. His words were filled with disbelief.
I frowned, unable to see him from inside the box. But I could tell from the shift in the air—he wasn't the only one reacting. Murmurs rose around the room. Footsteps moved quickly. Chairs scraped back.
"Run every scan. I want full biological, mana, psychological—I don't care how long it takes," Crenan said.
Okay… what the hell were they seeing?
I could've broken out then. I could've launched myself through the scanner door and taken down the stunned technicians before they knew what hit them. But…
Now, I couldn't help but be curious. What did they find?
I shifted my gaze slightly, peeking through the narrow corner where the scanner hadn't fully sealed. Crenan stood stiff, holding a tablet in one hand and a series of freshly printed papers in the other—no doubt the results from my scan. His face now looked completely rattled. Eyes wide. Lips slightly parted. The hand holding the printouts trembled just a little.
"I've… never seen sothing like this," he muttered under his breath, but loud enough for to catch it.
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