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The refrigeration units hummed a corrupted hymn, their vibrations resonating with the black tendrils now snaking beneath Chen Mu's skin. He stared at drawer C-14, its steel surface fogged with condensation that reeked of ionized blood and burnt chrysanthemums—funeral flowers the hospital had stopped ordering after the Spore Primordial's awakening. Three days since the docks massacre, yet the phantom weight of disintegrating hybrids still clung to his Soulforged Hand. The drawer clicked open on its own, releasing a swarm of cobalt beetles. Their wings shimmered with fragments of Chen's stolen memories: *Mother's dumpling steamers, Voss's scar pulsing like a live wire, the Jester's laughter echoing through Melbourne's sewers.*
"Welcome to the autopsy of your soul," buzzed the Jester's voice through a thousand insectoid throats.
Chen's flames ignited, blue fire casting shadows that made the walls bleed black ichor. The corpse inside had no organs—its chest cavity housed a miniature Melbourne sculpted from calcified arteries. Blackmoor's central tower pulsed with spore clusters that throbbed in time with Chen's corrupted heartbeat. The cadaver's eyes ruptured, releasing more beetles that swarmed into a holographic face: half Peking opera mask, half smeared greasepaint, with fractal patterns spiraling across its porcelain cheeks.
**
**Memory Integrity: 94.7% → 93.2%**
**Neural Purge Recommended (72% Success Rate)**
The refrigeration rows detonated in sequence. Thirty-seven corpses sat up, fungal filaments sprouting from their temples in I-Ching hexagrams. Their throats vibrated a corrupted Transmigration Sutra, each syllable warping the air into carcinogenic mist. Chen's boot slipped on liquefying tiles as the floor dissolved into memory quicksand—visions of his mother's car crash overlapping with Blackmoor lab reports stamped *"Subject EX-087: Memory Reset #666."* A reanimated janitor lunged, ribcage unfolding into a birdcage of blue-fire butterflies. Chen's Soulforged Hand pierced its chest, absorbing *Cryogenic Stasis (Tier-2)* even as his right fingertips began crystallizing.
---
"Delicious irony, isn't it?" The Jester materialized atop a melting autopsy table, his patchwork robes stitched from SS uniforms and Qing dynasty silk. The stench of burnt incense and ozone clung to him as he juggled three phoenix coins, their cracks leaking antediluvian light. "This mortuary's freezer tech came straight from Auschwitz. The screams of Jewish souls power the compressors. Your precious *ethics* never noticed, did they?"
Chen's ink-charmed threads wove a Bagua formation mid-air, but the symbols corroded into neurotoxin vapor under the Jester's laughing gas. The corpses evolved—flesh grafting to forklift parts, attack patterns mirroring forbidden Luo River Diagram algorithms. A nurse's mutated claw grazed his shoulder, injecting Spore Primordial DNA that made his vision kaleidoscope into dead galaxies.
**
**23:17:12 - Left Shoulder Contaminated**
**Primordial Assimilation: 0.3%**
In the chaos, Chen glimpsed the Jester's truth—a quantum chip embedded in his skull, spinal column built from movable-type printing blocks engraved with *Tao Te Ching* verses. The chip's timestamp glowed: **2024.7.7**, the Primordial's prophesied "Judgment Day." The Jester's porcelain mask cracked, revealing compound eyes that reflected Chen's own face twisted with starless void.
"Surprised?" The Jester's finger elongated into a scalpel of solidified paradox, plunging into Chen's chest. "We're both chosen ones. I just…" Black blood bubbled from his grin. "...preferred honesty."
---
Chen's phoenix coin flared. Time fractured.
Eleven seconds of frozen reality revealed the morgue's hidden undercroft—888 coffins arranged in a mandala, each labeled with Mystic Bureau agent IDs. At the center lay Chen's clone in a crystal casket, forehead branded with Night Owl's sigil. The display read:
**Project EX-087**
**Status: Soulforge Prototype**
**Memory Wipes: 666**
The Jester's biomechanical arm tore through Chen's lung, cables snaking toward his heart. "You thought the Soulforged Hand was a gift? It's your own prison code, written across infinite reboots."
**
**Firewall Breached**
**Backup Personality #888 Activated**
Chen's left eye burned gold. As consciousness faded, he detonated the phoenix coin—its cracks leaking primordial antimatter. The explosion birthed a miniature supernova, incinerating corpses and scattering the Jester's limbs like broken puppets.
---
Chen crawled from the ashes, clutching a new weapon—the *NecroPestle*, its shaft forged from elder god bone. The Jester's torso twitched in the rubble, his internal countdown flashing: **7D:7H:7M**.
Voss' hologram flickered to life, her neck now branded with Spore Primordial runes. "Chen, every mortuary's gone rogue—" She froze. "Your eye…"
In a blood puddle's reflection, Chen saw it—his right iris human brown, the left a reptilian gold slit. The NecroPestle hummed with hunger, its tip carving reality itself into weeping fissures. Crimson text scrolled across his retina:
**
**A. Devour Jester → Ascend**
**B. Purge Primordial → Terminate**
Beyond shattered windows, Blackmoor's towers mutated—spires curving into Cthulhuic talons that tore through the skyline. The Spore Primordial's laughter vibrated through sewage grates, harmonizing with the NecroPestle's primordial hymn.
Chen tightened his grip on the pulsating weapon. Somewhere beneath the city, something ancient and ravenous stirred—and this time, he laughed with it.
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