Chapter 1: Underneath The Flesh

"...is anyone here still alive?"

A dim voice rang out, reverberating around the silent and dark corridors of what once seemed like a research facility.

Silent humming of distant mechanical constructs and the occasional sparks of the mangled wires from the ravaged walls of the corridors were the only things giving the entire facility life. Other than this, the inconsistent flickering of the lights, too, gave the site a more eerie silence.

Yet in this lonesome facility where a calamity had seemingly just passed by, a lone figure stood amidst the darkness.

This figure, clad in a long white open-front coat that faded into purple, and a black bodysuit beneath, appeared like a ghost.

But perhaps what made her stand out the most was her long dark purple hair.

Of course, the term "standing out" could only be applied if she was with other people, which, in this case, is not.

"..."

Seeing that no one replied to her call, she blinked her eyes twice. Then, just to make sure of the situation, this elusive woman walked along the facility.

As she did so, she managed to walk past a window which briefly caught her attention.

There, laid bare in front of her eyes, was the endless cosmos twinkling with innumerable stars.

Indeed, this was no ordinary facility, but is, in fact, a spaceship drifting across a galaxy— one that was unfortunate enough to witness a failure in one of its tests.

At least, that's what she thinks.

She knew that the chances of any survivors were slim— since the moment she walked inside this seemingly abandoned space ship, human corpses littered the floor.

It was a brutal massacre.

"Judging by the mangled bodies... It should be a predatory creature."

She spoke as she cast a glance at the bodies on the floor for a brief moment.

Her casual stroll continued as she approached the bridge of the spaceship. As she approached, the stench of blood grew more intense.

Mangled corpses, decapitated heads... And even hallowed bodies were present as she strolled along the long corridors, their blood mixing and painting the ground crimson red.

Yet, despite these harrowing horrors, the woman showed no reaction, maintaining her cold and detached expression.

"...May you all find rest in the afterlife."

However, she wasn't completely uncaring.

Finally, after going through a parade of blood, she arrived before the doors of the ship's bridge. The sealed doors opened and she entered.

Once there, it was no different from the rest of the ship. The captain— or who she presumed to be the captain— was... there, to say the least. Albeit, not entirely whole and more scattered.

As for the others, although they didn't meet the same gruesome end as their captain, they still died with horror in their eyes.

"Hm?"

Amidst the still chaos, the woman then noticed something. Walking over to the anomaly, she inspected it.

Huddled together on one side of the room, a group of bodies laid dead. However, in their hands was an enormous blaster— one that shoots condensed high-energy beams enough to disintegrate groups of humans in an instant.

"Is this... another experimental weapon?"

She said to herself, her eyes narrowing down on the blaster that she presumed to have been used recently.

She looked at it more and noticed the symbol printed on its metallic body.

"Interastral Peace Corporation... Technology Department, hm?"

Truth be told, she already guessed that this spaceship was owned by the IPC— a vast, intergalactic corporation responsible for the market and currency of the universe.

"The Technology Department of the IPC isn't easily taken down... I doubt that this is a normal creature."

She murmured to herself as her eyes shifted to the location that the blaster was aiming at.

"This is..."

There, on the cold metallic wall, black scorch marks remained from the blast of the weapon that the crew used. And, laying dead on the floor just below the scorch marks, was a burnt pile of meat and flesh mangled together to form squirming tendrils.

The creature was quite clearly amorphous— since the woman wasn't able to find any solid base for its body. Instead, it's more as if the countless swirling worm-like meat tendrils joined together to form a biomass, full of jagged teeth and eyes.

Given that it had no proper structural body, it would suggest that the creature had no need for digestion— but instead, ate creatures to quickly integrate them to its biomass, forming new meat tendrils and growing stronger and bigger in the process.

In short, it was a ravenous creature that grew more powerful the more it ate.

"..."

The woman stared at the bizarre creature, trying to figure out what it was.

"An Abomination? No, there's no sign of the Abundance... It also lacks the characteristics of the Legion. Strange..."

The woman, a lonesome drifter who had traversed the cosmos for quite some time now, had witnessed and fought numerous oddities of monstrosities during her travels. Some were openly hostile, while some were cunningly predatory— but in the end, they all met their end with her blade.

"Perhaps it's of the Voracity? It would certainly fit them— those gluttonous creatures with an insatiable appetite..."

While she was pondering the origins of the creature, something abruptly occurred.

 - Squelch...

Suddenly, a thick, wet, and unpleasant sound, like something slimy being moved, started coming from the creature.

Slowly, as if the unknown creature smelled something that could rejuvenate its appetite, it started convulsing intensely— attracted by the sweet scent of a new biomass standing over it.

Then, in less than just a few moments, its meat tendrils with jagged teeth present in them started swirling once more as it exuded a clear liquid from its surface— which the woman could only assume as saliva or something akin to it.

The bloody worm-like meat tendrils soon joined together once more, forming a wriggling unstable structure in an attempt to reform itself.

 - Grawlch...

Soon, a low growl escaped from the creature, giving it a thick, sickly feel, as if the sound is tearing out from a twisted mass of flesh.

Then, in a frenzied rush, the creature spent no time and quickly attacked with all of its extensions.

Some crawled up the woman's feet up to her thigh seeking to restrain her, while some rushed down on her from above attempting to strike her down with their raw force.

As the numerous encroaching meat tendrils covered her body, the woman's face— which remained unchanged until now— shifted.

"Hah..."

Then, with a light sigh, she pulled out her sword.

 - Tak...

The moment she unsheathed her blade, something unexplainable occurred.

At that moment, it was as if time slowed down. The meat tendrils, which were swift enough to catch normal humans off guard, appeared slow and unmoving in her eyes. As for her, her sense of time and movement remained unchanged.

Then, with just a single touch from her blade, all the extensions were instantly obliterated— as if they were shredded to dust.

The tendrils that crawled up her thigh all fell down like fine saw dust, while the tendrils aiming for her head disintegrated in the air as if they were dust particles.

As for the creature itself, it, too, saw a quick death. The quick gleam of her blade brushed past the creature, and, instantly, its amorphous body scattered to innumerable pieces.

 - Tak.

And with that, her blade returned to its sheath, seemingly never had left there to begin with. With it, the flow of time resumed normally.

All of it happened in just a second, her movement unseen by the normal eye.

Suddenly, the moment time resumed normally, the creature exploded into countless pieces— resulting in a bloody and meaty explosion.

Only a second had passed by, yet in that short time, the creature attacking her was easily killed without much effort.

It was a one-sided dominance.

"...ew."

The woman, on the other hand, who had been wearing a poker face since the start, finally changed her expression to a frown— visibly revolted by the bloody show.

"It got on my clothes..."

She grumbled with a frown, her eyes narrowing down on the creature.

"Until the end, you still yearned to devour more... Still, this is your intrinsic nature— and I cannot blame you for it."

Saying this, she cast the creature a last glance before turning her gaze away.

"...may you find rest in the afterlife."

After making sure that the creature was dead, the woman turned around and strolled over to the main controls of the bridge.

Looking at the series of buttons, monitors, and controls, a rare sight of nostalgia somehow managed to find itself on the woman's face— as if she was reminiscing about a certain memory.

Her pristine ivory finger then hovered before a keyboard before starting to type on it. As she did so, she simultaneously touched the hilt of her sheathed weapon, as if it had become a natural habit to her.

After a few moments, she finally gained access to the last recording in the room, before everything went silent.

The main monitor flickered briefly before a scene unfolded, showing the last desperate struggle of the crew trapped in the room.

[S-Save me!]

[Captain! Captain got taken! He got dragged to the vents!]

[Stay away from the vents!]

[Aghh—!]

Just as she had predicted, the meat monster she fought was the one responsible for everything. In the video, squirming meat tendrils and echoing growls in the ventilation tormented the crew remaining in the bridge room.

[We shouldn't have taken it... We shouldn't have— bzzt.]

[The Intelligentsia Guild won't make it. Haha, we'd die before they arrived— were doomed! Haha!]

[Team Alpha! Respond! I repeat— confirm your status outside! Team Alpha! Hey! Respond! Speak, damn it— bzzt.]

As she watched on, the remaining crew grew more and more manic as their desperate struggle for survival started to narrow down. It was at this moment that they all voted to use the experimental weapon they were safekeeping.

It was also at this moment that the last sane person left a message to the terminal.

Although he was sane, so to speak, his disheveled appearance told otherwise. It was as if she was looking at a man on the brink of dreadful insanity.

The man on the screen then spoke, his voice hoarse.

[We were mistaken about this case. We shouldn't have opened that drifting piece of ice— nay, we shouldn't have stumbled upon it... This creature, which we ignorantly released from that ice, is far from anything we've speculated.]

[If left unchecked, it could have become a disaster on its own. For with each creature it consumed, it grew more powerful— but that was not what terrifies me. I have a finding that my colleagues deem impossible... But in truth, I know they know it too.]

[That this creature... as it eats and grows... becomes more intelligent. And from intelligence, cunning emerges. In just a few days, it figured out our habits and systematically eliminated us one by one... Sometimes, it could even mimic the voices of some of us... Gradually becoming... More...]

[More... Bzzt. More... Bzzt. More... Bzzt.]

The recording abruptly ended there, never even giving the man a chance to finish his sentence.

The woman looked at the flickering monitor for a moment before heaving a sigh and turning it off.

"May you find rest in the afterlife."

With that said, she deemed that no one was left in the ship. From what the last footage showed, the crew in this room were the only ones remaining.

Taking the physical copy of the last remaining recordings, she stored it in her pockets before turning around, ready to leave the abandoned ship.

 - Tud...

Just then, a sound reached her ears.

Quickly picking up on the sound, she immediately shifted her gaze and looked at the source of the sound.

 - Tud.

There, on the metallic floor of the ship, where some corpses were laid, the sound of something weak trying to hit the floor was ringing out.

The woman approached the anomaly and properly set aside the corpses. There, she saw an unscrewed floor tile.

"Is someone alive there?"

She asked, her gaze peering into the darkness inside.

A moment of silence permeated at first before a weak, hoarse voice rang out from below.

"Please... Save me..."

Hearing the voice of a person struggling in their last moments, her eyes narrowed down. Then, using her arms, she lifted the metal floor plate.

And there, hidden under the corpses of others below a ship's bridge, a young man curled with difficulty in breathing.

He was wearing the same white overcoat as the other researchers in the spaceship wore, which contrasted deeply with his black hair.

Seeing someone open the metal plate, the young man opened his eyes, revealing a pair of abyssal black eyes, looking back at the woman.

His pupils were hazy and his complexion was frail, and he was shuddering. It was quite easy to determine that he had been holding on to his life for quite some time now.

Then, with a frail voice, he spoke to his savior.

"Save me..."