Planao, the year 2020.
It had been eighty-three years since Hyuk first arrived in this world.
Over the years, the superhuman research of various factions had grown increasingly prominent, and their numbers had swelled significantly. What once began as minor military applications had now permeated into almost every daily sector.
Science and technology integrated seamlessly with superhuman capabilities.
The planet had firmly embarked on the path of superhuman development, moving steadily in the right direction.
One day.
"The Absorber?"
Hyuk was puzzled.
"Yes."
Now over ninety years old, Gibson's back was hunched, and his hands trembled slightly as he leaned on his cane. Thirty more years had passed, leaving him incredibly frail, yet his eyes remained as sharp and clear as ever.
"He is a highly dangerous superhuman. He can augment his own power by devouring ordinary humans. Because this ability is so flagrantly anti-human, we had kept him under maximum-security confinement and constant surveillance."
Unfortunately, the superhuman had vanished.
Gibson explained, "He disappeared right under our noses without leaving a trace. We've scoured every possible location and exhausted all our resources, yet we cannot find him."
Hyuk couldn't offer much help; tracking targets was never her forte. Unless the guy showed himself, she could hardly hunt him down, but the odds of him doing that willingly were slim.
Gibson was terrified that the Absorber would remain in the shadows, continuously consuming humans to accumulate power in secret. If that happened, they would have a massive crisis on their hands.
"The moment we get a lead, we will contact you. When that happens, we'll need you to eliminate him as swiftly as possible. Otherwise, the threat is simply too great."
"Understood."
A brief interlude passed.
Hyuk's life quieted back down, remaining peaceful until a certain day.
The system interface flashed to life.
——
[Main Mission · Phase Two · Completed]
[Reward: Evolution Rate · 15%]
——
[Main Mission · Phase Three: Planao has embarked on a completely new path and will inevitably forge a brand-new future guided by superhumans. Please eliminate the threats to Planao; the existence of the Mergers poses a catastrophic threat to human civilization.]
[Mission Reward: Evolution Rate · 20%]
——
[Infinite Overload · Ultimate Leap]
[Evolution Rate: 100% ⬆]
[Ultimate Leap · In Progress]
——
The second phase of the Main Mission concluded smoothly. Data flashed rapidly across the interface, leaving no time to focus on the newly unlocked third phase as her evolution rate once again hit maximum capacity.
Hyuk began to evolve.
A colossal, surging force erupted within her body. She could feel her state of existence shifting toward a higher realm, giving birth to an entirely new type of power.
Submerged in this intoxicating sensation of explosive growth, Hyuk completely lost all track of time. She had no idea how long had passed until her awareness finally drifted back to the ticking clock.
[Ultimate Leap · Completed]
[Strength: 30 million tons ⬆]
[Evolution Rate: 10% ⬆]
Hyuk's physical capacity had surged by nearly ten million tons. The boundless raw power coursing through her body was so intense that it gave her the distinct illusion she could punch this entire planet into pieces.
Just like when she completed her first evolution, Hyuk naturally adapted to this newly acquired power. Her evolution had unlocked a unique ability.
A finishing skill.
Any living entity, once killed by her three times, would face absolute and permanent death. They could no longer self-heal, reconstruct, or be resurrected.
Against monsters with absurdly powerful regenerative abilities, monsters who could reform even after being reduced to a puddle of mush, Hyuk was now their absolute, ultimate nemesis.
Triple-Strike Death Blow.
That was how Hyuk labeled this newly acquired ability.
Checking her watch, she was surprised to find that three full days had passed. Gibson possessed impeccable timing, ringing her phone at that exact moment.
"What is it?"
"We found the Absorber."
...
Inside the laboratory.
Two Mergers slowly clasped hands, their limbs gradually fusing together. The integration crept up from their arms to their shoulders, then slowly consumed half of their torsos as their bodies blended into a single unit.
"For the future of the Mergers."
"For the great revival of our kin."
"For the future of the Mergers, to stand proud amidst this cosmic expanse."
"We will cast aside our insignificant, individual selves to cultivate a far superior entity. We shall become entirely new. One is all, and all is one. Together, we will usher in a glorious new era for the Mergers!"
Exhibiting a collective spirit of self-sacrifice, the two Mergers abandoned their independent consciousnesses. The exact millisecond the fusion reached completion, a terrifying, resonant wave of energy exploded outward.
BOOM!
The entire laboratory was instantly reduced to rubble by the shockwave.
Sssss——
In the corner, the damaged computer terminal sparked with electrical arcs. A man's voice crackled through the static: "So... who are you now?"
A tall, smooth, featureless male figure of pure white stepped forward, making no attempt to hide his true form. This super-Merger, synthesized from the genetic data of numerous superhumans, spoke:
"Pat. That is our new name."
Conceptually, he was no longer a pure Merger. His consciousness was a conglomerate forged from several superhumans, with only the original two Mergers retaining the dominant, guiding voice.
The man behind the terminal asked: "So you have no further need to hide?"
"None whatsoever. As I am now, I fear nothing in this world!"
Pat walked out of the ruined facility in his raw, faceless Merger form, completely abandoning his human disguise. Encountering a fleeing researcher in the corridor, a fleshy tentacle whipped out from his body like lightning, dragging the screaming scientist directly into his torso. The assimilation and digestion were completed almost instantaneously.
Indeed.
Pat had successfully assimilated the power of the Absorber.
He no longer needed to obtain mutual consent or undergo standard fusion to harvest other superhumans' traits. He could now ruthlessly consume ordinary humans to exponentially scale his own physical power.
Although this method of absorption didn't grant him new superhuman abilities, it spared his consciousness from further contamination. Even ordinary humans lacking the fusion factor could now serve as his raw nutrients.
Pat believed he had successfully ascended into the perfect, ultimate lifeform.
Beep! Beep!
Car horns blared on the busy streets as pedestrians bustled back and forth. Bright sunlight gleamed off the glass facades of towering skyscrapers, casting sharp reflections onto the concrete below.
The voices of store clerks shouting about clearance sales echoed from both sides of the shopping district, blending with the loud commercial audio blasting from giant public screens and the thumping music of retail shops.
It was a scene of absolute, peaceful normalcy.
A moment later, a tall, smooth, featureless white figure materialized in the center of the bustling plaza. As pedestrians paused to stare in bewilderment, countless fleshy tentacles erupted from his body. They whipped through the crowd, dragging dozens of screaming people directly into his torso.
Disaster had struck.
The citizens scattered in a blind panic, fleeing frantically for their lives.
A security camera on the street panned over, locking onto Pat's figure. Behind the screen, the man orchestrating this from the shadows immediately began analyzing and recording Pat's performance metrics.
Base physical capacity: 240,000 tons. In addition, he possessed a vast array of traits, including but not limited to high-speed regeneration, precognition, flight, physical enhancement, and absorption.
Having assimilated numerous superhumans, Pat wielded every single one of their distinct abilities. Furthermore, once combined into a single host, these traits were bound to synergize and evolve.
...
By the time Hyuk received the report and rushed to the city, the once-vibrant metropolitan center had fallen completely silent. There wasn't a single trace of living breath left.
The only thing that remained was a colossal mass of flesh, thrashing its massive white tentacles across the empty streets.
A deafening sonic boom shattered the quiet. A figure descended from the sky at extreme velocity, delivering an unstoppable, crushing physical strike directly into the center of the giant white mass.
In an instant, milky-white flesh and blood geysered in all directions. Hyuk's body punched completely through the core of the flesh mass, sending severed chunks of meat flying outward, smashing into nearby skyscrapers and pulverizing the asphalt.
Thump! Thump!
The massive ball of flesh beat violently like a giant heart. Then, the surrounding meat rapidly collapsed back into the central cavity, its volume shrinking at a visible rate.
Within a mere heartbeat, it reformed into a faceless white figure.
It was none other than Pat.
A Merger!
On her way here, high command had briefed her on the extreme urgency of the situation. Based on the intelligence, the absorption abilities Pat was displaying highly likely came from the missing Absorber.
As a Merger, it wasn't surprising that he could inherit other superhumans' traits. Hyuk finally grasped what a Merger's fusion actually entailed.
Conveniently, her third Main Mission was to eliminate the Mergers.
Facing Hyuk, Pat showed no panic or fear whatsoever. He spoke with absolute ease: "Thank you. Your strike actually helped me digest—"
BOOM!
Hyuk was never one to waste breath on small talk. Before Pat could even finish his sentence, she lunged. Her speed was a complete blur, entirely invisible to the naked eye.
A torrent of brutal force poured from her fist, obliterating Pat's head in a single punch. The displaced air pressure generated a terrifying shockwave that swept through the surrounding skyscrapers, shattering every window pane in sight.
To her mild surprise, losing his head didn't hinder Pat at all. His arm instantly morphed into a razor-sharp blade. But before he could swing it down, Hyuk, whose reflexes and speed were vastly superior, grabbed his arm and ripped it clean off.
Not stopping there, Hyuk proceeded to pummel Pat's entire body, systematically reducing his frame to a pile of minced meat. Since the head wasn't a weak spot, she would simply crush every single inch of him.
Admittedly, this creature's regenerative properties were incredibly robust. Despite being reduced to ground meat, he could still reconstruct his body within seconds. Hyuk watched as a glob of severed flesh suspended in mid-air rapidly expanded and reshaped itself back into a humanoid form.
It took Pat a mere three seconds to complete his regeneration.
At this moment, he still had no idea how grave his situation actually was.
"It's useless. You cannot kill me," Pat said, his voice entirely flat. But as the words left his mouth, he suddenly coughed up a violent spray of dark blood, his expression finally cracking in panic.
"What... what is happening to me...?"
Hyuk's expression remained completely detached.
Her hyper-accelerated body shredded the atmosphere. Moving at an instantaneous burst of Mach 30, her speed was a bolt of lightning, practically indistinguishable from teleportation. That colossal kinetic momentum carried pure killing intent and ultimate destructive force.
BOOM!
Half of Pat's torso was instantly pulverized. Though he possessed short-term precognition, predicting her movements was useless when his physical body was far too sluggish to react to Hyuk's speed.
He could only barely shift his frame at the absolute last millisecond, narrowly avoiding a second fatal blow. Even so, the sheer impact of Hyuk's strike sent him hurtling like a meteor, crashing straight through several skyscrapers in a row.
A continuous chain of deafening crashes echoed.
Pat desperately established a telepathic link with Hyuk, as she gave him absolutely no opportunity to speak. Initially, he had genuinely believed he no longer had to fear Hyuk's power.
Only by actually fighting her did he realize that Hyuk was far more monstrous than he had ever imagined. He was utterly incapable of understanding why his standard regeneration could not mend the wounds she inflicted.
"Powerful one! I am not your enemy! We have no reason to lock ourselves in a death match! This isn't Earth, why do you care about the survival of these humans?!"
"Let's stop right here! We can mind our own business and stay out of each other's way!"
"Stop!"
"Don't push me!"
His thoughts raced as his voice echoed relentlessly in Hyuk's head. Hyuk paid him absolutely no heed, closing the gap in an instant to pursue the airborne Pat.
The choking stench of death enveloped him, causing Pat's very soul to shudder.
"You forced my hand!"
In that fraction of a second,
Pat activated every single trait at his disposal.
Hardness upgrade.
Physical enhancement.
Density increase.
Potential eruption.
Overclocking.
"..."
Pouring his entire life force into these abilities, Pat's reflexes and speed barely managed to keep pace with Hyuk's shadow, but the cost was astronomical, his body was already bordering on a total structural collapse.
Immediately after,
The two figures collided head-on. The resulting shockwave instantly blanketed all directions, tearing surrounding structures to shreds in a terrifying display of destruction.
A violent gale swept through, flipping cars parked on the streets like cardboard boxes.
CRACK!
In this hyper-impact, Pat's fist barely managed to intercept Hyuk's. He braced himself for the contact, but his bones completely shattered under the sheer, brutal weight of her force, spraying blood from his arm.
Hyuk's crushing momentum snapped Pat's arm like a dry twig. Her punch kept going, driving straight through Pat's chest. However, to a creature like Pat, this wasn't immediately fatal.
In response,
Pat grinned.
A split second later, a massive eruption of tentacles burst from his torso, wrapping tightly around Hyuk. He intended to drag her into his body to be digested and absorbed.
This tactic might have worked on anyone else, but it was completely useless against Hyuk. Spreading her arms, she burst and tore the tentacles apart with raw physical power. A lightning-fast roundhouse kick followed, bisecting Pat's torso at the waist.
She followed up with a crushing axe-kick, completely obliterating Pat into a mist of blood once more. The physical gap between them was too vast, leaving Pat with absolutely no room to fight back.
His raw physical capacity was a joke compared to her output, a contest of strength was entirely out of the question. When it came to auxiliary abilities, he possessed nothing that could bypass her defenses.
The Second Death.
Hyuk marked Pat's second death.
...
The man sitting before the computer terminal continued his analysis. Pat's initial confidence had clearly been built on his absurdly powerful regenerative abilities. But now, this trait was being countered by an unknown force, causing his entire defense to collapse.
Having absorbed a massive number of ordinary humans, Pat's combat performance allowed the man behind the screen to record his precise metrics: base physical capacity 800,000 tons, with a peak output of 6.5 million tons.
This was still a far cry from Hyuk's parameters.
Perhaps if Pat had been given more time to absorb more people, the outcome might have differed slightly. But there were no "what-ifs." Hyuk was no fool, she would never stand by and allow him to continue feeding.
As for the exact method Hyuk was employing to suppress Pat's regeneration, the man behind the terminal simply typed a question mark. Judging strictly by the trajectory of the battle, Pat was almost certainly doomed.
Unless he had one last trump card up his sleeve.
A splattered chunk of minced flesh rapidly swelled, reshaping into the faceless white humanoid. Pat reconstructed himself for the second time, but this instance was entirely different. His entire body began to emit a blinding, searingly hot light.
Immense radiant heat blasted outward, liquefying nearby glass and steel at an alarming rate. The ambient air temperature skyrocketed, moisture evaporated into steam instantly, and the surrounding trees burst into flames.
It felt as if the entire city were on the verge of being ignited.
Nuclear Burst Form.
This was Pat's absolute last-resort, bottom-of-the-barrel trump card.
Hyuk flew at extreme velocities, the shockwaves and displaced air currents from her flight causing catastrophic destruction to the buildings she bypassed. Fortunately, the city was entirely devoid of life, so she had no need to hold back.
Within a split second of electric momentum,
BOOM!
Pat actually managed to tank Hyuk's strike cleanly this time. He clashed head-on with her, surprisingly without being pushed back too much.
The surrounding air vibrated violently, cushioning Pat's backward momentum and dispersing the massive kinetic shock. His body continuously radiated intense heat, scorching and melting everything in his immediate vicinity.
"Cough!"
He coughed up a spray of dark blood. This wasn't damage inflicted by Hyuk's recent punch, but rather the irreversible internal injuries carved into his body following his second death.
No matter how frantically Pat activated his regenerative traits, this trauma refused to heal, appearing almost as if it had been etched into the very depths of his soul.
The wind was torn to shreds as if by a roaring dragon. The Grim Reaper was closing in, swinging his scythe. Hyuk's relentless offense was so suffocating that Pat had absolutely zero room to catch his breath.
Fortunately, under this extreme state, he could still put up a decent resistance.
Subsequently,
A blinding, ultra-high-temperature sun and the atmospheric shredder locked in a violent, cataclysmic struggle. Wherever they passed, everything was caught in the crossfire and reduced to ash.
The air was scorched so severely that it burst into open flames, yet it failed to harm Hyuk in the slightest. The two figures flickered across various parts of the city, moving at speeds far too extreme to be tracked.
"Powerful one! I underestimated you, and I overestimated myself. I retract my previous arrogance. Your genes are absolutely indispensable to the Mergers!"
Hyuk's terrifying power only reinforced Pat's obsession. If they could obtain her genetic material, they could undoubtedly cultivate an incredibly powerful generation of Merger offspring.
Hearing this,
Hyuk's expression turned freezing cold.
She harbored an intense, visceral disgust toward such concepts. Mergers were far outside her aesthetic preferences, and she was absolutely repulsed by the thought of anyone using her genetic code for their twisted breeding experiments.
Instantly,
Her speed surged once more. Accelerating continuously from Mach 20 to Mach 25, her form practically became a black line slicing through the fabric of space.
At this catastrophic velocity, she demolished everything in her path, carving through the city like a razor-sharp blade. Flying back and forth, her movement was so rapid that it appeared as if artillery shells from all directions were bombarding Pat simultaneously. With nowhere to run, it felt as though Pat were fighting countless Hyuks at once, reduced to a mere punching bag.
In his Nuclear Burst Form, Pat's surface temperature could soar to tens of millions of degrees, vastly exceeding the surface temperature of the sun. Any material on the planet would vaporize into gas the millisecond it came into contact with him.
At this moment, his explosive physical output could reach twenty-four million tons. The cost was astronomical, all the matter within his body was undergoing high-efficiency nuclear fusion, radiating outward as pure energy.
Yet,
This was still entirely inadequate to deal any effective damage to Hyuk. She paid no heed to this mere high temperature, consistently dominating the exchange.
She was, after all, a woman who could walk unscathed out of the core of a hundred-billion-degree nuclear blast.
Soon,
Pat's rapid decline became undeniable. As his energy continuously depleted, his peak burst state began to deteriorate, plunging him from barely holding his ground to being utterly, one-sidedly beaten.
Had it not been for his robust regenerative traits, Hyuk would have long since pounded him to death. Hyuk's attacks involved zero flashy techniques, she was simply completely invulnerable, overwhelmingly strong, and blindingly fast.
Operating at extreme speeds, she buried punch after punch into Pat, reducing him to a blood-mangled pulp.
The man sitting before the computer terminal stood up and walked away. Relying strictly on his data analysis, he had already foreseen the absolute conclusion of this battle. There was no longer any need to watch.
Meanwhile, on the battlefield,
An even more blinding, searing burst of light exploded. Pat, who had been hammered and sent flying across the sky by Hyuk, forcibly halted his backward momentum. The nuclear radiation radiating from his body surged to its absolute, cataclysmic peak.
If tens of millions of degrees of heat weren't enough, then he would push it past a hundred million. If a hundred million failed, then a billion! Even if such extreme temperatures burned his own body to absolute ash, he wouldn't hesitate!
Under the onslaught of intense nuclear radiation, the air underwent violent ionization. Terrifying forks of lightning danced and flared as the surrounding buildings and asphalt roads instantly vaporized.
Zzzzt—
The rapid, extreme spike in temperature generated a violent shockwave. The ionization intensified exponentially until the very air transformed into a glowing, superheated plasma.
"Powerful one! This battle ends here! As a Merger, I respect your power, but your genetic material is mine!"
Still talking about that!
Hyuk was so incensed she was almost laughing.
She remained completely silent, simply maintaining her acceleration as she dove headfirst into the superheated plasma. Her muscles, possessing a density comparable to a white dwarf, clenched to charge her maximum output.
In a mere millisecond, traveling at Mach 25, she unleashed a strike powerful enough to pierce straight through the Earth's crust.
Utilizing both her precognition and peak reflexes, Pat managed to intercept Hyuk's strike in that fraction of a second. He detonated all his stored nuclear energy in a single, massive burst.
Unleashing an extreme temperature of one hundred million degrees.
BOOM!
In that instant,
A blinding column of energy punched straight into the clouds. Lightning snaked across the sky as the atmosphere ionized, triggering a violent tempest of thunder within the cloud cover.
It looked like the end of the world.
Even when directly struck by the one-hundred-million-degree beam, Hyuk advanced against the torrent with unstoppable momentum. Realizing that even this was inadequate to break her charge, Pat let out a primal shriek.
"If a hundred million degrees won't work, then a billion degrees!"
With that,
The energy beam erupted with a blinding, celestial brilliance, unleashing an even more cataclysmic, super-high temperature. The cost, however, was that even Pat himself could not withstand such heat, his physical body began to disintegrate rapidly under the extreme thermal load.
This was a cataclysmic struggle that completely transcended human imagination.
Hyuk had once survived inside a hundred-billion-degree thermal core for over a hundred-millionth of a second, a condition that had rapidly disintegrated her body at the time. A billion degrees was similarly terrifying, but she was no longer her former self.
Now, she could withstand such extreme temperatures completely unscathed. However, Pat seemed to use this extreme heat as a catalyst to trigger a molecular-decomposition ability. Under the sustained, billion-degree thermal load, Hyuk's skin began to rapidly dissolve, and her body ignited, the burning sensation causing excruciating pain.
Before her sensory capabilities were completely extinguished, she pushed through the searing energy beam, closed the distance to stand directly before Pat, and brought down a fist charged with every ounce of her strength.
BOOM!
A colossal shockwave exploded outward, radiating from the epicenter of their clash. Pat's energy beam abruptly died out, and the entire city was instantly carved into a massive crater, practically erased from existence.
[Infinite Overload · Potential Unleashed]
[Strength: 40 million tons ⬆]
[Infinite Overload · Ultimate Leap]
[Evolution Rate: 20% ⬆]
——
[Main Mission · Phase Three · Completed]
[Reward: Evolution Rate · 20%]
[Evolution Rate: 40% ⬆]
Pat was completely pulverized by Hyuk's strike. This marked his third death, triggering Hyuk's Triple-Strike Death Blow and permanently establishing Pat's absolute, irreversible death.
He could never resurrect.
Furthermore, not a single one of Pat's cells remained. His physical body had been utterly incapable of withstanding the billion-degree heat, entirely cremated by his own unleashed energy.
The updated system log confirmed Pat's death. Because she had sustained severe burns once more, she had no choice but to fly into deep space and wait out her recovery.
[Merger: A bizarre race capable of fusing with other organisms sharing the same fusion factor. To other species, their genetic material is extremely hazardous.]