It felt like I had sunk to the deepest part of the Earth, where gravity had abandoned me, leaving my body to drift aimlessly. I kept falling – deeper and deeper into the unending abyss– until, out of nowhere, some kind of force yanked me from above, picking up speed and accelerating with every passing tick of the second.
Until…
Abruptly, I opened my eyes and jolted awake. Yet, I found myself struggling to breathe normally. My mouth opened and closed like a fish flopping on dry land. It was hard – like I had forgotten how to catch air and pull it into my lungs automatically. It actually took me a whole damn minute to finally manage a normal breath. I drew a sharp inhale, gulping in as much air as I could muster.
Cough, cough, cough!
After a violent coughing fit, I attempted to sit up from the cold, hard ground beneath me. I felt weak all over – as if my body had decided to take a vacation without me being aware of it. I had to put in a Herculean effort just to prop myself up with my arms. The floor felt like cement – pretty backward if I were to say so. But who was I to complain? By some divine intervention, miracle, or just plain luck, I had somehow survived the assault.
I was alive!
On the other hand, my pillow seemed to be made of a haphazard pile of folded clothes. A sense of déjà vu washed over me, but I tried my best to ignore it.
‘What the heck am I even thinking about? Pretty stupid…’
Sitting on the ground, I glanced unintentionally to the side. But that was all it took for my eyes to snap back. It was the sole source of light in this unknown room, and it triggered a hazy memory from my younger self – a past so blurry it made me wonder if I had actually lived that life.
The light came from an all-purpose camping LED, the kind that could double as a flashlight. It was one of the cheapest on the market, and I had even bought a second-hand one with broken tripod legs, meaning I had to find a fitting stone or brick to prop it up on the ground. I recalled how I call it in jest, super economical…
Trying to calm my restless, beaten heart, I used my unfamiliar hand to approach the tripod LED – trying to verify a conjecture that was currently hanging at the back of my mind. Just below the light, it was supposed to have a protrusion that acted as a switch, which could be turned clockwise or counterclockwise to adjust the intensity.
My hand touched it, and I was right after all. I slowly increased the light, my eyes widening as the brightness filled the room.
My hands trembled as I brought them closer to my face. This was an unfamiliar hand – gone was the rough, slightly wrinkly skin of my palm. Gone were the calloused knuckles that had been used for punching walls or trees during my made-up individual training. Gone was the big, unnatural hand that could snap a normal soldier's neck with a single grip, courtesy of the serum that had modified my entire molecular structure and physique.
Then my eyes were drawn to my wrist. My mouth subsequently fell open in disbelief. There it was – the damned mechanical spider with the glowing red gem on its back, latched onto my flesh and bones. I remember when I was sent to the main R&D Department in Bangkok, Thailand, to protect the scientists there, where there was a rumor that the Aelor managed to detect its location by some unknown means, which in the end, was proven incorrect.
While inside one of their facilities, this unknown robot – or entity, or whatever it was – had suddenly latched onto my back, clawing its way to my nape and drilling itself into my flesh, creating a visible bump. As one of the Iron Legion's most important members and Champions, known for my intelligence and craftiness in formulating multiple decisive and cunning tactical decisions against the Aelor, many of them, especially the higher-ups, were worried about the repercussions of this strange attachment to me.
Numerous experiments were then conducted in hopes of saving me. But all the experts ended in incredulity and bewilderment. They scanned me with everything they had. I remembered it all too clearly, especially when the Supreme Commander, right at his office – at that time, presented the list of expenses incurred just to probe or identify what this thing really was.
And what the heck, it was really expensive! As someone who had grown up poor since out of the womb, seeing the zeros behind the twos and threes almost gave me a heart attack. I thought it would be better to dig a hole and bury myself if they ever asked me to pay for it. I’m pretty much in complete belief that – not even all my organs could cover that whole expenditure, especially since the main headquarters always needed to tighten their belts to stay afloat amid the financial drain from the fight against Aelor.
Though – I was sure they were also curious about this wannabe spider from goddamn who knows where – that couldn’t even be scratched by our weapon.
Nevertheless, it remained a core memory for me.
I recalled sitting awkwardly in the main office, watching the Supreme Commander rub his forehead in frustration as I saw the detailed procedures conducted on me – from Thermal Imaging Systems to Nanotechnology-Based Scanning Probes, Multi-Spectral Imaging Systems, Plasma Energy Detectors, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neural Interface Scanners, Advanced Spectroscopy Analysis, Bioelectromagnetic Field Scanners, and even the most advanced technology the Legion had at the time: Advanced Quantum Resonance Imaging.
Guess what, all of it still ended up in failure. They couldn’t even identify its nature.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
They even had to call in one of their biggest investors to deploy the most powerful Psychic in the Iron Legion, who was stationed in one of the most dangerous zones on Earth - Tokyo, Japan - to retreat from the frontline and help them analyze what this thing really was. At that point, even I’m curious…
She then used her psychic resonance along with the limited, exaggeratedly expensive Psychic Amplifier, which could only be used once before becoming a waste, usually reserved for emergencies, in hopes of gaining a connection with it.
But, well, it was still a failure. She told me it felt like her psychic power had met an ordinary stone. Nothing… The only conclusion they reached after all that effort and trouble was that, if this thing was removed from my nape, I would surely die. And that was it. That was all the answers they could provide.
So redundant! Not that I could argue since it was all for me. Perhaps they had a certain agenda about it, especially given the enigmatic circumstances surrounding this thing. Surely, there was fear, but also excitement to discover what this spider actually was.
Anyway – now, this thing was currently on my wrist, not my nape. What did that even mean? Of course, I didn’t know. But one thing kept nagging at the back of my mind: if my guess was right, my current predicament could very well be linked to this strange, unordinary spider.
“Fantastic,” I muttered to myself, feeling rather nasty from it.
I then inspected it closely, my heart racing with a mix of uncertainty and interest. The image was identical to the photo that had been given to me in the past, as if it had connected itself to my bone, stretching my flesh and skin in a way that looked awfully painful but also kind of cool – like a bizarre piece of body art in an illegal human experiment gone wrong. Curiosity got the better of me, and I lightly touched the bump with my other hand – just like how whenever I got that itch, and ended up touching it anyway.
Just as my fingers made contact, unexpectedly, a series of floating, typed green, ghastly words suddenly appeared in the upper corner of my right vision, gradually being written out like some sort of digital movie script:
Memory Transfer: Successful…
Memory Transfer: Successful…
Initiating Phase One: Transferring complete control and management protocols to the new host…
Loading…
Initiating…
Initiation complete…
Commencing full assimilation process…
As this unknown thing activated, the mechanical spider nestled within my wrist began to disassemble into microscopic fragments. Each piece, infused with advanced technology, surged through my body without so much as a “by your leave” permission to initiate whatever it was planning to do.
Assimilation in progress…
Analyzing host compatibility…
Integrating core functionalities…
A short moment later, my body reacted violently to this invasive procedure. I jerked in place and then fell heavily onto my back. A sharp pain radiated from my wrist, escalating rapidly. The sensation spread like wildfire, coursing through my veins and climbing up my arm. At first, it crawled into my brain, then swiftly enveloped my entire being, as if filling every granule of my existence.
My back arched, my whole body trembled, and I could feel my veins popping out like I was auditioning for a role in a superhero movie. I figured my eyes must have been reddening from the effort of holding onto my consciousness. I still remember the pain of the serum that had integrated with me before. If I lost my cognizance during that process, the serum would be defective in its enhancement, failing to modify my body and mind to become a Champion.
That was also why not everyone could be injected with the serum. Pain tolerance was a prerequisite before injection. Even if someone was proven compatible with the serum – if they couldn’t handle the pain, the injection would be withheld, and the soldier would be trained first to increase their pain tolerance.
But this? This was so much more painful than the serum assimilation. It was hard to breathe correctly, just like when I first woke up earlier.
Pain threshold exceeded. Adjusting integration parameters…
Host experiencing discomfort. Initiating pain modulation…
Even amidst the agonizing, overwhelming pain, I managed to glimpse the words written in the corner of my sight. Seeing the part about discomfort, I almost rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right. Discomfort my ass!!? This pain is insane! Arrggghhh…”
Despite whatever this thing was trying to do to mitigate the agony, I felt as if my very essence as a human being was being rewritten into a new species altogether – perhaps like a monkey turning into a crocodile or something equally absurd. Just as the sensation finally decreased enough for me to twitch my fingers, it began to intensify once more. If I were to describe it, it felt like a blend of sharp, stinging stabs and overwhelming pressure, like a hammer repeatedly pounding me. I realized that the pain receptors in my body were far more numerous than I could ever have imagined, especially when it reached my, umm, ahem – let’s just say, the part of me that was essential for the continuation of future generations. Yeah, something like that.
Assimilation status: 75% complete. Host stability: critical.
Continuing integration…
Finalizing control protocols…
My vision was hanging by a pitiful thread by now. It was cloudy as hell. My mouth opened wide – surely, a pool of saliva had already made its way to my side since I couldn’t even swallow it.
I struggled to maintain consciousness as the pain reached a new level of hysterical crescendo. The world around me slowly faded, leaving only the relentless throbbing and the cold, calculating presence of this damned spider merging with my body. I really wanted to curse and scream, “Cut it out!” midway through this suffering. But, well, as anyone reading this could see and think with their own brain, I was just incapable of doing that, no matter how hard I tried, bruh…
Assimilation Status: 98% Complete…
Host Resilience: Commendable.
Executing Final Adjustments…
Integration Complete.
Welcome to the System, Host 1277: Nathaniel.
Designation of Last Incorporated Name: REN.
Initiating System Protocols…
Accessing Core Functions…
Establishing Communication Link…
Hello, Nathaniel. You are now integrated with the Red Energy Nexus.
Commencing operational readiness.
Awaiting further commands.
System online.
After the “integration complete” part, all the sentences not only appeared in the corner of my blurry vision but also echoed directly inside my head, as if a psychic woman were using telepathy to talk directly to my mind.
Then, at last, I gave up altogether and succumbed to the darkness, fainting from this harrowing experience.
“Goddamn it, it was so unnecessarily painful…” That was the last coherent thought in my head before everything faded to black.
