Chapter 11: A Blade Drawn At Dusk

“Mentos, you’re too slow!”

Lannor showed no surprise at the voice in his head. That calm, neutral tone belonged to the AI that had kept him alive in this brutal world. Without it, he dared not imagine how a regular university student like him could have survived more than three days in a land that devoured flesh and left nothing but bones.

“Feedback has been fully recorded.

Please be advised: the item under analysis is an artifact of extraordinary sophistication, demonstrating advanced integration of both biotechnology and unknown technologies.

Given your current knowledge level and my present processing capacity, completing the analysis within this timeframe was not entirely within expected parameters.

A degree of favorable variance was involved.”

The voice was steady, measured, precise—something out of a modern fantasy, reminiscent of Iron Man’s J.A.R.V.I.S. Lannor admitted that was one reason he had named it Mentos.

He remained seated in the mud soaked with blood. Reaching into his padded armor, his fingers closed around a cylindrical glass-like vial, the size of a soda can. His blood-caked fingers traced the smooth surface. The container looked fragile, but Lannor had long since realized it was a high-strength material mimicking glass. If a Nekker’s claw had scraped it during the fight, only the claw would have been damaged.

The contrast between the technologically advanced container and the ornate metallic ends was striking—Lannor could not define the style, but if pressed, he would have called it Gothic. Intricate incantations were etched into the metal in elaborate, noble script.

Yet the most important thing was what the vial held.

Inside rested a small pulsing mass, its surface showing visible veins and constricting movements. It looked like a biochemical experiment, slimy and grotesque as exposed innards, yet in the context of the ornate, high-tech casing, it gained a strange, almost sacred gravity—as if a Holy Crown had been placed atop a monstrous alien statue, candles burning in a perfect circle around it.