The fluorescent lights of the safehouse basement flickered, casting long, distorted shadows across the glass beakers and stainless steel instruments. Ren sat shirtless in a high-backed chair, his skin pale, the violet veins in his arms now pulsing with a rhythmic, sickly light.
In his hand, he held the parchment from the cathedral. The formula for Modified Tetrodotoxin (C11H17N3O8) burned into his mind like an acid.
[Ding!]
[Critical Status: Internal Contamination Detected.] [Substance: Judas-Isotope — A sulfur-bridged neurotoxin hidden within the 'Monarch's Symphony'.] [Effect: Gradual erosion of the Myelin Sheath. Total paralysis estimated in 4 hours.]
"A Trojan horse," Ren whispered, his breath hitching. "The Prophet didn't try to stop me from taking the Catalyst. He encoded the poison into the very cure I created."
Ren reached for a scalpel and a localized anesthetic. He didn't have four hours. He didn't even have one. The Prophet was a master of Stochastic Chemistry—the study of random but predictable molecular collisions. Every second his blood pumped, the sulfur-bridge was tightening around his nerve endings.
"Ren! What are you doing?" Elena Vance burst into the room, her face pale. She saw the surgical tray and the dark, violet-black bruise forming around Ren's heart. "You're... you're bleeding internally!"
"It's not blood, Elena. It's a countdown," Ren said, his voice strained but cold. "The Prophet used a Chiral Switch. The mutagen I injected was the right-handed molecule (R-isomer), which gave me strength. But as my body metabolized it, it flipped into the left-handed (L-isomer)—the Judas molecule."
"I have to perform a Molecular Dialysis," Ren continued, his hand steady as he applied the anesthetic to his own chest. "If I don't extract the sulfur-bridged toxin now, my heart will forget how to beat."
"You can't do surgery on yourself! You'll go into shock!" Elena stepped forward to stop him, but Ren's violet gaze locked onto hers, freezing her in place.
"I am the Sovereign's Shadow, Elena," Ren growled, the System's power flickering in his eyes. "Pain is just a variable. And I have already solved the equation."
Ren didn't wait. He made a precise incision just below his sternum, exposing the pulsating artery. He didn't use a machine; he used his own 'The Resonator' ability. By vibrating his fingertips at the Resonant Frequency of Sulfur atoms, he began to manually pull the toxins toward the surface of the wound.
[Ding!]
[Synchronization with the Conan Physique: 50% (FORCED)] [Warning: Extreme physical trauma. The Sovereign's protection is at maximum capacity.] [The Sovereign is watching. Do not allow a single drop of this filth to remain.]
The agony was absolute. It felt as if a thousand white-hot needles were being pulled through his veins. Ren's teeth gritted so hard they nearly shattered. Violet-black liquid—the Judas-Isotope—began to seep from the incision, dripping into a sterile basin.
"Elena... the jar... of Chelated Iron (Fe2+)... on the shelf," Ren gasped, his vision beginning to blur into a violet haze. "Pour it... into the wound... now!"
Elena, trembling, grabbed the jar and poured the dark solution into the open cut. The reaction was violent. The Iron began to bind with the sulfur-bridged toxin, creating a precipitate of Iron Sulfide (FeS) that looked like black sand.ShutterstockKhám phá
Ren's body arched in a final, agonizing convulsion. The black sand was flushed out of his system, leaving only the pure, refined violet blood of the Monarch.
He slumped back in the chair, his chest heaving, the wound slowly beginning to close under the System's accelerated healing.
"Is it... is it gone?" Elena whispered, dropping to her knees beside him.
Ren looked at the basin of black sand—the remnants of the Prophet's betrayal. "The Judas is dead. But the message is clear. He knows I can refine his poisons. He's no longer trying to kill me, Elena."
Ren looked at his hand, which was now vibrating with a new, stabilized energy. The synchronization had reached 50%. He felt more powerful than ever, but his heart was cold.
"He's trying to see how much I can evolve before I break," Ren said, his voice now a dark, melodic chime. "He's using me as a laboratory. And I'm going to return the favor."