While the city celebrated—Ghouls dancing in the squares and Vampires toasting with synthetic blood—I was in Magistrate Ossian's office, analyzing an ancient holographic map.
"The Botanical Garden," the Lich pointed with his skeletal finger to the dome-shaped glass structure on the map. "Before the Rifts, it was a postcard. Afterward, it became your father's backyard. No one has entered there in twenty years."
"Why?" I asked, adjusting the bandages on my hand. "Monsters?"
"Worse. Experimental flora." Ossian shuddered (or at least, his bones rattled). "Your father tried to create plants capable of filtering Rift radiation. The result was... aggressive. The plants there don't photosynthesize. They photosynthesize... carnage."
"Sounds like the perfect place to hide a secret lab," I commented, closing the map. "No one snoops around if the shrubbery tries to eat the mailman."
"Bring a scythe, Doctor. And don't step on the grass."
The trip to the Botanical Garden was short. Werewolf Beto's Opala dropped us at the main gate.
The famous Art Nouveau glass structure was still standing, gleaming under the pale morning sun. But something was wrong.
The glass wasn't transparent. It was dirty on the inside, covered in red condensation. And the plants around it...
The geometric French garden, famous for its symmetry, was now a chaos of purple vines and flowers that pulsed like exposed hearts.
"What a beautiful place," said Luna, getting out of the car with her baton in hand. "In an 'I'm going to die if I touch that flower' way, but beautiful."
"Hemorrhage Roses," I identified, pointing to a bed of crimson flowers. "The thorns inject a potent anticoagulant. If you get scratched, you bleed dry in ten minutes. The soil drinks the blood and fertilizes the root. Closed cycle."
"I'm staying in the van," said Gristle, looking suspiciously at a tree that seemed to have eyes in its bark. "Plants don't have meat. I don't like fighting salad."
"We need brute force, Gristle," I insisted. "These plants have mana-reinforced cellulose. Valéria, prep the flamethrower. Fire is the universal pruner."
We entered the garden.
The gravel path was clean. The plants seemed to respect the trail, retreating slightly when we passed, like cornered animals.
Arthur (the Parasite) was restless.
[DETECTION OF FAMILIAR PHEROMONES.]
[ENVIRONMENT HIGHLY COMPATIBLE. RISK OF SPONTANEOUS MUTATION.]
"Hold it together," I muttered to myself. "Don't start putting down roots now."
We reached the door of the Main Greenhouse.
There was no lock. The glass doors were open, inviting. The air inside was hot, humid, and smelled like a womb.
We entered.
The interior was a jungle. Giant ferns brushed the glass ceiling thirty meters up.
But they weren't normal ferns. The leaves had the texture of leather. The trunks were made of cartilage.
"Arthur..." Valéria shone her flashlight upward. "Are those... fruits?"
I looked. Hanging from the high branches were translucent sacs, the size of watermelons, filled with amber liquid.
Inside each sac, a fetus.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
Not human fetuses. Chimera fetuses. One had bat wings and gills. Another had scales and human skin.
"Botanical Wombs," I analyzed, fascinated and nauseated (Scorn style). "My father wasn't just growing plants. He was trying to create a method of gestation outside the biological body. He was growing monsters on trees."
Suddenly, a tearing sound.
One of the "fruits" above us split open. Amniotic fluid fell like viscous rain.
The creature inside—a mix of monkey and lizard—fell to the floor with a wet thud.
It had no eyes. Just a circular mouth full of teeth. It shrieked and lunged at Luna.
"Watch out!" Luna swung her baton, emitting a sonic pulse.
The creature was thrown back, hitting a cartilage trunk. But it recovered quickly, hissing.
And then, the plant behind it moved.
A thick vine, ending in a Venus flytrap-like snare, descended from the ceiling.
SNAP.
The plant swallowed the newborn chimera whole.
Sounds of crushing and digestion echoed through the greenhouse.
"The ecosystem self-regulates," I observed. "The plants eat the failed experiments. Nothing is wasted."
"Doctor!" Gristle shouted. "There's a door in the back! Under that tree that looks like a giant liver!"
We ran, dodging roots that tried to grab our ankles. Valéria fired short bursts of fire to drive back the more aggressive vines.
We reached the back of the greenhouse.
There was a stainless steel door, clean and shiny, contrasting with the organic filth around it.
There was no handle. Just a panel with an exposed needle.
"DNA Scanner," I said. "Again."
"Does it need blood?" asked Luna.
"Not just blood." I took off my glove. "It needs marrow."
I brought my hand to the needle.
[USER RECOGNIZED: ARTHUR VERAS (SON).]
[INHERITANCE PROTOCOL: ACTIVATED.]
The needle pierced my finger, seeking deep. It hurt, but the pain was secondary.
The door hissed and opened.
The air that rushed out was sterile, cold, and smelled of ancient technology.
We entered Alpha Lab.
Unlike the Crypt at the Opera, this place was intact. White lights turned on automatically. Computers hummed, waking from a decades-long hibernation.
Cryogenic tanks lined the walls.
But what dominated the room was the central cylinder.
A five-meter-tall glass tube, filled with glowing blue liquid.
And floating inside it...
We all stopped.
Valéria dropped the flamethrower. Gristle took a step back.
I walked to the glass, touching the cold surface.
Inside the tank, there wasn't a monster.
There was a piece of... space.
It was a mass of darkness that seemed to contain stars. It shifted shape constantly: sometimes looking like a claw, sometimes a face, sometimes impossible geometry.
It was beautiful. And terrifying.
"What is that?" whispered Luna.
I read the metal plaque at the base of the tank.
SPECIMEN ZERO.
ORIGIN: EXTRAWORLD (TUNGUSKA EVENT).
STATUS: ALIVE. HUNGRY.
NOTE: ORIGINAL SOURCE OF PARASITIC CODE.
"It's one of them," I said, my voice fading. "An Ether Devourer. Or at least, a fragment of one."
The Parasite inside me panicked. It didn't want to eat that. It wanted to run.
[EXISTENTIAL THREAT. ALPHA PREDATOR DETECTED. RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATE DESTRUCTION OF TANK.]
"No," I said to the voice in my head. "If we break this, it gets loose."
I walked to the main console. There was a video blinking on the screen.
Play Message: Hélio Veras - Final Testament.
I pressed the button.
My father's holographic image appeared. He looked older, tired, unshaven. He spoke directly to the camera.
"Arthur. If you are watching this, it means you survived the symbiosis. I'm sorry. I wasn't a good father. I was a desperate scientist."
He coughed, wiping blood from his mouth.
"What is in the tank is the enemy. We captured a piece of it before it could signal the hive. We studied its biology to create the Parasites. Your Parasite, Arthur... it was made from this."
He pointed to the tank behind him in the video.
"But we discovered something too late. The Devourers don't come just for mana. They come because they are called. There is a beacon on Earth. A signal that attracted the Rifts."
The image flickered.
"The signal isn't technological. It's biological. Someone on Earth has the DNA of the Devourer 'King.' An original traitor.
Sovereignty doesn't know. The Church doesn't know.
The Beacon... is hidden in the Vatican of Rifts. In the Cathedral of Brasília."
The video cut to static.
We stood in silence.
Brasília. The center of power. The lair of the Paladins and the government.
And, apparently, the place where the end of the world began.
"Brasília..." Valéria sighed. "Of course it had to be there. The place was a snake pit even before the monsters."
"We have a new destination," I said, copying the computer data to Valéria's drive. "And we have a new mission. We're not just running. We're going to turn off the beacon."
Suddenly, the lab's red emergency lights rotated.
[SECURITY ALERT. EXTERNAL PERIMETER BREACH. MASSIVE THERMAL SIGNATURE DETECTED.]
"The Twilight Squad?" asked Gristle, grabbing her cleaver.
I looked at the security screen.
It wasn't soldiers.
The sky over the Botanical Garden was darkening. Storm clouds were forming, but the lightning was golden.
A figure descended from the heavens, with wings of solid light.
"No," I replied, feeling a chill down my spine. "Worse.
"Archangel Michael. The leader of Sovereignty's Paladins."
Luna looked up at the glass ceiling.
"An angel? We're going to fight an angel?"
"He's not an angel, Luna." I drew my scalpels, though I knew metal wouldn't cut faith. "He's an S-Rank monster with a messiah complex and a sword that splits atoms."
I looked at the Ether Devourer tank.
"And I think we're going to have to use the prisoner as a weapon."