Chapter 177: Upgrade the Virus, Resurrect Sebastian Shaw
[Blacklight Virus — Drawbacks: Extreme lethality rate. Invasive takeover. Hyper-transmissibility. Psychic erosion.]
[Advantages: Consuming Evolution. Flesh weaponization. Superhuman strength. Superhuman speed. Accelerated regeneration.]
[Extreme lethality rate: The Blacklight Virus carries a 99.999% fatality rate. Only an exceptionally rare perfect host can integrate it without losing themselves. Anyone who fails to integrate it successfully will become something analogous to a zombie.
— Optimization available: 2,000 System points.]
[Invasive takeover: The Blacklight Virus is highly invasive. Upon finding a perfect host, it fuses with the host's memories and supplants their identity.
— Optimization available: 1,200 System points.]
[Hyper-transmissibility: The Blacklight Virus transmits through air, blood, and contact. It maintains extremely high viability across a wide range of environmental conditions.
— Optimization available: 1,200 System points.]
[Psychic erosion: After integrating the Blacklight Virus, consuming other organisms produces cumulative psychic and memory-based interference, leading to gradual mental deterioration.
— Optimization available: 2,000 System points.]
"Optimize everything."
No hesitation. All four defects, optimized.
His finances had grown considerably since earlier in the story, and the points carried over from the previous Pass had given him a solid reserve. His current balance sat at 200,000 System points. What these optimizations cost was pocket change by comparison.
A blue light passed through the vial. The dark-red substance inside shifted, visibly, to transparent.
Matthew had seen this enough times to recognize what it meant. The virus approaching its optimized state always looked like this.
With the defects handled, he turned his attention to the advantages.
The obvious candidate was Consuming Evolution.
[Consuming Evolution LV2: Absorbs a target by consuming them, enabling evolution and acquisition of their innate special abilities, enhancing the self.
The more powerful the consumed target, the greater the evolutionary gain.
— Enhancement available: 180,000 System points.]
"One hundred and eighty thousand."
He said it to himself. He could technically spend it, but there was no particular reason to. Fusion and other modifications still needed points. No sense committing that much to a single upgrade now.
What he did want to change was the mechanism. The Consuming Evolution ability, as written, required physically eating the target.
He was not Hannibal Lecter. That was a line he had no interest in crossing.
He opened the customization interface and stated his requirement.
"System. I want to keep the Consuming Evolution property, but change the method of consumption."
Several customization options came up.
[Active Assimilation: Extends dark-red semi-transparent tendrils or filaments from the body, which penetrate and envelop a target that has lost the ability to resist. The target undergoes a gradual softening and dissolution, breaking down into a high-concentration biological fluid that is absorbed through the tendrils. Cost: 2,000 System points.]
[DNA Extraction: Once a target is completely unable to resist, forcibly extracts evolutionary-compatible DNA for absorption and integration. Cost: 5,000 System points.]
[Viral Synchronization: Once a target is completely unable to resist, continuously injects Blacklight Virus material into the target. The viral material records the target's DNA and extracts the portions applicable to optimization. Upon retrieval of the viral material, the Blacklight Virus optimizes according to the extracted segments. Cost: 7,000 System points.]
[Evolution Field: Generates an "Evolution Field" with a 12-meter radius centered on the self. When a living target within the field is in a weakened or critically injured state, they rapidly lose vitality. Cellular function degrades and consciousness dissipates. Simultaneously, their life essence, memories, and abilities convert into visible points of light or streams of energy that converge automatically into the self. Cost: 10,000 System points.]
He read through the options.
He chose quickly.
"Evolution Field."
It was the most practical of the four. More importantly, it was area-of-effect rather than single-target, which meant selecting it was essentially an indirect upgrade to Consuming Evolution's overall output.
[System points -10,000]
[Modification in progress]
[Modification complete.]
[Consuming Evolution · Evolution Field LV3: Extracts the life essence of targets within the Evolution Field, enabling evolution and acquisition of their innate special abilities, enhancing the self...]
He looked at the modified Blacklight Virus and kept going without pausing.
"System. There are some abilities I've accumulated that I no longer need. Is there a customization template that allows me to dismantle redundant abilities and convert them into material to strengthen other abilities?"
He had reviewed his personal panel recently and identified the ones that had become dead weight.
Blood Mist Form was the clearest example. It had never been a prominent ability in the first place. His internal classification for it had always been "emergency escape skill," and since he had learned to open portals, even that narrow function had been replaced by something faster and more flexible. It was unlikely he'd ever use Blood Mist Form again.
Beyond that, the more abilities he accumulated through the Evolution Field going forward, the more cluttered his panel would become. If he wasn't careful, he'd end up like Apocalypse: an entity with so many abilities that none of them were truly refined.
He wasn't going to let that happen.
[Fusion Extraction: Dismantles and converts unwanted abilities into raw material that strengthens the remaining useful ones. Cost: 60,000 System points.]
"Modify."
Sixty thousand points gone. The Blacklight Virus gained a new property: the ability to melt down and recycle its own capability set.
Done. He turned to the fusion interface.
He dropped the fully transparent Blacklight Virus into the slot, then added himself alongside it with the practiced efficiency of someone who had done this enough times that it no longer required thought.
[Blacklight Virus + Matthew Lawrence (T + V + G-Virus + E-Type Mold + Green Goblin Formula + Spider-Man Serum host) — Compatibility: 100%.
Note: Due to the Blacklight Virus's dominant fusion characteristics, upon integration the Blacklight Virus will absorb all other viruses and serums with complete priority, initiating evolution while preserving existing capabilities.]
[Compatibility at 100%. No System points required for fusion.]
"So the Blacklight absorbs everything else once I fuse it?"
He held on that for a moment.
Then he pressed the button.
As long as he came out of it stronger without losing what he already had, nothing else mattered.
The Blacklight Virus disappeared from the fusion slot.
What replaced it was a tremor that came from both his body and something deeper than his body.
A low resonance moved through him.
His flesh started moving. Not in response to him. On its own.
It pushed outward from underneath the skin in slow, rolling waves, expanding and contracting back in layers, as though something was waking up inside him and systematically dismantling and reconstructing every cell from the base up.
There was no pain. But he could feel it clearly: the viruses and serums he had spent years carefully installing were dying, one by one. Simply ceasing. Being consumed and converted into raw material for something that was now taking up all available space.
The Blacklight Virus, upgrading itself on everything it had just swallowed.
The musculature and bone structure reinforced by the T-Virus and G-Virus collapsed first, fragmenting like a wall of sandbags giving out under pressure. The gravity manipulation derived from the E-Type Mold was intercepted and claimed. The spider-sense, at its most frantic level of alarm, was absorbed before it finished sounding.
None of it was gone. It was simply replaced by something that had absorbed everything and rebuilt it from the ground up.
The Blacklight Virus.
The skin at his surface became semi-transparent. Under the white light, he could see it himself: a dark-red current moving through the network of blood vessels at speed, restructuring everything it touched, rerouting itself through his entire body like a river that had decided to change its own course.
Each heartbeat concentrated the force further. Muscle fibers tore and sealed at visible speed, each cycle producing tissue denser than the last, like raw iron worked repeatedly until it sharpened into something else.
Time passed.
The movement settled.
His eyes opened. A flash of dark red deep in the pupils, then gone, his eyes returning to their original color.
He raised his hand and slowly closed the fingers in front of him.
No dramatic expansion. No distortion. His arm, if anything, looked slightly longer and leaner than it had before.
Only he knew what that hand could actually do. The rough estimate: bare-handed compression of Vibranium. Instant weapons generation from his own flesh. Full limb regeneration from the point of severance.
Every capability that had belonged to the T-Virus, the G-Virus, the Mold, the Green Goblin Formula, and the Spider-Man Serum remained intact. It had simply been reorganized under a more efficient, more complete framework.
He had everything he had before. Just rebuilt.
[Name: Matthew (Blacklight Virus host)]
[Abilities (unchanged entries omitted):
Accelerated Regeneration Evolution LV5: Severed limbs restore at the instant of severance. Even if the body is reduced to a single drop of blood, any living organism that comes within range can be converted into raw material for full reconstruction.
Monstrous Strength LV7: Physical output now capable of matching film-canon peak Thanos and Captain Marvel. Physical durability sufficient to withstand nuclear detonation. Maximum running speed: 480m/s.
Adaptive · Targeted · Consuming Evolution · Evolution Field LV3: Extracts the life essence of targets within the Evolution Field, enabling evolution and acquisition of their innate special abilities. Evolutionary adaptation runs continuously under standard conditions. Targeted evolution activates under near-death conditions.
Life Sublimation LV2: Absorbed consciousnesses serve as the first line of psychic defense, countering mental-level attacks and enhancing psychic capability.
Fusion Extraction LV1: Dismantles and converts unwanted abilities into raw material that strengthens the remaining useful ones.]
He skimmed the panel.
Then looked down.
The fusion had left him without clothes. He let the Blacklight Virus form something: a linen-colored coat materialized from his own flesh within the same moment he thought of it.
He turned to Sebastian Shaw's cryogenic pod. The Evolution Field opened.
A dry cracking sound ran through the pod.
Shaw's skin lost color at a visible rate. His hair began falling away. The skin shriveled as though it had lost all its water. The muscle underneath contracted and failed.
About thirty seconds later, what had been Sebastian Shaw was a pile of grey dust.
Matthew's panel updated.
[Energy Absorption LV4: Capable of absorbing energy from external sources and converting it for internal use. The more energy absorbed, the greater the enhancement to overall capability.]
He considered this honestly. It was a strong ability. Very strong. Shaw's performance in the original story made the ceiling of it clear.
But Matthew didn't plan to develop it.
He let it convert.
The freshly integrated Energy Absorption was redirected immediately, fed into Gravity Manipulation as raw material.
Gravity Manipulation LV4 became Gravity Manipulation LV6.
[Gravity Manipulation LV6: Using the self as an anchor point, freely manipulates the direction and intensity of gravity within a 2,000-meter radius. Maximum output: 200 tons per square meter of applied gravitational force.
Precision and fineness of gravitational control also significantly improved.]
"Not bad at all."
He hadn't expected one ability to push Gravity Manipulation up two full levels.
Which raised an obvious question.
"If I absorbed Apocalypse — a mutant sitting on what's essentially an unlimited ability stack — what would Gravity Manipulation actually reach?"
The thought was worth holding onto.
He fed Blood Mist Form into Gravity Manipulation next, completing the cleanup.
The result was nothing measurable. Blood Mist Form hadn't been strong enough to move the needle.
He looked at the grey dust that had been Sebastian Shaw, scattered across the floor of the cryogenic unit under the cold white light.
In the process of absorbing Shaw's body, he had received everything Shaw had experienced in the way you receive a film you already know, watching it from outside. Shaw's full life, in sequence.
Shaw's consciousness had also settled into his psychic network alongside everything else that was already in there.
He stood with that for a moment, watching Shaw's awareness drift through the network without direction.
And then an idea arrived.
If he took Shaw's consciousness and reinstalled it, let Shaw exist again in a different form: was there a version of this where he ended up with a power-capable, fully obedient Sebastian Shaw?
His palm stirred.
The Blacklight Virus shifted into a mimicry state, reshaping itself into E-Type Mold configuration, and within the same moment it rebuilt Shaw's body. Physical form, complete.
Matthew closed his eyes.
His psychic presence extended and closed around the drifting Shaw in the network.
Shaw struggled. Whatever clarity remained in that consciousness pushed hard against the grip. It didn't matter. Matthew was methodical about it, and considerably stronger, and he pressed Shaw back into the newly constructed body regardless of how much resistance was offered.
Under Matthew's watching eyes, the body on the floor went still.
Then it began to breathe.
Then Sebastian Shaw sat bolt upright from the floor, gasping like a man pulling himself out of a nightmare.