The peak of the Spire tower knew no distinction between day and night. Inside ACVA's Alpha Laboratory, artificial lights emitted a blinding, sterile white glow.
The pungent stench of antiseptics hung heavy in the air—a futile attempt to mask the metallic tang of blood pooling on the pristine white floor.
In stark contrast to the filth and despair of Sector 7, this room was a hell cloaked in aesthetic perfection.
Upon a stainless-steel operating table, a man thrashed violently. His skin had drained of color, laced with bulging veins that throbbed with a deep, sickly purple hue.
His eyes stared wide-open at the ceiling, recording horrors his mechanically locked lips could not utter. His body was undergoing a brutal rejection of the fluid newly injected into his spine.
"Cellular rejection rate has reached ninety-eight percent," reported a young technician, his voice trembling faintly as he held a transparent data slate.
Standing a short distance from the table was Dr. Aksa Nirwana, Chief of ACVA's Genetic Evolution Division. His expression was as cold as a reactor core, completely unmoved by his test subject's agony.
Monitoring the subject, he adjusted his single-lens monocle with a rigid, practiced efficiency.
"Cut the oxygen flow," Dr. Aksa Nirwana commanded in a flat tone. "He is useless. His DNA structure is far too fragile to integrate fragments of the God-Blood. We need a more resilient vessel."
Meanwhile, at the far end of the room, an automated sliding door opened with a quiet hiss. A broad-shouldered man stepped inside, his black suit woven from bulletproof carbon fiber standing out in sharp contrast against the stark white chamber.
This was Oberon Noctisius, an executive on the board of directors pulling ACVA's strings from behind the curtain. His presence carried an innate aura of intimidation that forced the lab staff to lower their heads.
"How many more lab rats will you sacrifice, Dr. Aksa Nirwana?" Oberon inquired, his voice echoing off the glass walls of the laboratory.
"The high council is running out of patience. Project Lazarus cannot continually yield nothing but corpses without a single shred of tangible progress."
Aksa turned slowly, fixing Oberon with the cold, condescending gaze of a scientist patronized by a bureaucrat.
"This experiment demands absolute precision. We are attempting to resynthesize the power of an entire civilization into a mortal human vessel. Without the genetic blueprint of Subject Zero, these procedures are nothing more than blind guesses in the dark."
Before Oberon could counter, every light in the laboratory flickered unnaturally. The sterile white glow dimmed instantly, replaced by the blood-red pulse of emergency lighting.
A high-frequency alarm pierced the cold stillness of the Spire tower, forcing the technicians to clamp their hands over their ears.
"Doctor!" the young technician shouted in panic, pointing toward the massive main holographic display in the center of the room.
"There's a massive energy spike! And the warning isn't originating from our facility!"
Dr. Aksa Nirwana strode toward the main console, his eyes narrowing sharply as he parsed the torrent of binary code cascading across the screen like a flood.
A graph was violently spiking past the absolute maximum threshold of their sensors.
"What is the origin of this spike?" Dr. Aksa demanded firmly.
"Sector 7, precisely within the ruins of Sanctuary," the technician answered, his fingers flying across the holographic keyboard in suppressed panic.
"This makes no sense. The waveform is identical to... My God. Our system just logged a phase cancellation. Someone successfully activated a pure sample of God-Blood and triggered its resonance."
At this, Oberon narrowed his eyes. "The Huntsman subject is down there conducting a purge operation. Did that foolish bionic unit accidentally trigger it?"
Dr. Aksa Nirwana stared intently at the screen, then slowly shook his head. A sinister, faint smile crept across his pale lips, his eyes gleaming with a revelation invisible to everyone else.
"No. The frequency signature is pure and purely organic. Besides, The Huntsman is dead; his mechanical neural signal was permanently severed two minutes ago."
Dr. Aksa Nirwana pointed to a pulsating purple coordinate on the holographic map.
"What we are witnessing on this monitor is the heartbeat of a biological organism. Someone down there possesses a genetic structure that resonates flawlessly with Subject Zero."
Oberon stepped closer to the giant screen, catching his breath. "Are you saying... we finally have an intact vessel that survived a pure injection process?"
"Not merely survived," Dr. Aksa whispered with intoxicating obsession, envisioning the infinite potential of the data before him. "This vessel is adapting. She is a flawless anomaly."
Dr. Aksa Nirwana hit the intercom switch linked to the special forces barracks on the lower levels. His voice echoed through the Spire's military corridors.
"Prepare an Alpha-Class High-Tier Extraction Team. Equip every unit with frequency counter-shielding. We are no longer going down to retrieve a missing sample." Dr. Aksa locked eyes with Oberon through the glass reflection.
"We are hunting a new god."
To be continued...
---
Author's Glossary & Scientific Terms
Alpha Laboratory: The highest-tier genetic research facility owned by the ACVA, where illicit experiments under Project Lazarus take place.
Subject Zero Genetic Blueprint: The original genetic dataset serving as the foundation for all God-Blood experiments (originating from Louise's father).
Alpha-Class Extraction Team: An elite, covert military unit within ACVA whose capabilities far exceed standard cleanup squads, equipped with advanced tech to capture transhuman entities alive.