Power Thief's Revenge [BL]-Chapter 198: Down to the Cellular Level

Chapter 198: Down to the Cellular Level
Little did Hermes and his crew know that there was an eighth presence in the botanical garden with them. Well, not really a person, but it served as the eyes of one. The creature hid between the thick roots of the giant Pleroman tree, motionless but aware, its breath shallow like a sleeping cat’s.
It definitely had the body of a feline, a lion cub...
But its head was that of a young crocodile and its hind legs belonged to a baby hippopotamus. A being stitched together by science and devotion...
Ammit, the creation of one named Osiris Khemia.
Through Ammit’s eyes, the world shimmered in strange hues. The air glowed faintly around the six intruders, their movements leaving trails of color.
Hermes burned the brightest... black and gold like molten night.
In the library, a figure sat behind the desk, hunched under his hoodie. His hands covered were covered with gloves. He wore a face mask though there was no one else in sight, and his eyes flicked rapidly across the monitors.
"Six," he murmured, his voice soft and a little too fast, tripping over the number. "Six entered. Ammit counted six. No, seven... six and one hidden just outside, maybe."
He rushed quickly to the botanical garden right after he saw them running out.
"Osiris." Dr. Atum Khemia sensed him right away.
"Grrrmeow!" Ammit made a sound no other animal has made before, and jumped to Osiris’ shoulder.
Osiris did not look into Dr. Atum Khemia’s eyes even when he knew he couldn’t see him. "Jaddi. Ammit saw them. The intruders. They... they left through the north door."
"I know," Atum said, a smile curving his thin lips. "Come closer, my boy."
Osiris hesitated, his fingers twitching against his thigh. He always disliked when people asked him to come close. It meant he had to decide how close was enough. But his Jaddi— his great-grandfather— spoke with a warm, coaxing tone.
So he rose slowly, adjusting the cuffs of his sleeves, and took short, careful steps forward.
"Apologies for the humidity." His grandfather said. "Young men tend to be very sweaty, especially when they are excited, you know?
Osiris blinked rapidly, not understanding the humor. "I don’t sweat easily," he answered too literally. "Because of my medication."
Atum chuckled, reaching to pat his arm. "You always take things so seriously. I like that about you. Now tell me, Osiris, do you remember the story I once told you? About the special man who could procreate with anyone, even another man?"
Osiris’s brows knitted. "Yes. The—um—the anomaly. The one the old records mentioned. The, uh, genetic impossibility, but also divine, maybe. You said he was part of the Thirteen Stripes project, but I thought he was—"
Atum’s hand gently squeezed his shoulder, stilling him. "He was here today."
Osiris blinked again, his lips parting. "H-here?"
"Yes. The dark-haired one. The man with the eyes that swallowed the light. Hermes Potentia."
The boy’s throat tightened. He felt something electric behind his ribs, a pulse of both fear and awe.
"Hermes... Hermes Potentia," he whispered, tasting the name like it might dissolve on his tongue. "I know him."
Atum’s head tilted slightly. "You do?"
Osiris nodded. "From AUPU. From the library. Years ago."
His words began to blur together, like his thoughts were working faster than his mouth so he’s trying hard to keep up. "He used to study there. I—I saw him once. Only once. He had black eyes. Very black. Like I couldn’t tell apart his iris from his pupils. Just dark, dark void. I thought maybe he was—"
He stopped, his breathing quickening.
"Go on," Atum urged gently.
Osiris’s hands trembled slightly. "I thought maybe he was like my experiments. Dead but alive. Beautiful like that. Empty but full."
Atum’s sightless gaze lifted as if peering into memory. "And what did you feel when you saw him?"
"I wanted to understand him," Osiris murmured. "To touch him. To know if he was warm. He looked like something that shouldn’t exist, but still did. Like me."
Ammit jumped towards the desk, tail flicking once. Through their link, Osiris felt a faint echo of approval, as if his creature agreed.
Atum smiled faintly, then gestured toward the desk. "Sit, my boy. Tell me what you remember."
Osiris obeyed, his movements small and precise. His thoughts drifted like dust in sunlight, back to that afternoon in the AUPU library... The smell of old paper and cleaning chemicals, the faint hum of the air vents, the tall man standing between the shelves with eyes like deep water.
He could still recall how Hermes had turned slightly, and for the briefest second, their eyes had met. Osiris had frozen, unable to look away.
The memory pressed at the edges of his mind until it spilled over...
***
The memory came to him like a fever dream.
He had been twelve years old then, though already taking classes meant for university seniors. The others didn’t talk to him much. They said he was strange... the quiet boy with the gloves, the one who never made eye contact, who murmured to his notebooks like they were living things.
The library had always been his refuge. There, words behaved. Pages didn’t change their tone or expression. He could line them up in neat rows, understand their order, their meaning.
That day, he had been in the anatomy section, reading about cellular grafts. He remembered the faint hum of the fluorescent lights, how the air smelled of lemon disinfectant and dry paper. Then came the sound of footsteps.
Osiris had looked up.
The man standing between the shelves seemed taller than the world around him. His presence bent the light, making it dim. His eyes were pitch black, so dark that Osiris couldn’t find their edges. It reminded him of a black hole he once saw in a telescope photo.... a mouth swallowing everything.
The man had been reading quietly, but when he noticed Osiris staring, he smiled.
"Can I help you? Are you lost?" he said.
Osiris didn’t answer. He shook his head, because words sometimes slipped away when he needed them most.
"Oh then are you studying? Looking for a book?" the man asked.
"Cells," Osiris replied after a pause. His fingers tapped the table three times, an old habit when nervous.
"Ah! Cells." the man said. "That’s a good thing to study."
Before Osiris could make an excuse to escape this conversation, the man’s black eyes flicked toward him once more. And in that brief glance, Osiris felt something shift. His heart skipped. His mouth went dry.
It was as if a thousand small pieces inside him rearranged themselves, just to make room for that image.
Then the bell rang, and the man left. "Well, good luck with your cell study!"
He never saw him again.
***
Now, years later, the memory faded like mist. The faint hum of the laboratory replaced the library’s quiet. Dr. Atum stood beside him, smiling kindly.
Osiris’s hands were shaking.
"That man... Hermes," he murmured. "He was different. I could feel it. His eyes looked... hungry, but not cruel. I wanted to love him."
Atum tilted his head. "Love him?"
"Yes." Osiris’s voice cracked. "Like I love Ammit. Like I loved all my creations. They were beautiful, even when they died. I just wanted to keep them alive."
His words came faster, tumbling out like glass marbles rolling down a slope. "But they always die, Jaddi. Always. I fix them, I hold them, I feed them, but—"
His breath hitched.
Atum’s hand touched his shoulder again, tender and patient. "Hush now, my boy. It is not your fault they died. Everything you loved was a test. You were perfecting your gift."
Osiris’s throat tightened. "I only wanted something to stay. Something that wouldn’t leave."
"And now you will have that chance." Atum said softly.
He moved toward his desk and pulled open a metal drawer. Inside was a cylindrical glass canister, filled with pale green fluid. Bubbles rose slowly from the bottom, breaking against the curve of the glass. Within it floated something small — fragile, almost human.
Osiris stepped closer. His reflection warped over the surface. He blinked once, then twice, before realizing what he was looking at.
It was a fetus.
Osiris’s breath caught. "Jaddi... what is that?"
Atum’s blind eyes gleamed faintly. "Yes. That, my dear boy, is Eirwyn Curacio. The Ninth Soldier."
Osiris frowned, the name tugging at something half-remembered from old files. "He’s... he’s dead."
"Not dead," Atum corrected. "Reversed."
Osiris’s lips parted, struggling to grasp the meaning.
"His body was touched by the power of Rewind," Atum continued, voice low and calm. "His cells turned backward through time until they returned to the beginning. The child that grew inside him consumed its host’s life, and when the process ended, only this remained... The Ninth Soldier returned to infancy, bound to his unborn child. A failed miracle. But you, my Osiris..."
He rested a hand on the canister. "You can finish it."
The green light reflected in Osiris’s eyes. For a long moment, he said nothing. He only stared at the tiny form floating inside, fascinated and horrified.
"I can fix him," he whispered. "I can... make him live again."
Atum smiled, his face serene, his voice almost fatherly. "Yes. Bring him back. Bring back the Soldier. It is the duty of every Scientist to do so. The alien was just a temporary replacement. The true Soldier must live again, in a new shell."
Osiris’s trembling stopped. He looked up slowly, meeting the faint direction of his great-grandfather’s blind gaze. "I’ll do it. I’ll give him all my love. I won’t let him die."
"Good boy." Atum murmured. "You are my pride. The legacy of our line."
Osiris held the canister, pressing his face against the glass to look at the fetus inside. He can’t help but remember his past....
How his Jaddi, who hated forming any relationships, managed to have descendants. Same with his ancestor, the first Scientist. The guardian of the first Soldier....
Whose soul and cells live on in every soldier up to the ninth one.