It was a place that existed nowhere else. A place generations ahead in technology, scriptures that described knowledge far beyond the measure of common reasoning. And a single man in pursuit of discovering the ultimate form of life.

⸺Its meaning.

⸺Its purpose.

⸺The Origin.

⸺The cause.

⸺For existence.

⸺For survival.

⸺And the true nature of the soul.

Not because this place was something unique to this world, but because of the singular unique mind that created this place, the world would never see his like again.

And it all started from…

.

A dirty dungeon that reeked of fetor and despair. Small children wrapped in bandages alone to hide the places with stitches where they had been operated on several times while they were conscious. Their expressions were filled to the brim with despair and fear, their bodies curled up as small as they could manage in their position.

The experiment demanded that children with newly developing magic nerves suffered through utmost pain and fear to shatter their souls. And the next step involved the festering of a new stronger soul. At least that’s how it should have been, but now they were just worthless experiment residue.

The children trapped in the cell blankly look to the other side and there stood a man in a white lab coat. The children were clearly conscious yet unable to form thoughts because they did not try escaping from the open cell.

The suffering of pain had now become a ‘weak instinct’, and their cries were no more than that of insignificant creatures. As the man's test subjects, these children were subjected to the cruelty of such a level.

The eyes that watched over them did not possess concern as a normal human would do for their poor state. They could not be considered monsters either for inflicting such deep wounds on them, as it did not made him happy.

They were just curious eyes that watched and… watched. Waiting for them to hatch.

The day when they would surpass all creations and evolve into something greater… even by force if it has to be.

“This batch was a failure too. The soul still shatters on being burdened with pain. I need a much stronger soul. Oh well, I also have to raise the number of chimera soldiers for this place. Someone for the first time killed a chimera and I want to know how they did it. So, I think I would need more of them now for the demonstration.”

Step. Step…. Step…

“There are enough here to start, it looks like.” The man in the coat muttered as he got closer to the cell.

The kids who were until now doing nothing started crawling to the farther end of the cell wall. Even the little energy they possessed urged them to stay as far as possible from the man who was called by everyone the Doctor.

Beep…Click…Click...

The doctor moves his finger over the free air and a display of bright magic circles appears. Operating on these magic circles, the bars suddenly lit up with an electric discharge of blue bars and the cell now started filling in with a golden dense gas.

Kah…koh.koh.koh… The suffocating children could be heard but the gas did not leak out beyond the glowing bars.

“Aa, GYAAAAAAAAAAA!!”

A hoarse scream rips itself out of each children’s throat. Tears fall from their eyes rolling down their cheeks and evaporating instantly. Their body burning and turning red.

Looking closely, the skin on their hands is peeling away, exposing raw flesh and bone. No, not just their hands.

Their arms, shoulders, neck ---slowly spreading through the torso and legs concealed beneath the bandages are meeting the same fate. The agonizing screams do not cease as horrible pain torments them with every internal and external change happening in their bodies.

Skin splits, flesh starts to melt and run, and soon the impoverished children no longer even look human.

Even as their voice turns raw, their screams don’t stop.

“Maybe you all were just not made for the cut. Now let’s see whether you can survive the change.” The doctor hushed as he turns his head away. Bones cracking noise still could be heard in the background as the test subjects slowly develops new exoskeletons by reshaping the previous ones.

The voices once stops when they could no longer maintain their actual form but had turned into something unearthly with characteristics and instincts that defies the laws of the System.

It was a miracle that the thing they had become was still moving.

On the exact opposite of the cell, was a huge cylindrical tank filled with a green jade solution. Inside a body being preserved under high magic particle pressure.

The body melted... dissolved... disintegrated in that fluid continuously.

An eerie figure, whose face was wrapped in bandages from head to the leg’s thumb looks from inside the tank.

The body in the capsule was a she. Her body is nothing but bones, and her face is covered in bandages in such a state nobody would be able to tell her gender with any certainty.

The bandaged girl was still alive, conscious. Wordlessly, floating and watching from the inside closed world.

The girl cocks her head to the side, not understanding what happened to the children in the front but her crude bandages tremble along with her head on witnessing that horrific scene.

Her thin hair was diluted brown, reaching to her shoulders... Maybe if they were washed it’d become a pretty color. Also, someone might have been able to tell she was a girl from the length of her hair, but the ends were frayed and uneven as if hacked at with a rusty knife.

The doctor gazes at his test subjects inside the pod, who for the first time had succeeded and survived through all his vigorous tests and experimentation.

A revolving shadow appears behind the Doctor’s back on the ground, and a figure emerges from it.

“⸺Doctor Orion.” The figure rests his hand on the doctor’s shoulder but he just happened to know his true name.

“What are you here for? …Erebus.” The doctor asks turning back, confirming the identity of the intruder.

.

But none noticed the skin peeking out from under the girl’s bandages was blood red and inflamed. In such tremendous pain, she barely even reacted.

But even in the darkness of that basement, her eyes glittered.

***

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