The B.R.A. supply depot counter was separated from the rest of the room by thick, bulletproof bioglass. A highly mechanised logistics officer sat behind it. The air was thick with a musty, dry odour, a mixture of preservatives and discarded filters. Karen Vance inserted his metal identification tag into the slot.
With a click and a heavy hydraulic thud, a small refrigerated compartment slid off the conveyor belt and stopped in front of him.
The hatch popped open to reveal the six custom-made inhibitors he had been allotted for the month. Reaching out his hand — his nails had just been filed down and his fingertips were still throbbing — Karen picked up a glass tube of inhibitor.
His breath caught in his throat.
The 'Blue Ocean III', which should have been clear with a faint violet hue, now had an unsettling grey turbidity. Tiny, flocculent particles floated slowly in the liquid, resembling the decaying remains of some miniature organism or excessively diluted industrial bleach.
"What is this?" Karen's voice seemed to squeeze from a crack in the ice. The logistics officer's mechanical eye made a faint focusing sound; the scraping of metal parts was particularly jarring in the quiet corridor.
'This month's allocation: Batch code 'Gray Tide-09'," the logistics officer answered flatly, his tone devoid of emotion. 'According to the latest announcement from St. Mary's Biotechnology, due to a decrease in the harvest rate of upper-level raw materials, all non-pure-grade inhibitors have entered resource optimisation mode. Purity has been reduced and stabilisers have been replaced with secondary synthetics.' Karen gripped the edge of the counter tightly; the alloy surface groaned painfully under his pressure. 'This purity is simply not enough to suppress the genetic backlash of the "Deep-Sea Species". This is driving us to collapse.'
'My authority is limited to distribution, Executive Officer. If you are not satisfied, you can appeal to the Research Department or try to overcome it yourself.' The logistics officer turned around and began processing the next file with his mechanical arm.
Karen stared at the murky liquid in his hand. This wasn't a life-saving drug; it was a death sentence. He returned to his private preparation room, locked the door and impatiently tore open the packaging. He pushed the murky liquid into the syringe. As the needle pierced his neck, a familiar cold pain quickly spread throughout his body.
But the expected calming sensation didn't occur. Instead, a violent burning sensation washed over him — the secondary synthetic stabiliser was wreaking havoc in Karen's veins like a swarm of barbed parasites. Rather than suppressing his Adam cells, it provoked an even more frenzied resistance.
He collapsed to his knees in agony, gripping the floor tightly with his hands. His vision blurred and the walls of the room transformed into a slimy coral reef. The ceiling began to sink as if the immense pressure of the ocean's depths had suddenly descended.
As the inhibitor's effects weakened, his previously suppressed 'deep-sea senses' expanded uncontrollably. He could feel his colleague's body temperature burning like a fireball in the next room, and hear bubbles bursting in the lungs of the mutants imprisoned deep within the White Tower with each breath.
Most terrifying of all was the hunger. It was no longer just a spasm in his stomach; it was a scream from every pore of his body. His skin became abnormally dry, yearning to be immersed in a viscous liquid, and his gums swelled from excessive blood flow, yearning to tear apart tough, elastic tissue.
'Not enough... not enough!' Karen growled, crushing the empty tube in his hand. Shards of glass pierced his palm and the flowing blood was tinged with a faint bluish-black colour.
This was a sign that the purity of the inhibitor was decreasing and that Adam's cells were being completely eroded.
In the monitoring room at the top of the White Tower,
Silas Morgan sat in his white armchair, with dozens of monitoring windows floating before him. One of them displayed footage of Karen writhing in agony.
'He's reacting strongly,' said Silas, elegantly swirling a crystal glass containing a similarly murky liquid. Rather than injecting it, he was watching the flocculent material settle in the glass, as if admiring a work of art.
'St. Mary Bio is conducting stress tests,' the head of the research department replied respectfully from the side. 'If these hounds of the Execution Department can maintain over 60% of their sanity under low-purity inhibitors, then the city's production costs will decrease by 40%, saving the Upper District a significant amount of money spent on purchasing pure oxygen.'
'And if they fail?' Silas asked.
'Failure is "natural selection",' the head said, adjusting his glasses. 'The corrupted Executioners will be recycled. Their Adam cells are of a higher purity and can be converted into superior raw materials. In short, the pharmaceutical company will never lose money."
Silas stared at Karen's bloodshot eyes on the screen.
'Looks like our Karen is undergoing a "physiological betrayal". I wonder if this murky suppressant will make him more of a guardian when he's with Leah, or if he'll completely succumb to the beast within?"
He pressed the communicator button, transmitting his voice directly to Karen's preparation room.
'Karen, stop rolling around on the floor. That's an insult to this uniform."
Karen jerked his head up in pain and stared at the surveillance camera. His canines were fully bared.
"The mission is ahead of schedule. Aris of 'Ember' has already moved. If you don't want to be blown to bits due to insufficient drug efficacy, hurry to 4 Fishbone Street and find what you're looking for."
Silas disconnected, and Karen staggered to his feet.
He gasped for air; each swallow felt like a knife cutting into his throat.
He knew this was a blatant threat. Silas was reducing the purity of the suppressant to strip him of his composure and force him to reveal his most primal and brutal side during the mission.
He walked to the mirror and looked at the man whose face was contorted with pain.
His nails, which had been filed down, were visibly regrowing due to the drug's dilution; the deep blue cuticles had thickened and developed fine serrations at the edges.
'Not yet... not yet...'
He grabbed six vials of inhibitors from the cabinet and stuffed them into his tactical belt. Despite the reduced purity, this murky liquid was still the only thing keeping his identity as 'Karen' intact.
He pushed open the door and rushed into the downpour.
The rain brought a cool sensation to his face, but, distorted by 'Deep Sea Senses', the raindrops seemed like countless transparent buds of flesh falling from the sky.
He crossed the pristine streets of the Central District, and the occasional Pure One citizen who passed by avoided him in terror.
To them, Karen Vance was no longer an enforcer of order, but a shadow walking in the daylight, a rotting bomb ready to explode at any moment.
Fishbone Street, Number 4.
As Karen stepped onto the lower district's soil, the mud beneath his feet gave him a morbid sense of familiarity.
His sanity was crumbling bit by bit, but the memory of 'Leah' in his heart was becoming increasingly clear.
If the potions in this world were false and murky, then the 'holiness' in the blood of that girl with different coloured eyes was his last beacon.
Even if it meant a suicidal pursuit, he would not turn back.
The rooftop of 4 Fishbone Street, in the lower tiers of the Sanctuary.
The wind carried an extremely strong smell of iron oxide — the mournful wail of countless layers of corroded metal supports in the acid rain. The 'halo zone' above emitted a perpetual white light, filtered by thick clouds and industrial fumes. This cast a murky, dim, leaden-grey sheen onto the rooftop.
Karen Vance leaned against a rusty water tank, breathing heavily.
She had just suppressed a renewed hunger pang in front of the hunter's upside-down corpse; the suppressant she had used had left bluish-purple bruises on her skin. The side effects of this inferior stabiliser caused tiny black spots to flicker at the edges of his retinas.
A rough, calloused hand offered a cigarette.
It was poorly rolled, the dark yellow tobacco spilling from the edges and exuding a strong, unfiltered, pungent aroma.
"Take a puff." Barnes's voice sounded unusually aged in the wind. 'This stuff is stronger than the synthetic menthol cigarettes rationed by the B.R.A. It's real tobacco, smuggled in from those lunatics at "Ember".'
Karen silently took the cigarette. Barnes struck a match; the orange flame flickered in the gloomy sky.
She leaned in and lit it, the pungent smoke filling her lungs. The intense irritation neutralised some of the bloody taste in her throat.
"Cough… cough… cough." Karen clutched her chest, coughing violently.
"Don't spit it out; it's good stuff." Barnes lit one for himself, took a deep drag and let the smoke billow from his broken nostril. 'It's the last line of defence for people like us. With tar filling your lungs, those Adam cells won't take over your respiratory system so quickly.' He walked to the edge of the rooftop and looked down at the crisscrossing slum streets below. Countless tiny figures wriggled in the shadows like worker ants scurrying across carrion.
'Karen, have you noticed how unusually quiet this place has been lately?'
Karen's fingers, which were holding the cigarette, stiffened slightly. Their nails had recently been filed down and were growing back quickly.
"So you're saying the mutation rate has decreased?"
'No, the mutants have disappeared.' Barnes turned around, his expression shifting between light and shadow in the firelight. 'In the past two weeks, I led a team to handle twelve cases of "Carrier" rampages. According to past practice, only high-value samples should have been brought back to the White Tower. The rest should have been incinerated on the spot or thrown into the sewers.'
Barnes paused, his voice dropping to a whisper.
'But I checked the recent "Scavenger" records and found that all the low-level carriers that should have been disposed of as garbage had mysteriously disappeared before reaching the recycling centre, dead or alive.'
Karen exhaled a puff of smoke, her mind flashing back to Silas's pristine white office and that murky glass of inhibitor.
'Saint Mary Bio is expanding its raw material collection,' Karen said coldly.
'It's not just collection.' Barnes sneered, pulling a crumpled statistical sheet from his pocket. 'I saw a leaked internal shipping manifest. It showed that the final destination of those missing carriers wasn't the pharmaceutical factory's extraction room, but the "Halo Zone" at the very top of the Sanctuary.'
Karen's heart skipped a beat.
Was the upper zone, that supposedly pure paradise free from Adam mutant cell contamination, actually absorbing large quantities of rotting flesh from the lower zone?
'What are they doing transporting "red meat" up there?' Karen asked.
'Perhaps even the gods in paradise get hungry, Karen,' said Barnes bitterly, patting her on the shoulder. 'Or maybe those "purists", to maintain their eternally pristine beauty, are secretly consuming some kind of "supplement" we can't even imagine, and we "hounds" are merely helping them select their ingredients.'
Suddenly, Karen's body began to tremble violently.
The cigarette butt in his hand fell to the ground.
A strange ringing sound exploded in his ears — not a sound, but an extremely intense trans-spatial bioelectric signal.
It was a signal from Leah.
In the groin area, in the subcutaneous tissue where Silas had injected 'tracking leads', a sensor was pulsating wildly.
'She's nearby.' Karen jerked his head up, the fading blue light bursting forth in his pupils.
'Who? That little girl?' Barnes immediately gripped the bone gun at his waist — his signature old-fashioned weapon, the 'Thorn-MK2'.
'No, there's something else... something huge taking shape.'
Karen shoved Barnes aside and rushed to the other side of the rooftop.
There, a blood-red, fleshy tendril was slowly climbing up the drainpipe. It was covered with countless compound eyes, each one fixed intently on Karen.
"Aris Thorne," Karen spat the name out through clenched teeth.
'Karen... Vans...'
The tip of the tendril split open, emitting Aris's signature reduplicated sound tinged with mockery and pity.
'Are you still smoking this cheap plant corpse? Didn't your partner tell you? The bomb on the back of his neck is actually a sensor terminal. The moment you touch Leah, Silas can detect the 'holy frequency' through Barnes's vital signs."
Karen whirled around to look at Barnes.
The old hunter stood frozen to the spot, his body stiff and his face deathly pale. He subconsciously touched the back of his neck, deep sorrow evident in his eyes.
"Is what he said true?" Karen's voice trembled.
"Karen… I…" Barnes opened his mouth, a cigarette butt sliding from his lips. 'I thought it was just a regular monitor. I just wanted you to take the child away. I didn't know...' 'No time for reminiscing, Beagle.'
Aris's fleshy whiskers suddenly swelled and transformed into a gigantic, fleshy hand that slammed down and shattered the railing at the edge of the rooftop.
'Silas's people have surrounded this place. They don't need you to bring Leah back; they just need you and Barnes to 'resonate' here. Once your Adam cell frequencies reach their peak, everyone here will become the latest experimental subjects for 'Saint Mary Bio'."
The sound of synchronised mechanical footsteps echoed from downstairs.
Those were the B.R.A. bio-robot forces — killing machines devoid of pain that obeyed only Silas's commands.
Karen could feel the turbidity suppressant wearing off inside him; the muscles in his back were beginning to tear as a pair of long, thin biomembrane wings with barbs tried to pierce his flesh.
He looked at Barnes, then at the constantly shifting shape of Aris. "Karen, kill me." Barnes suddenly took a step forward. He drew his bone gun and pressed the muzzle against his chin, not aiming it at the enemy. 'Once I die, Silas's sensor terminal will malfunction. Take the child to the drainage system beneath Fishbone Street. Leah is there."
"Barnes, don't be impulsive!" Karen reached out to stop him, but due to the mutation within him, he was slow to react.
'Give me another good cigarette.'
Barnes gave a grim smile — his last expression for this rotten world.
Bang!
A muffled explosion echoed on the rooftop.
There was no smell of gunpowder, only the strong, pungent odour of tobacco and blood that was typical of old-school hunters.
Barnes' body slowly slumped down. The hidden metal device on the back of his neck emitted a final, sharp screech the moment he died, then dissolved into a pool of molten metal.
Karen stood rooted to the spot, his face smeared with his partner's warm, unmutated blood.
His hunger reached its peak at that moment.
But he didn't move.
He stared intently at the cigarette butt that was still faintly smoking on the ground. A crimson bloodshot appeared in his once deep blue eyes.
'Silas...'
Karen's voice was no longer human, but a low-frequency roar that vibrated the surrounding air.
He whirled around and his bio-membrane wings exploded instantly, sending a cloud of blood mist flying. He didn't glance at Aris again, but leapt directly from the rooftop, which was dozens of metres high. Like a deep-sea monster, utterly enraged, he charged towards the pristine, cold bio-robots below.
At that moment, his disguise shattered completely.
He was no longer a hunter sharpening his claws; he was an avenger returned from the abyss.
The lower level was home to the 'iron fence' apartments.
The building resembled scrap metal that had been forced together and then glued after being crammed into a meat grinder. Each floor reeked of machine oil, mould and cheap hormones. Karen Vance stepped onto the creaking metal stairs. After her suppressant wore off, the bone spurs beneath her raincoat began to itch.
Barnes's death was like a poisonous thorn piercing her heart; with each heartbeat, her sanity crumbled.
But in B.R.A.'s records, he remained the efficient, ruthless killing machine he had always been.
'Informant: Morton, Occupation: Scavenger. Report: Neighbour Hans emitted inhuman howls in the middle of the night, accompanied by a strong stench of decay. He was confirmed as a 'high-risk carrier'." Karen looked down at the information on her terminal, her voice cold and hard in the empty corridor.
Due to a recent reduction in inhibitor production, B.R.A. has increased the reward for 'whistleblowing'.
Three thousand Sanctuary Credits.
This amount is enough for a scavenger in the lower district to buy clean water for a whole year or exchange for a single opportunity to enter the middle district and breathe pure oxygen. In the abyss of despair, a neighbour's life is not considered a life, but rather a 'scarce consumable' that can be exchanged for survival resources. Karen kicked open the wooden door to Room 302.
There was no tentacle attack as expected, nor was there a scene of mutated flesh flying everywhere.
In the room, only a sallow-faced man was standing protectively in front of a similarly thin boy. On the table was a bowl of murky, paste-like food — the synthetic starch most commonly found in the lower district.
"No…no! I didn't!" Hans screamed, his voice filled with agonising fear. 'I'm a Pure One! My genetic sequence is compliant! Morton is lying! He just wants the bounty to pay off his gambling debts!"
Karen approached expressionlessly, his nostrils flaring as he tried to detect the sweetness of the 'Adam cells'.
However, all he could smell was the desperate stench of sweat and the bitter odour of stale starch.
His 'deep-sea senses' were screaming, not from the excitement of finding prey, but from the manic fury of being deceived. This was due to the inhibitor's reduced purity, which made his sensory system extremely sensitive and irritable.
"Detector." Karen coldly extended his hand.
Two investigators from the Executive Department immediately stepped forward and pressed cold biosensors against Hans's neck.
'Heart rate too fast, blood pressure too high.' The investigator stared at the screen, his tone as flat as a manual. 'Although Adam's cell count is within safe limits, his biological frequency is extremely unstable. The inspector is right: 'unstable pure beings' are 'potential disasters'."
"I'm just scared!" Hans knelt on the ground, clutching Karen's boots tightly and leaving white scratches on the leather with his nails. 'Who wouldn't have a racing heart in front of you? Save me… My son is only six; he can't live without me!"
Karen lowered his head and looked into those tear-filled human eyes.
In that instant, he thought of old Pete and the porters who had died by his blade while trying to get home.
Had they really mutated?
Or does Silas's "art" deem any life with emotional fluctuations an "impurity" that needs to be eliminated?
"Take him away." Karen said, her tone indifferent.
'No—Daddy!' the boy cried, rushing forward only to be shoved aside ruthlessly by an officer with the butt of his rifle.
Hans was pushed into the capture net. The electrified net instantly burned his skin, emitting a hissing sound. He didn't resist, only staring at Karen in despair. Initially pleading, his eyes gradually became like stagnant water, filled with curses.
At that moment, a furtive figure peeked out from the end of the corridor — it was Morton.
It was Morton.
The informant rubbed his hands together, his eyes gleaming with greed as he watched Hans being dragged away. He muttered, 'Sorry, Hans. Everyone has to live... You'll find a good place. There's food and drink in the White Tower.'
Karen walked up to Morton.
Due to the intertwining of hunger and rage, his body collapsed briefly.
[Bioelectric Current – Pulse]
A faint blue arc of electricity shot from Karen's fingertips as he grabbed Morton's collar. The predatory pressure instantly brought Morton to his knees.
'You reported him,' Karen said, her voice close to Morton's eardrums, damp and cold.
'Yes... yes, sir. I did it for the peace of the Sanctuary...'
'Do you smell something sweet?' Karen's grip tightened, almost crushing Morton's collarbone. 'Or do you just smell money?'
'I... I...'
Karen stared at Morton's ugly, pathetic and despicable face.
She wanted to tear open his filthy shell and devour his rotting soul right then and there. Was this the truth that Aris Thorne had spoken of? In this place called 'Sanctuary', pure humanity was more repulsive than mutated flesh.
Finally, Karen released his grip.
Morton huddled in the corner like a lump of mud.
A black transport truck pulled up outside, and Hans was shoved into the back like cargo. It was already packed with other 'carriers' who had been taken away due to a 'false report', most of whom were not even mutated, but had simply been targeted due to poverty, enmity or for coughing at the wrong time. Meanwhile, Karen stood by the window, watching the truck drive towards the White Tower in the Central District.
She knew Hans's fate.
He wouldn't be sent to the lab or the quarantine zone, but to the lowest recycling pool. There, his blood would be drained and his organs removed before he was recoded. His genes would be transformed into the murky inhibitors on Karen's belt or the thin, youthful biomembranes on the faces of upper-class socialites.
This was the closed-loop logic of the Sanctuary.
The people of the upper district were pure because they had constantly absorbed the suffering of the lower district. "
'Executor Karen, this is the case report for this mission. The report was valid. Hans has been classified as a 'potential threat'. Due to your efficient handling of the case, the inspector has added five points to your evaluation.' An Executor approached and handed over a document.
Karen took the report; her palms were slightly warm.
Looking at the pristine white 'B.R.A.' stamp on the paper, he suddenly felt an unprecedented wave of nausea.
He walked into the shadows of the corridor, pulled out the packet of tobacco that Barnes had left behind, rolled a cigarette clumsily, lit it and let the pungent, cheap smoke fill his lungs.
Through the hazy smoke, he seemed to see Barnes leaning against the wall, looking at him with those murky eyes and smiling helplessly.
'This is our job, Karen — either killing monsters or creating them.' Karen took a deep drag on his cigarette, his blue fingernails gleaming in the smoke.
He thought of Leah and the 'miracle' that might end this cycle.
If he continued to be Silas's 'hound', he would one day devour Hans, Morton and even himself.
He sighed.
He stubbed out his cigarette and wiped the remaining ash onto the pristine white stamp on the case report.
He turned and walked towards the dark staircase. This time, he was not carrying out orders; he was seeking the truth that he had personally pushed into the abyss.
'Hans...' he murmured, 'You won't have disappeared in vain.' The sensor on his thigh vibrated again.
It was Leah.
The signal from the girl with the different coloured eyes was no longer faint, but strong and urgent.
She wasn't in the underground sewers or on Fishbone Street.
The source of the signal was moving quickly along the transport pipes in the central district, heading straight for the 'Halo Zone'.
Silas had lied. He didn't want Karen to find Leah; rather, he wanted to use her tracking instincts to ensure that Leah's escort team wouldn't be intercepted by the 'Ember' organisation.
Karen sped up.
His body underwent drastic changes in the wind; his black trench coat billowed open to reveal his keratinising spine. He no longer filed his nails or suppressed his hunger.
In this hypocritical world, he would be the demon who lifted the coffin lid.