Reading a dead man's diary is like performing an autopsy on his soul. You see the scars that weren't on the skin. You see the cancer that killed him before his heart even stopped.

  We were sitting on the cold floor of the Crypt of Genesis. Blue mana torches flickered, casting long shadows on the filing cabinets.

  The only sound was the turning of the dry pages of my father's diary.

  "Arthur?" Luna called softly. She had brought me a cup of water from a bottle we had in the backpack, but I couldn't drink. "What does it say?"

  I took a deep breath, smelling old paper and rotten revelations.

  "It says we are the villains."

  Valéria stopped copying files to the computer. Gristle lowered her cleaver.

  "What do you mean?" Valéria asked, the screen light reflecting in her glasses.

  "Listen." I began to read aloud. My father's handwriting was rushed, stained with coffee and tears.

  "October 12, Year 0.

  The sky lied to us.

  We spent decades looking at space searching for little green men in flying saucers. We were naive. Life out there isn't biological. It is conceptual. It is pure hunger.

  They reached the edge of the solar system today. We call them The Ether Devourers. They don't want our planet. They want our Mana. Earth is a full battery, and they are the short circuit."

  I paused for a second. The Parasite inside me vibrated. An ancient, genetic memory that wasn't mine surfaced: Cold. Darkness. Something eating the stars.

  I continued:

  "The Rift Project wasn't an accident. We didn't open the door to hell by mistake. We opened it on purpose.

  We needed weapons. Nuclear weapons don't work against beings that eat energy. We needed biology. We needed monsters that evolved in dimensions of constant war.

  We brought the Kaijus. We brought the Dragons. We brought the Beasts. Not to kill us. But to be Earth's watchdogs."

  Luna covered her mouth with her hand.

  "Wait... the monsters... they are our army?"

  "They were supposed to be," I replied, turning the page carefully. "But something went wrong."

  "Assimilation failed. Human biology rejected the symbiosis. The monsters, uncontrolled, acted on instinct. They saw humans not as allies, but as weak pests. The immune system we imported began attacking the host.

  Sovereignty and the governments decided to cover up the truth. It was easier to sell the war against monsters and profit from it than to admit we brought the apocalypse to save us from a bigger apocalypse."

  I looked at my father's corpse on the metal table. He looked so small. So fragile.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "And you, Arthur?" Valéria asked, her voice tense. "Where do you fit in?"

  I read the last entry in the diary. The date was the day he disappeared.

  "I cannot let the project die. Humanity needs a bridge. Someone who is human and monster. Someone who can translate.

  My son, Arthur. He is compatible. His genome carries the recessive mutation.

  I am going to implant the Primordial Prototype in him. He will hate it. It will hurt. He will live with hunger. But he will live.

  Arthur is the Ark. If humanity falls, he will carry the genetic code to start over."

  I closed the diary.

  The silence in the room was absolute.

  I wasn't cursed. I wasn't a victim of a workplace accident.

  I was a biological thumb drive. My father turned me into a monster to save the species, and didn't even have the courage to say "goodbye."

  I felt hot rage rise in my throat. I wanted to break his bones. I wanted to scream.

  But the Parasite intervened.

  [DATA PROCESSED.]

  [LOGICAL CONCLUSION: THE CREATOR (FATHER) ACTED UNDER DURESS OF IMMINENT EXTINCTION.]

  [OBSERVATION: HUMAN EMOTION (HATE) IS INEFFICIENT RIGHT NOW. FOCUS ON SURVIVAL.]

  "He's right," I whispered, wiping away a solitary tear that escaped. "Hating the dead solves nothing."

  "So..." Gristle scratched her head, confused. "We're killing the monsters that were supposed to protect us from aliens that eat magic?"

  "Basically." I stood up. "Sovereignty turned planetary defense into leather handbags and TV shows. And meanwhile, 'They'"—I pointed to the ceiling, indicating space—"are still coming."

  "That explains Helix Pharma," Valéria typed furiously. "They must have found part of this research. They don't want to create heroes. They want to regain control of the biological weapons (the monsters) before the real invasion begins."

  "Exactly. The Solar Knight was a clumsy attempt to recreate what I am."

  Suddenly, the hydraulic elevator in the center of the room made a noise. CLANK.

  The gears began to turn. Someone was calling the elevator from above.

  "Company," Luna raised her baton, the purple aura lighting up. "Think it's the taxi driver?"

  "No." I looked at the elevator panel. "The descent code was entered remotely. It's a military code."

  Valéria closed the laptop and stashed it in her armored backpack.

  "How much time do we have?"

  "Two minutes until the cab comes down," I calculated. "But there's only one exit. We're cornered."

  I looked around the room. Files. My father's corpse. The diary.

  We couldn't fight here. If we destroyed this room, the history of humanity would be lost forever.

  "Valéria, did you copy everything?" I asked.

  "100%."

  "Gristle, Luna. Topple the shelves. Make a barricade in front of the elevator shaft. Let's buy time."

  "And then?" asked Luna, pushing a heavy metal cabinet.

  I walked to the back wall of the crypt. There was a diagram on the wall. A storm drain emergency exit that flowed into the Opera lake.

  "Then, we'll have to swim with the eels."

  The elevator descended.

  The doors opened before it even hit the floor.

  It wasn't regular police.

  It was five figures. They wore matte black combat armor that absorbed the light. They didn't use firearms, but swords and spears that hummed with red energy.

  On each chest, the crest: A Waning Moon cut by a Dagger.

  The Twilight Squad. Sovereignty's cleanup unit. They don't arrest. They erase.

  The leader stepped forward. His helmet was shaped like a stylized wolf skull.

  "Arthur Veras," his voice was digitally modified. "You hold Sovereignty intellectual property in your hands. Hand over the diary and we guarantee a quick death. Resist, and we will dissect you alive to recover the symbiote."

  I smiled, holding the diary in one hand and my scalpel in the other. The Parasite covered my arm in black chitin.

  "Intellectual property?" I scoffed. "This is my father's will. And as for dissecting... I regret to inform you, but the line to see my guts is long. And you don't have an appointment."

  "Gristle, now!" I shouted.

  The orc kicked the surgical table—with my father's skeleton on it—toward the soldiers.

  It was a sacrilegious move, but necessary. Bones flew like shrapnel. The squad leader, on reflex, sliced the table in half with his energy sword.

  The distraction lasted a second.

  "Biological Flashbang!" I threw a vial on the floor.

  Yellow smoke, made of Ghost Pepper spores, exploded in the room.

  Their helmet sensors went blind.

  "Run for the duct!" I pointed to the grate at the back of the room I had already loosened.

  We dove into the darkness of the sewer, sliding through the freezing mud, while behind us red lasers cut through the smoke and the archives of human history burned.

  The truth was saved, but now we knew the size of the target on our backs. We weren't just fighting a corporation. We were fighting extinction.