Teresa shoved the office door open. Behind him, Soren’s voice rose into a roar of curses. Teresa only caught one line clearly: “…Stop that insolent bastard.”
Glimmer Guards posted outside immediately stepped into his path.
They were his men. And yet now every one of them pointed a rifle at him, eyes unified in a shared, vicious glare.
“Resigning is my legal right,” Teresa snapped. “Is that a crime too? Move.”
The moment the word move left his mouth, a rifle butt slammed into his head.
…
How much time passed, he couldn’t tell. He felt as if he’d woken up, but not into any place he recognized—as if he were suspended in midair, or drifting in deep water. Everything around him was a blurred void. He couldn’t move his limbs. The only thing he could sense was…
Light.
He felt naked beneath an overwhelming brightness—light with a color he couldn’t name, because it didn’t fit any color he’d ever seen. Then the light became alive. It slithered like a snake, wriggling into his skull.
Terror surged through him. He tried to scream, but no sound came.
It didn’t hurt. If anything, it felt strangely pleasant—tingling, numbing, like fingers massaging his scalp.
He could sense something burrowing into his mind, though he didn’t know what. At the same time, something else seemed to be slipping away. He didn’t know what that was either.
Eventually, he woke again.
It took Teresa three minutes to understand that this time he was truly awake. Another two minutes passed before he remembered who he was. His memories seeped back in, a thin, steady stream.
He opened his eyes—only to find his vision blocked. A heavy helmet-like device covered his head. He reached up to tear it off, but the “helmet” lifted by itself, retracting upward.
At last he could see. A familiar face was right in front of him.
“You’re awake,” the man said, a casual smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Where am I?” Teresa recognized him at once. “Dr. Tyler Lynn… Don’t tell me I’m—”
Teresa realized he was lying in something like a hibernation pod. An IV line ran into his hand. When he looked up, the device he hated most—the Mind Solidifier—was suspended behind his head, waiting.
Rage and fear flooded him. He ripped the IV free and sat bolt upright.
Tyler Lynn chuckled. “Congratulations. You completed your evolution. From now on, you’re a superman.”
“You call this evolution?” Teresa roared. “That bastard Soren brainwashed me!”
“Don’t say that.” Tyler Lynn’s smile didn’t move. “Aren’t you still you?”
Do I feel different? Teresa’s anger stalled for a beat. He did feel… unchanged. If anything, he hated Soren even more.
It takes time, he reminded himself, thinking of the enhanced soldiers. They change gradually.
“If you believe that,” Tyler Lynn said, amused, “then try using your iron will to hold onto yourself. Isn’t that fun?”
Teresa stared at him. “Doctor… don’t you feel like humans are turning into machines? Like Phantom Forge still won?”
“Maybe.” Tyler Lynn shrugged. “Maybe that’s a good thing. Machines have fewer worries.”
Teresa looked at him as if meeting him for the first time. Tyler Lynn’s attitude toward everything was almost indifferent.
“Have you given up too?” Teresa said. “Humans are humans. Machines are machines. If my thoughts are inevitably going to be converted, I’ll blow Soren’s head off before that happens—then I’ll kill myself.”
Tyler Lynn’s tone softened, almost conversational. “Actually… this wasn’t Soren’s decision. He wanted you confined. You did spend six hours in the holding cell.”
“Then whose?”
Tyler Lynn’s smile widened. “General Graham’s.”
Teresa went still. “He woke up?!”
“Yes. Right around the time you confronted Soren,” Tyler Lynn said. “He asked a lot of questions. By the seventh or eighth, he asked about you. After hearing what happened, he made a decision: ‘All senior officers must undergo physical enhancement—to lead from the front.’”
Tyler Lynn kept smiling. “So, thanks to you, once I’m done dealing with Barnett, I’ll have to climb into one of these pods too.”
“But I’m not a senior officer anymore,” Teresa said hoarsely.
“You’re.”
Tyler Lynn pulled a sharp, cone-shaped badge from inside his coat—the insignia of the Glimmer Guard Commander. “Your resignation was rejected. Graham said manpower is scarce. You don’t get to opt out. If you try, he’ll come personally and pin this back onto your chest.”
Tyler Lynn tossed the badge into Teresa’s lap. Teresa gave a crooked, bitter smile and shook his head.
“Don’t look like that,” Tyler Lynn said. “You’re the first person to succeed in enhancement and still look miserable. Come on—let’s see what level you got.” He pointed at a row of phone-booth-like machines along the wall.
“Those are enhanced-human evaluators,” Tyler Lynn explained. “SAL-404 works like rolling dice. Depending on someone’s baseline, the results vary. There are ten levels. Eighty percent of people fall between Levels 3 and 7. The moment they wake up, they rush to test themselves. Go on—try it.”
“I’m not interested,” Teresa said. But he stepped inside anyway. The machine lit up and produced its verdict in seconds.
Tyler Lynn whistled. “Wow. Level 8. Impressive.”
“Is that… strong?”
“Very,” Tyler Lynn said. “So far, fewer than ten people have reached Level 8. Give it time and you’ll be arm-wrestling Destroyers for fun.”
Teresa let out a long breath. “This is backwards. We’re human because we understand that wisdom matters more than strength.”
“Yep. You’re right about everything,” Tyler Lynn said, already turning away. “But I don’t have time to chat. Barnett’s situation is waiting. And don’t forget what you agreed to.”
“While you were out for two days, Ogen already had the robots sweep the entire tower. Graham doesn’t trust that. He wants you to organize human soldiers and search every floor again.”
Tyler Lynn stood and gave a crisp salute. “I’m going. Plando prevails.”
But the words carried a faint, mocking edge in Teresa’s ears.
…
Tyler Lynn carried a massive suitcase out of Basement Level 1, out of Edean Tower, and through the newly raised perimeter wall. Near the Bubble Farm, he boarded his private maglev and sped away from the Glimmer Caverns—alone.
Twenty minutes later, he reached Five-Color Fortress.
Since Five-Color Fortress had fallen under Edean’s control, Tyler Lynn had managed it personally. Even Ogen had to take orders here. The fortress was now far larger than it had been under Julian: another layer of shield generators had been added, dozens of missile silos dug in, and new turrets and light-prism shock towers were still under construction.
The central tower belonged exclusively to Tyler Lynn. Guards opened the heavy gates long before he arrived. He drove straight into the vast stronghold.
He parked and walked through the corridors. Humans and robots alike stopped to salute him. Tyler Lynn smiled and returned every salute, whistling as he rode an elevator down. He stepped out, descended two more flights of stairs, passed through four thick security doors, and finally entered a hall that looked completely empty.
Almost empty.
In the middle of the hall sat an iron cage. Inside it lay a “person”—if it could still be called that.
The body looked like a drowned man left to soak for a month: swollen, bloated, hippo-like. Not an inch of skin was smooth. Pustules and everted, rotting flesh covered the torso. The face was worse—something out of a zombie film, enough to make your scalp crawl.
Tyler Lynn’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. It’s only been a day. How did you end up like this?”
At the sound of Tyler Lynn’s voice, the “person” sprang up and gripped the cage bars—each one thicker than an arm. “Tyler Lynn! I’m going to kill you!” it screamed. “I never did anything to you. Why did you kidnap me? Why are you torturing me?”
Tyler Lynn sighed as if bored. “So many ‘whys.’ Cole never did anything to you either. So why did you inject him with HH-137?”
“Are you avenging him?” the prisoner snarled. “He was a traitor!”
“Of course not.” Tyler Lynn smiled. “Why would I care whether Cole lived or died? I just wanted to see HH-137’s final effect.”
“Ah—damn you—itching—it hurts!” The prisoner collapsed, clawing at its own flesh. Chunks of meat tore free and slid off in wet slabs, filthy blood slurry pooling on the floor. “I can’t become the Great Demon God! Kill me—please!”
Tyler Lynn unhurriedly opened his suitcase. “How do you know if you don’t try?” He began taking out vials—one after another—and setting them on the table outside the cage. “These are from your lab. Tell me—which ones help you?”
“Kill me… please… let me end it…” The prisoner actually sobbed.
Tyler Lynn ignored the pleading. His smile slowly warped into something uglier as the bottles lined up like a pharmacist’s nightmare.
“Barnett,” he murmured, almost fondly, “I can’t wait for the day you become the Great Demon God.”