Free Web NovelChapter 136: Chapter 132: The Nephilim Protocol
The harsh green glare of the ancient CRT monitor cut through the absolute dark of the Red Room. That sickly light reflected off a thick pool of coagulated blood. The dark sludge completely coated the heavy plastic keyboard resting on the metal desk.
Elizabeth did not sit down. She leaned over the terminal and set her hands on the ruined hardware. The physical machinery was a complete wreck. She had to hit the keys with bruising force just to break the dried human fluids holding them in place. A sharp snap echoed across the tile as the spacebar cracked in half under her palm.
"This keyboard is glued together with old blood." She peeled her index finger off the plastic with a wet, sticky tear. "I’m breaking half the keys just pressing them down."
Will stepped into the green light. He watched her bleed magic into the machine. "Need a knife to pry them up?"
"I need you to stand between me and the hallway. I don’t want to get eaten while I smother the ward."
The system’s security did not rely on standard digital code. A Qliphothic ward sat baked directly into the mainframe’s exposed copper wiring. The terminal actively fought her intrusion. It violently leeched heat straight from her fingertips. Unnatural frost formed along the edges of the blood-stained keys.
Elizabeth did not write a bypass script. She physically attacked the machine. Bleeding her shadow-affinity directly into the cracked casing, she forced the dark magic down into the rusted copper wiring like a physical gag. The terminal didn’t just leech heat. It fought back like a cornered animal. The Qliphothic ward pushed black, necrotic lines straight up the veins in Elizabeth’s wrist. The skin around her knuckles bruised an ugly, mottled purple, looking exactly like she had gone ten rounds bare-knuckle against a concrete wall. She didn’t flinch. She just leaned her entire body weight into the metal casing. She forced her shadow down the rusted copper pathways until she physically choked the magic to death.
Near the shattered double doors, Tyson and Maddie held the perimeter. The heavy veteran kept his Goliath-Plate arm raised. Superheated steam hissed from the dented iron joints, baking the stale air. Maddie rested her back against the doorframe. Her broken ribs ground together with every shallow breath.
Nobody trusted the dead silence of the corridor.
Frantic clicking filled the butcher’s shop as the frozen keys finally broke loose under Elizabeth’s hands. The heavy cooling fan inside the terminal spun up to maximum capacity. It released a loud, vibrating hum that rattled the metal desk. The sharp tang of hot electrical dust burning off the power core overpowered the smell of raw bleach.
The ward shattered. A loud electrical pop snapped inside the casing.
Blocks of amber corporate code aggressively scrolled down the curved glass screen. A massive, pixelated P.A.C.I.F.I.C. logo dissolved entirely into a classified root directory titled THE NEPHILIM PROTOCOL.
Elizabeth pulled up the executive summaries. The documents completely lacked any kind of mysticism or theological dread. They read exactly like quarterly earnings reports. Cold bullet points detailed structural body modification right next to projected profit margins and supply chain logistics.
"They were trying to hack the System." Elizabeth stared at the scrolling text. "Not the computers. The actual LitRPG class mechanics."
Will rested his heavy armored hands on the edge of the metal desk. The steel frame groaned under his grip. "Read the methodology."
"Forced evolution through demonic grafting. They mapped Qliphothic marrow." Elizabeth scrolled past a diagram showing a human ribcage being pried open with industrial jacks. "They dragged an abyssal entity into the sub-levels and bled it dry. Then they shoved that raw marrow directly into surface refugees so the System would hand out Nephilim classes to the survivors."
Tyson looked back from the doorway. "So those things we just spent three hours killing..."
A jagged red System diagnostic flashed abruptly on the screen. It overlaid the sterile corporate text.
[Target Class: Artificial Seraph. Graft Failure. Biomass Rejected.]
"The bodies broke." Elizabeth pointed a blood-stained finger at the red prompt. "The corporation shoved a Mythic-tier class into starving kids. Their physical stats couldn’t hold the mana requirement. Their spines literally snapped under the weight of the download. The corporate logs categorize the resulting monsters as Scrap Meat."
Tyson slowly leaned his massive Goliath-Plate arm against the doorframe. The dented iron ground heavily against the cracked concrete. "I snapped a kid’s neck ten minutes ago," he said, staring blankly at the dark tiles. "The one with the laminated badge. He didn’t even have legs."
Maddie didn’t look at him. She tightened her grip on her dead highway sign until her knuckles turned bone-white. She hacked up a mouthful of dark, bloody saliva and spat it directly onto the clean corporate floor.
Will pushed his face closer to the curved glass of the monitor. His exhausted features reflected over the endless lines of amber text. He demanded the intake manifests.
Elizabeth brought up the primary ledger. It was not a list of brave military volunteers or highly paid corporate test subjects. It was a sterile, perfectly organized accounting of the desperate. Sector 300 debt-defaulters. Starving kids caught stealing water rations from the upper rings. Sick refugees the P.A.C.I.F.I.C. algorithm determined possessed a ’Negative Societal Value.’
The terminal listed their supposed crimes right next to their surgical prep instructions.
Subject 0092. Crime: Tampering with a corporate water line. Sentence: Asset Forfeiture. Biological Input: Class IV Demonic Appendage.
Cruel, automated System prompts dotted the corporate transaction logs at the end of every failed experiment.
[Asset Liquidation Complete. Biomass Recycled.]
"They kept receipts on everyone they took," Will stated.
Don stepped down from the catwalk stairs. The marksman checked the tension on his crossbow string. "Corporations never lose track of inventory. Pull up the final batch."
Elizabeth typed a quick command. The amber text blurred and reorganized into a new grid.
"Batch 88," Will read the header. "Three hundred names. Zero survivors."
Maya walked up beside Don. The pristine carbon-weave harness she had looted adjusted to her posture with a soft pneumatic hiss. She stared at the screen. "Check the Sector tags. Where did they pull Batch 88 from?"
Elizabeth highlighted the location column. "The Friction Ward. Two days before we dropped into the Silo."
Maya’s hand drifted up to the carbon-weave strap on her chest. "Two days ago," she repeated, her voice dead flat. "While we were fighting over shipping crates on the surface, they were down here gutting my neighbors."
Maya pointed a trembling finger at a name three lines down the screen. "Subject 0112. That’s Elias. He ran the only working water purifier out of a rusted van behind my block. Subject 0115 is Sarah. She traded scavenged antibiotics for ration cards." Maya’s hand gripped the high-tech carbon-weave plating of her stolen armor. "They didn’t just take random bodies. They took the infrastructure. They intentionally crippled our neighborhood before they even started the harvest."
Elizabeth hit the page-down key to scroll past the massive casualty list. Her finger slipped on a patch of wet blood.
She hit the wrong key.
The text vanished entirely. An attached video file auto-played. freewēbnoveℓ.com
Black and white security footage jumped erratically on the screen. The camera angle showed the primary operating theater located exactly ten feet behind Will’s back.
A teenager lay strapped to the heavy iron table Will had just kicked over.
The kid was screaming. He fought the heavy industrial restraints with frantic, desperate energy. Thick metal cuffs dug deeply into his wrists, tearing the skin. The terminal’s blown-out speakers hissed with static. The awful, high-pitched mechanical whine of an industrial bone-drill filled the Red Room, cutting right through the kid’s muffled screaming.
Three men in pristine white P.A.C.I.F.I.C. hazard suits stood around the table. They did not act like cartoon villains. They did not laugh or revel in the torture. They acted exactly like bored shift workers dealing with a tedious maintenance issue on a Tuesday afternoon.
One of the scientists casually checked his watch. He tapped the glass face and said something to his partner.
The second man held the heavy drill. He tapped the side of the metal housing because the massive bit was jamming. He completely ignored the screaming teenager thrashing directly beneath the rusted bit. He adjusted a dial on the battery pack. He checked the torque setting. He lowered the spinning metal straight toward the kid’s exposed spine.
Will didn’t process the grief. He didn’t think about the timeline. He just wanted the mechanical whine of the bone-drill to stop, and his fist was the fastest blunt instrument available.
He did not say a single word.
Will drove his armored fist straight through the center of the glass monitor.
The heavy screen violently exploded inward. Thick shards of curved glass and jagged plastic shredded the keyboard. The harsh green light died instantly.
A sudden shower of bright electrical sparks rained down over the bloody desk. The exposed wiring hissed aggressively in the stagnant fluid pooling on the metal surface.
Will pulled his hand out of the ruined, smoking machinery. He turned his back on the desk without looking at the shattered glass.
