Chapter 67: Narrowly Surviving

The boss, who was the most muscular among them, wiped the blood from his lips before speaking.

"All of that doesn’t matter now that they’re dead."

"The mission has been completed, and the daughter of the Eboncrest family has been killed."

"Let’s get going before any of those monsters are attracted here by the chaos."

The five immediately turned around and moved away from the scene, mixing back into the Vorath streets beyond the bridge and quickly disappearing among the crowd.

_____________

"Wake up, you bastards!"

An enraged roar came from a Vorath man, one whom Arlo would have recognized as one of the guards assigned to protect them.

He kicked the four men lying unconscious on the ground, causing them to rapidly jump to their feet.

"SHIT! I can’t believe we were knocked out by perfume! Straight to the Academy! We must protect the Princess and the kid!"

The man roared before running out of the alleyway, followed closely by the remaining four guards as they rapidly raced toward the Cthulhu Academy.

Yet, the closer they got to the academy, the colder their hearts became.

Gigantic craters covered the ground, massive amounts of blood were scattered across the bridge, with smoke still rising from the earth.

There was no doubt about it.

The Princess and the boy had been ambushed.

’But who dares!? Who dares to ambush a First Generation Royal Vorath in broad daylight?’

"Quick! To the Academy!"

_______________

Slowly, Arlo’s groggy eyes opened.

Above him was a pitch-black ceiling gently releasing multicolored lights.

Gradually, his vision became clearer as his hands twitched before he raised them to his face and stared at them with a strange expression.

"You’re awake, I see..."

A voice echoed through the room.

Arlo immediately shot up from the bed, instinctively wanting to summon his sword before quickly forcing the feeling down.

At the far end of what appeared to be a laboratory stood an old man, busy working with several strange chemicals.

"Who are you!?"

"Sssshhh. Give your brain some time to return your memories..." the man whispered as he slowly placed the test tubes back into their holder.

"My memo... grrhh!"

"Ahh, there it is..."

A slight groan of pain escaped Arlo’s lips as he felt a rapid stream of information rushing into his brain.

Hundreds of images and words flashed through his mind as quick as lightning.

The experience was as fleeting as it had suddenly begun, disappearing after only a few seconds, though those seconds felt like entire hours to Arlo.

With curiosity, Professor Igris carefully watched the young man, wondering what his first words after recovering from his temporary memory loss would be.

"Shit! I missed the entrance exam!" Arlo suddenly shouted as he grabbed his hair.

Shock appeared in Professor Igris’ eyes before he suddenly erupted into loud laughter.

"Huh?"

Arlo raised an eyebrow at the old man’s strange reaction before ignoring him and turning his attention toward his own body.

To his surprise, it was completely undamaged and even seemed to feel better than before.

"Hm, it seems I’m perfectly okay. I remember taking quite a bit of damage from that Mana Ball attack..."

"You owe your healthy body to the Princess, and most of all to the Eboncrest Family. She was the one who requested for the medical serum used to fully restore your body."

"Such a serum is normally beyond the reach of the normal ninety-five percent of Vorath and can only be afforded by the top two percent,"

Professor Igris explained as Arlo immediately began tearing off the various wires attached to his body.

"I owe nobody anything. It was because of her that I got so injured in the first place," Arlo quickly refuted.

The last thing he wanted was to owe someone after getting himself into so much trouble because of them.

"That I cannot refute."

"The attackers later confirmed that Princess Milliani was their target, and you were simply unlucky enough to be with her at the wrong time,"

Professor Igris replied as he returned his attention to the test tube.

"Tch."

Arlo clicked his tongue irritably before suddenly smashing face-first into the ground the moment his right foot touched the wooden floor.

"I forgot to mention, your right leg is useless for now. You’ll need another week before it fully recovers."

"It’s already a miracle that your body has healed so quickly after only a week, even with the serum," Professor Igris said.

Arlo looked around the laboratory, searching for something to support himself with.

Soon, he found it beside the bed.

It was an armrest.

Crawling toward it, Arlo grabbed onto it before slowly rising onto his left leg.

"Now I have to start limping around..." Arlo complained.

"Well, it’s not like you have much choice. And if I were you, I’d be happy that I’m at least still alive," Professor Igris replied.

"That said, you mentioned the targets of the attack. Did they manage to capture those bastards?"

Arlo asked as he limped around, testing just how much of a feeling he still had in his right leg.

"Four of them were captured six days ago, and they are all dead now. The last one, who was also the leader of the attack, has yet to be found, though..."

He explained and for reason unknown, Arlo found himself exhaling in quiet relief.

But then, he remembered and a vein popped on his forehead.

"And what about those bastard guards? I hope they’re dead too."

Arlo asked as he limped closer, his curiosity increasing as he stared at the test tubes Professor Igris was working with.

"The guards were indeed at fault for failing in their duties, and they have all been sent to the dungeon to contemplate their failures."

"Their final fate is now in the hands of King Eboncrest," Professor Igris replied before taking his eyes away from the test tube and turning toward Arlo.

Arlo’s eyes had narrowed at the strange glass tubes resting in their holder.

"Hm, they look like fragments of human genomes, magnified countless times by some strange chemical, probably the green serum inside the tube," Arlo mused.

Inside the glass tube were strands that greatly resembled genomes.

Genomes were far too small to be seen with the naked eye, yet Arlo could clearly make them out, most likely because of whatever effect the green serum had on them.

"You think so?"

Arlo then turned toward the tubes resting in the second holder.

"And those also look like genomes, only very different and darker. Most likely Vorath genomes..."

He added,

"That’s not wrong..."

Professor Igris said, pausing in quiet interest.

"And that one contains both genomes, but um, they seem to be greatly rejecting each other, almost like two identical poles of the same magnet."

Arlo mused, his brain buzzing as he stared at the strange reaction.

"Hm, human and Vorath genomes together. This is strange. Are you trying to create a Human-Vorath hybrid?" Arlo asked with a raised eyebrow.

Professor Igris’ eyes flashed with a strange light before he leaned back in his comfortable chair and folded his arms.

"A pretty cool idea, don’t you think?"

Arlo nodded continuously.

"Yes. So far, the new creations would have a fifty percent probability of becoming twice as strong as the average human and Vorath, without suddenly developing the thought process that they’re superior because they possess the genomes of both races and deciding to rule the world."

"Hahaha. A phobia that limits all upcoming scientists." Professor Igris laughed.

Arlo simply shrugged before turning his attention back toward the test tube.

"Besides, your mission might be impossible to accomplish." he said.

Yet instead of becoming angry, Professor Igris only smiled.

Every great creation was usually considered impossible until someone finally achieved it.

His would be no different.

"Oh really? And why do you think that?"

"I said it before. The human genome and the Vorath genome are unable to fuse together and instead greatly repel each other, almost like natural enemies."

"You can think of them as negative and positive charges."

"If we look at it from a Mana perspective, then we can say the Vorath genome is positively charged while the human genome should be negative..."

"Well, doesn’t that mean they should naturally be attracted to each other?" Professor Igris asked curiously.

"Normally, positivity will go hand in hand with negativity. But the clause you’re introducing is something beyond both negative and positive."

Arlo replied and Professor Igris paused.

"What clause?"

"Mana. Mana can be negative, positive, or neutral. It exists beyond simple negativity and positivity."

"And Mana is very much conscious, even at its most basic level."

"When you try to fuse such a conscious energy with something that could be well-defined as lesser than it, then, there should naturally be some resistance."

"The ultra-strong won’t feel an innate need to bond with the weaker. That innate need might only appear when encountering something of equal or higher magnitude to itself."

"The Vorath genome contains Mana and, believing itself to be superior, will completely refuse to accept the mana-less human genome as one with itself."

"That’s why it will never allow itself to be fused, even though the human genome is willing."

"Trying to go against this will only result in creating a failed specimen, born from the Vorath Mana’s refusal."

Arlo deduced as Professor Igris’ eyes widened in shock from a sudden realization.

’So that’s why? Why our experiments were failures and the results were mindless Vorath and half-humans.

’Their state is due to the refusal of the Vorath gene within them, causing it to overfuse with its naturally chaotic effects and making them no different from mindless zombies.’

’It’s due to Mana’s consciousness and its refusal, even at its most basic level.’

Professor Igris thought, his eyes widening at the realization, yet he soon regained his calm and asked Arlo instead.

"And under what condition do you think this will be successful?"

"That’s simple."