Chapter 84- The Origin?
Julian stood beside Rayden, both of them facing the cold, quiet room beneath the facility, the place where Julian had once descended like a storm, leaving a trail of death behind.
The corpses of the scientists had long been cleared out, but the bloodstains remained, dark and stubborn on the floor and walls. The metallic scent lingered faintly in the air, even now.
In the center of the room, where once a grotesque, pulsating mass of flesh had rested, there was now only broken glass and scorch marks. Something had escaped, or been taken.
Rayden folded his arms and spoke in a casual tone, though his eyes remained sharp. "I managed to salvage the remaining data from the servers down here before they were completely fried. Some of it was encrypted, but I got through most of it."
Julian didn’t say anything. He simply waited, his eyes on the cracked center of the chamber.
Rayden continued, "I wanted to understand why this outbreak happened. Why everyone became infected so rapidly, why even skilled fighters couldn’t resist it. The deeper I looked, the more disturbing it got."
Julian shifted his gaze toward him.
"They called that thing... ’The Origin’," Rayden said, his tone turning grim. "Arrogant name, huh?"
Julian scoffed. "A little too fitting."
Rayden nodded. "Turns out, it wasn’t just a biological experiment. The Origin was a composite entity, created from data collected from multiple skill users. Basically, they extracted the structure of active skills and manipulated it at a parasitic level."
Julian frowned. "So it wasn’t just a virus..."
"No," Rayden said. "Think of it more like a parasitic hierarchy. At the top a dominant leader-parasite, what we encountered in Frederik. That thing had the most complete fusion with the Origin. He wasn’t just infected. He became the parasite’s main vessel."