Soul of Searing Steel

Whoosh.

Luminous threads abruptly shot out from inside Tank’s body in the sealed medical room, tearing the old man’s patient gown and wrapped around him. Surprised but stifled exclamations echoed amongst the healers and observers, with the former ready to wear their decontamination suits to see what was going on, whereas the latter keyed in numbers on communications spells and hurriedly inform their superiors.

“Are those threads a combination of flesh and energy? It’s engulfed Tank!

“His vigor is rising exponentially—heavens, is that really evolution and not a sickness?!”

“Hurry, inform the elders!”

Soon, including the now-quarantined members of Tank’s former party, many of the old man’s acquaintances were visiting the cocoon, chewing their lips apprehensively. Iron Wall, who appeared dazed over the last few days, reached out as if wanting to touch the luminous yet sacred cocoon of energy but pulled back in fear that she would disturb Tank’s ‘evolution’.

“Do your best, leader—if this is evolution, you have to surpass it!”

Inwardly encouraging Tank, the lady clenched her fist, her gaze filled with nervousness and expectation.

However, every person had not noticed that veins of invisible threads were also spreading in the atmosphere, as hungry tentacles on the hunt aimed at them.

Ascension requires energy.

Excess energy was perhaps unnecessary for special, talented bodies since they could rely on their fine adaptability to accomplish physical alterations, henceforth becoming a new and young Ultimate Entity… however, most lifeforms without Extraordinary disposition would have needed profound energies to alter their living essence.

In that case, the most primitive method for life to obtain energy was by eating. If they could not absorb sufficient energy in a certain period, they would have been devoured by their own bodies even if evolution was successful, left as dried bones devoid of even soul.

As for food sources…were they not right in front of him? There was even an individual whose superpowers were developing—it could simply eat them all. It needed no companions nor existences that were close to what it was.

Sharp tentacles filled with solvent shot out rapidly at the girl in the white dress, her eyes closed as she played and who was also nearest to the cocoon. Though she was Iron Wall and could conjure a superpower shield that could block anything, she could die instantly if she had been neither alert nor using her powers.

No one reacted in time, nor did they feel alarmed. Even if they were rather puzzled with their friend and former superior, none of the individuals who rushed here at once sensed the dark enmity.

Therefore, the thread pierced Iron Wall’s shoulder.

And then…remained motionless.

“Lead—leader?!”

Feeling no pain even if the silver thread binding the cocoon to herself was all too obvious, Iron Wall was not concerned with herself. Instead, she exclaimed in shock with the oddity occurring in the old man.

“What’s going on?! This silver thread…”

But soon, Iron Wall and the other now-cautious visitors and healers realized that the silver light was not the cocoon’s, but another radiance emanating from inside it.

It was a hand—or a very normal ‘glove’.

***

Inside the cocoon—muddleheaded, Tank was suddenly jolted awake. He clenched his right hand—there was a single glove embedded with a silver gem.

It was a glove called Legacy that the God of Steel left for every Ultrahuman in the world, and now, the silver gem shone as the Giant God, who sensed it from, afar transmitted information. Using a certain measure, he wrestled against the root of the plague and suppressed the mutation into an Ultimate Entity, cutting short the Death of the New.

And that conflict revived Tank’s self.

Within the cocoon, the old man’s darkened gaze brightened instantly.

“Ah…were those really my thoughts?!”

Using his own perspective and heart to experience his change and apathy, the old man shuddered as he edged, feeling his impatient and cold treatment towards all kindness and goodwill. He sensed how callous he was, and how he had found human connection cheap and unnecessary…he feared not change but that weakness in his spirit, to be so easily bent and brainwashed.

The silver thread slowly pulled out, leaving a little splash of blood on Iron Wall’s shoulder. Several Ultrahumans hence charged forward, using their ability to control air to isolate Tank from the others, with Iron Wall being vaguely separated as well. There were calls for Soul Puppets, voices of Ultrahumans on the attack—everyone was now cautious with Tank, who had clearly changed.

And that was when the silver luminous cocoon began to move, prompting fiercer debating—the healers and observers had been arguing at the top of their lungs if they should be healing the cocoon or destroying it, but before they could find an answer, the cocoon had gently parted and revealed what really happened inside.

“Bleurgh…”

“What—what is that?!”

“Uh… Hmmm. That’s…”

Within the seemingly pure cocoon was Tank’s body, melted from beneath his sternum. His wrinkled and scarred-laden body was not becoming dried, and yet new flesh was growing in his melted body parts, greedily consuming the old man’s body as nutrients.

Nonetheless, the old man’s body and his superpowers could not be converted entirely, which was why it wanted to consume more and more…it could feel its success, and compared to otherw of its own kind that did not succeed despite having nutrients, it had sensed that it was lucky enough to pick that one individual amongst a trillion to successfully evolve into a powerful being like no other!

However, that was when it heard its own tired but determined voice.

“Kill me.”

The old man said with a face of serenity. “Quick, kill me—or all of you will die.”

He had been troubled and shaken, but now at ease and determined, and he spoke with a command that would not tolerate refusal. “I’m being corrupted and briefly lucid now, but if you don’t kill me now…”

Thud.

Squirming new flesh abruptly convulsed and ate off another part of the old man, but it did not stop Tank from speaking. He merely paused for a moment and looked around him with regret and the sadness of parting. He could see Iron Wall and his former party members who were panicking and attempting to rush up and attack the new flesh, just as he could hear the sounds of a wheelchair moving in the distance as another old friend rushed for him.

He would have bidden them all farewell but there was no time. The distant message from the God of Steel only told him a partial truth that kept him briefly conscious—either way, it was Tank’s last moments.

Which was why he would die as himself.

“I’m a special case who will not infect others. The Ultimate Virus is selfish, and will only spread on a massive scale if the first host doesn’t fit its conditions, since it would not allow other entities to evolve as long as it has a tiny chance of evolving itself. That’s why you mustn’t quarantine your brethren who were drenched in the rain nor fear your own—nor should a rift be allowed to grow amongst yourselves and be reduced to beasts once more.”

The old man forcefully held back his instinctive guard, dispelling the reflexive self-defense of the superior lifeform and his ether barrier. While he disengaged his rapid regeneration and six-elements protection, Tank smiled peacefully, lovingly watching Iron Wall as she cried and exposed his own defenseless, evolving form before everyone else.

“Superpowers and Extraordinary ability. Could they be not a beneficial, infecting, and self-replicating plague? Just like the mitochondria in our cells. When Steel Shards fell upon Simboa thousands of years ago, turning our ancestors into superhumans infected with the illness of ‘being different’, both them and us saw ourselves as Ultrahumans and not Simboans, which was why a rift isolated Simboans and our ancestors, thus becoming selfish beasts.”

The old man had no fear at all even in the face of other Ultrahumans charging their powers and ready to attack. He no longer feared death or hunger, nor anything else—he understood the essence of wisdom: it was not a tool to satisfy desire, but to triumph and control it.

Such was the difference between man and beasts!

In that very moment, he finally understood what had befallen Simboa.

When that epidemic known as superpowers spread upon the ordinary continent, their intelligent civilization collapsed as selfish beasts increased.

It took us two generation to ease the pain. The tombstone of the superhuman, Fattrovi—he who had sacrificed the former Simboan civilization and killed all beast is just there…he watches us, which is why we must never become tyrants that are less than beasts!

“It’s more important for spirit to live on compared to bloodlines!”

“I would rather understand and die than live with a muddled head!”

Another old man who was confined to a wheelchair who had rushed to the scene finally arrived by the door. A man who had fought for years alongside Tank when they were surrounded by Soul Puppets and had to survive the wastelands, he heard everything his comrade said, but his dried tear ducts no longer had any moisture. He hence simply used a withered but determined voice to bark and order.

“Attack!”

“Let Tank rest in peace. Destroy him without leaving any trace!”

Having received their orders and finally able to attack, the superhumans roared in terror or perhaps in grief, unleashing fire and thunder on the once luminous cocoon. The sound of flesh burning could be heard as unparalleled pain assaulted the old man’s creature instincts, and yet he kept his instinctive defenses sealed, allowing the powers that would have been mere food to destroy him, bit by bit.

Tank could no longer see or hear from within the blaze. His eyes were burnt and his eardrums incinerated, which was why he could not see his commander’s wrinkled anguished face or the miserable cries of his younger friends. In his final moments, the old man was in peace.

He simply smiled, speaking with his vocal chords which were not yet burnt, intermittently voicing his last words.

“Trust, partnership, sharing, fighting together against foes and calamities… embody courage, hope, and look forward to the skies—even if we lose our lives, never forget these principles.

“That’s the civilization I dream of, the civilization which belongs to Simboa!”

***

In Stellaris, Joshua’s true form which had hurried to the frontline suddenly sighed.

[Question: Why sigh, Radcliffe? Are things that dire beyond?]

“No. It’s just that I’ve witnessed the end of a life and a spirit being passed on,” the warrior calmly said as he narrowed his eyes at the dark, distant stars. “Perhaps that is the difference: desire and wisdom, beasts and civilization.”

“It’s also the difference with that which isn’t Chaos, but that which is unruly and the orderly.”