Genetic Engineer in a Tamer's World

”Is that why Neo didn’t eat her full corpse?” Kale muttered in a tone of growing terror. He remembered the Hydra’s previous harvest... how it had meticulously avoided the torso... only devouring the limbs and the mana-rich core.

[Biological analysis confirmed... specimen Neo detected embryonic life force within the primary target... extraction was halted to preserve genetic purity of the catalyst].

The system notification flashed across his retina... a cold... clinical confirmation of the horror Fabio had just voiced. Neo’s instinct hadn’t been mercy... but a calculated avoidance of a biological variable that didn’t fit its devouring parameters.

The repercussions chilled Kale’s blood. Had he just killed an innocent?

Even though Paula had attempted to assassinate him... even though she was a spy of the Church... the life within her was a blank slate.

The child in her womb... no matter if it was just a blob of flesh and mana at this stage... was an innocent life. It was a legacy he had snuffed out... a parallel to the very tragedy that had forged his own vengeful path.

Kale felt the strength leave his legs. He dropped to his knees in the centre of the crater... his daggers clattering against the glass. The researcher’s clinical mask shattered... leaving behind only a boy suddenly overwhelmed by the weight of his own actions.

The Wolfberg team saw the opening. Fabio... Shane... and Leda all charged... their weapons and beasts aimed directly at Kale’s unprotected head. They didn’t care about the Church or the logic of the ambush... they only wanted the blood of the monster.

Neo let out a low... vibrating growl that shook the very air of the hollow. The Nemesis Hydra didn’t wait for a command. With a violent burst of its green wings... the creature generated a shockwave of Beast Force that pushed the mercenaries back fifty meters.

The Wolfberg team was sent tumbling across the cooling glass... their beasts whimpering as they hit the trench’s root walls. Neo landed in front of Kale... its three heads arched in a display of draconic arrogance that acted as an impenetrable shield.

For a long minute... Kale seemed lost in his own mind. He stared at his hands... which were still stained with the residue of the day’s slaughter. The internal conflict was a storm unlike any he had faced... a clash between his cold survival logic and the lingering fragments of his humanity.

If he let them live... Fabio would never stop. The mercenaries would return to the Guild and report the slaughter. The Association and the Church would descend upon him... and the mission to create the Ignis Core would be terminated in a cell.

But if he killed them... he would be deleting the only people who had ever shown him kindness without a hidden agenda. He would truly be the monster the Church claimed him to be... a biological discord that knew only deletion and progress.

[Warning: Host mental stability is declining... internal mana fluctuations are reaching critical turbulence... efficiency is dropping to 30%].

The system notification was a splash of ice water on his soul. He looked up... seeing Fabio struggling to stand... his eyes filled with a hatred so pure and absolute that it could never be reasoned with.

There was no path to reconciliation... only the cold finality of the grave.

Kale stood up slowly... his expression pained but determined. He looked at Neo... and the Hydra looked back with its six golden eyes... its thoughts a simple... rhythmic pulse of predatory readiness. The beast had no guilt... no hesitation... only the hunger of the monarch.

”Neo... kill them,” Kale whispered... the words tasting like ash in his mouth. He turned his back on the mercenaries... his jaw tight as he stared toward the Tigerwood canopy.

The Hydra didn’t need to be told twice. Unlike Kale... the creature had no emotional debt... no concept of kindness. It was a machine of biological discord... a predator designed to slaughter anything that stood in the path of its master’s ascension.

The slaughter was fast and systematic. Neo blurred through the air... its three heads independent and lethal. One head bit through Fabio’s throat before the man could even raise his weapon... while the other two heads snapped the necks of Shane and Leda.

Kale watched with guilt-filled eyes as the life faded from Fabio’s hatefully glaring gaze. He didn’t look away this time. He forced himself to witness the deletion... to feel the weight of every soul he was sending into the void to ensure his own survival.

Within less than two minutes... the hollow was silent once more. The Wolfberg mercenary team... the group that had shared their food and their laughter with a nameless boy... was now nothing more than a pile of biological material cooling in the orange light.

”Burn the bodies... Neo,” Kale ordered... his voice sounding like a ghost of itself. ”Burn them until not even the ashes remain to tell the story of what happened here.”

Neo obliged... activating its Flame Form and unleashing torrents of refined fire breath that turned the corpses into pillars of incandescent light. The forest floor was scrubbed clean... the evidence of the slaughter committed in this place vanishing into the morning mist.

Kale didn’t wait for the fire to die out. He simply started walking back toward the Greenroot Base... his gaze distant and hollow. He moved through the dense foliage with the practised ease of a phantom... but his heart felt like a physical weight in his chest.

The maelstrom of emotions going through his soul was too heavy for words... too complex for the system to calculate. He had cut another part of humanity... and the silence in his mind was more terrifying than any roar of a dragon.

The Genetic Engineer was truly alone now... and the road to the Ignis Core was paved with the bones of the only friends he had ever known. He walked toward room 555... a monarch of the slaughter returning to his silent throne.