Chapter 112: Newborn

Chapter 2: Birth

“Inject the Gengar salivary essence!”

The razor-sharp needle pierced Machop’s tough gray skin. A purplish-red substance churned as it was forced into the Pokémon’s body.

It swelled and roiled, as though countless tiny insects were writhing beneath the skin. Machop’s vigorous blood suddenly began to boil.

The “salivary essence” of a King-level Gengar contained the fruits of countless years of painstaking cultivation.

An enormous reserve of Ghost-type energy, accumulated over its entire lifetime, had been condensed into a tiny test tube. Now, through the fantastic ingenuity of humans, it was being injected into an unfamiliar subject bearing not the slightest resemblance to its original owner.

Scarlet blood and purplish-red vapor blended together.

Brownish-red Fighting-type energy intertwined with dark-purple Ghost-type energy, erupting into a terrifying force that seemed capable of bursting the creature’s veins.

Blood surged through its vessels like a great river.

Strangely, beneath Machop’s dark-gray skin, countless purple-blue veins could be seen clearly, spreading throughout its body like the branches of a tree.

Dark-purple glimmers flickered within them, like luminous fish drifting through the depths of the sea.

Suddenly, Machop’s tightly shut eyes flew open, revealing brownish-red pupils.

As though it had sensed some unknown change taking place within its body, its gaze froze.

Then came a scream of unbearable agony.

Its hands clenched into fists, and the solid muscles of its arms swelled grotesquely.

Its tremendous strength allowed it to wrench the entire steel platform into a faint tremor despite being bound by specially reinforced metal.

From deep within, the sharp sound of steel bars snapping rang out again and again.

Struggling desperately, Machop’s wrists and ankles were constricted so tightly that the metal sank deep into its flesh. Scarlet blood burst forth, flecked with dazzling dark-purple light.

Its anguished howls, mingled with the lament of steel, echoed through the cold operating room.

Outside, Dr. Dahl remained calm.

Only his fixed stare at the life monitor, along with his hands trembling faintly behind his back, betrayed the turmoil in his heart.

“Beep. Beep.”

The machine’s humming grew increasingly urgent.

On the liquid-crystal screen, the green line representing life continued to rise and fall, but its fluctuations gradually weakened.

Time passed.

On the cold steel platform, Machop continued to struggle, though its movements grew weaker and weaker.

The pupils in its wide-open eyes slowly lost their vitality.

Beeeeep—

At last, as the life monitor released a mournful cry, the undulating green line became a straight red line stretching forward toward the end of life.

“Damn it.”

Dr. Dahl exhaled deeply and unclenched his fists.

Though he had long anticipated failure, disappointment still weighed heavily upon him.

“Test subject 267 has no signs of life.”

“The experiment has failed.”

Beside him, an assistant holding the report frowned and spoke in a low voice.

“Doctor, the problem this time should have been with the awakening gas.”

“We’ll need to adjust its release ratio next time.”

Dr. Dahl looked dejected and shook his head.

“I’ve already adjusted everything that could be adjusted.”

“This should have been our most promising attempt.”

“But…”

He sighed.

A thousand words dissolved into a single breath of sorrow.

“You decide.”

Without saying anything more, Dr. Dahl turned and walked toward the office behind him.

Inside the operating room, the white-coated researchers responsible for the procedure had long since grown accustomed to failure. They began skillfully putting away the surgical instruments.

At that moment, no one noticed that the air above the cold iron bed suddenly blurred.

A speck of exceedingly faint white light, like a firefly reduced countless times in size, trembled as it drifted downward, then silently merged into Machop’s lifeless body.

“Beep. Beep.”

The life monitor suddenly shrieked once more.

On the floor, a pair of black leather shoes came to an abrupt halt, scraping against the ground with a harsh sound.

Wearing an expression of disbelief, Dr. Dahl spun around and stared straight into the room.

…

…

Downward. Downward.

It felt as though he were sinking into an abyssal sea without a bottom.

Lu Yun’s human soul lay dormant in the darkness.

Here, the concepts of time and space seemed not to exist.

There was only chaos and nothingness.

Suddenly, a faint glimmer of light appeared before Lu Yun’s eyes.

Though the radiance was weak and tiny, within that endless darkness it seemed extraordinarily dazzling.

Instinctively, Lu Yun raised his right hand and gently tapped it.

Whoosh—

A vast suction force, like that of a black hole, engulfed him, yet it carried a trace of brilliant light.

Lu Yun felt the heavens and earth spinning around him, his vision blurring.

The next instant, he found himself in the midst of a vast river of stars.

“Buzz!”

It was like a temporal leap from a science-fiction film in his previous life. The stars that had been far ahead of him were left behind in an instant, transformed into splendid streaks of multicolored light.

Lu Yun’s consciousness gradually blurred. Yet, in the final moment before he lost consciousness, he saw a planet.

A planet shrouded in dark-purple vapor, rotten and decayed.

Like an egg placed upon scorching flames, cracks spread across the entire planet, while endless streams of vapor billowed outward from within.

…

“What… is this place?”

It was as though the mute button had suddenly been switched off.

The hum of machines, the cries of startled humans, and the clang of colliding metal all flooded into Lu Yun’s ears at once.

He opened his eyes, and dazzling white light filled his entire field of vision.

Before he could think, intense pain erupted from every part of his body, so fierce that it nearly made him faint.

“Ahhhhhhh!”

Lu Yun could not help but release a hoarse, agonized scream.

With his possession, vigorous life force once again burst forth within Machop’s body, like an engine whose fuel tank had run dry suddenly being filled again.

The blood that had gradually grown cold began surging once more beneath the powerful renewed beating of the heart, carrying scorching warmth throughout the body.

Deep within the blood, the sinister purplish-red radiance began to shine once again.

The eerie, frigid Ghost-type energy collided violently with the hot, vigorous Fighting-type energy within Lu Yun’s veins.

The intense fluctuations of power nearly tore him apart.

“Quick! Inject the life-support fluid!”

In his fading consciousness, Lu Yun seemed to hear a human voice echoing beside him.

Immediately afterward, the violent pain dragged him, newly awakened, back into a profound unconsciousness.

The operation continued in tense urgency upon the metal platform.

Yet from the researchers’ gradually relaxing, tranquil, and delighted expressions, it was clear that Machop—or rather, Lu Yun—had escaped the threat of death.

“Cluck… cluck-cluck…”

Outside the window, Dr. Dahl let out an unbearably ugly laugh that sounded like a rooster crowing.

Overcome with ecstasy, he spread all five fingers against the transparent glass and pressed his face against it with almost manic force, his soft facial muscles being crushed against the hard surface.

“At last… I’ve succeeded…”

With madness in his eyes, Dr. Dahl laughed hysterically, the corners of his mouth stretching eerily close to his ears.