The secondary research site was buried in the countryside near Cheongju.
It looked like agricultural research from the surface — legitimate license, registered personnel, unremarkable presence in the local community. Beneath it, three levels of reinforced construction housed experiments that Director Morrow preferred to keep separate from the main operation.
Raze approached through the network tunnels, emerging half a kilometer from the site and proceeding on foot. His dimensional abilities would only be used inside — minimal mana signature until he was within the target, to reduce detection risk.
The facility's surface security was minimal. Two guards at the main entrance, automated monitoring on the perimeter. Nothing that suggested the horrors hidden below.
He phased through the foundation at 2 AM, emerging in a storage level that smelled of chemicals and something else. Something organic. Something that had been alive recently and wasn't anymore.
The lower levels were laid out for containment rather than research. Cells designed for humanoid occupants, observation stations with one-way glass, equipment Raze recognized from the main Daejeon facility's documentation.
Testing areas. Where artificial aberrants were evaluated against controlled subjects.
He found the active trial on level three.
---
The observation chamber overlooked a combat arena — a contained space where two figures circled each other with predatory attention.
One was clearly artificial. The mana signature was wrong, engineered rather than evolved. Its body was humanoid but optimized, proportions designed for efficiency rather than natural development. It moved with mechanical precision, every action calculated.
The other was an aberrant. Natural development, wild signature, clearly captured rather than created. A Devour type, if Raze's senses were accurate — one of his kind that had been harvested for the replication program.
The trial was testing combat performance. Artificial against natural. Engineering against evolution.
Raze watched, cataloging what he observed.
The artificial aberrant was fast. Strong. Capable of abilities that should have required multiple cores to develop. The replication process had combined traits from multiple subjects, creating a hybrid that exceeded any single source.
But it lacked something.
The natural aberrant fought with desperation, with fear, with the survival instinct that came from truly valuing its own existence. The artificial fought with purpose but no passion — executing optimal strategies without the adaptive creativity that real combat demanded.
When the natural aberrant found an opening, it exploited with viciousness that no programming could replicate. The artificial was damaged, forced to retreat, struggling to compensate for attacks it hadn't predicted.
The researchers observing from the control room made notes, adjusting parameters, preparing for the next iteration.
"Subject 7 shows improved tactical response," one said. "But the improvisation gap remains. Natural aberrants adapt faster than our programming allows."
"Increase Subject 7's consumption allowance. More source material should improve flexibility."
"That risks destabilization. The previous subjects who exceeded consumption thresholds became..." The researcher searched for the word. "Uncontrollable."
"Better uncontrollable in a test environment than uncontrollable in field deployment. Push the parameters."
The conversation confirmed The Alpha's concerns. The replication program was producing capable artificial aberrants, but they couldn't match the adaptability of natural evolution. Director Morrow's army would be strong, but predictable.
Useful intelligence.
---
Raze spent two hours observing different trials.
Strength tests. Speed assessments. Ability integration evaluations. Each one showed the same pattern — artificial aberrants that were powerful but limited, engineered to specific functions rather than the flexible development that natural consumption produced.
The subjects used as test opposition were less fortunate. Most didn't survive the trials. Those who did were returned to their cells, patched up enough to participate in the next round.
The hunger noted the cores that kept forming from fallen subjects. Raze ignored it. He was here for intelligence, not feeding.
The final trial he observed was different.
Two natural aberrants, pitted against each other. Both Devour types. Both desperate. Both being forced to fight for entertainment or experimentation or whatever the researchers called it.
The winner would probably be harvested anyway. The loser would simply die faster.
Raze's grip tightened on the observation window's frame. The cruelty wasn't surprising — he'd known what the replication program did to subjects. But seeing it directly, watching people like him forced to destroy each other for the benefit of their captors...
The hunger stirred with something that wasn't appetite. Something closer to recognition. Kinship with the beings fighting below.
*They are kin. They suffer as we might have suffered.*
"I know."
*We could help. End this trial. Free them.*
"And expose my presence. Lose the intelligence I've gathered."
*Intelligence that will be used to save some while others die in facilities like this.*
The hunger had a point. The moral calculus of observation versus intervention was never clean. Every moment he watched, aberrants suffered. Every rescue attempt risked everything.
He chose to continue observing. The strategic value of the intelligence outweighed the immediate cost of inaction.
But the choice left a mark he'd carry afterward.
---
Extraction was clean.
Raze gathered his observations, documented what he'd seen, and phased out through the same route he'd entered. No alarms triggered. No detection. Perfect operation from an intelligence standpoint.
The Alpha received his report with satisfaction.
"This is valuable. The replication program's weaknesses are significant — their artificial aberrants can't match natural development in adaptability or creative response. That's an advantage we can exploit."
"They're also pushing the limits of consumption. Trying to make their subjects more flexible by increasing the cores they integrate."
"Which will produce instability. Uncontrollable artificial aberrants that turn on their creators." The Alpha's smile was cold. "We can accelerate that outcome. Create opportunities for destabilization."
"Sabotage."
"Encouragement of natural consequences. The same impulse that makes natural aberrants effective makes artificial ones dangerous. They just need sufficient stimulus."
The strategy made sense. But Raze's mind kept returning to the trials he'd witnessed. The natural aberrants forced to fight each other. The subjects harvested for parts they didn't choose to give.
"Can we rescue them? The subjects still alive in the facility?"
"Eventually. The priority is intelligence, then disruption, then rescue." The Alpha studied him. "Your attachment to other aberrants is admirable but inefficient. We save the community by undermining the program, not by risking our assets on individual extractions."
Cold logic. Correct logic, probably.
But it tasted like ash in his mouth.
---
Kira found him afterward, processing what he'd seen.
"The observation went well?"
"Perfectly. Intelligence gathered, no detection, strategic value confirmed." Raze's voice was flat. "I watched aberrants die in trials while I hid in observation chambers taking notes."
"That was the mission."
"The mission was correct. That doesn't make it feel right."
"Feeling right isn't the same as being right." Kira sat beside him. "You're carrying guilt from Daegu. You want to compensate by saving everyone you can. But that's not possible — not practically, not strategically."
"I know."
"Knowing isn't the same as accepting." She put a hand on his arm. "You're still human enough to be bothered by the cost of survival. That's not weakness. That's what separates us from the monsters we're fighting."
"Fifty-two percent Human Purity. How much longer can I claim that separation?"
"As long as you keep making choices. As long as you care about the consequences." Kira's grip tightened. "The number is just measurement. The person is what matters."
He wanted to believe her. Wanted to believe that humanity was more than a percentage, more than a threshold that kept creeping lower.
But every mission, every observation, every compromise pushed him further from the person he'd been before his first core.
At some point, the distance would become impossible to cross.
He just didn't know when that point would arrive.
