Reincarnated as the Final Villain's Vessel

Chapter 243: Lifeweaver Serum

"Corrupted?" My voice and Alicia’s echoed at the same time, but this wasn’t the time to focus on things like that.

Mary exchanged looks with both of us before she fixed her gray eyes on me, her hand was in the pocket of her white coat, standing in front of me with none of the joking left.

"You know, Caius, Fusion means a fundamental change in the body, not just the flexibility and the toughness but even the needs like water and food become less important... and like I explained before you’re following the right approach to reach that... but—"

She stopped for a moment, studying me from the bottom up. "But that isn’t possible for you."

Those words were like cold water thrown on me all at once... for a moment my breathing stopped as I opened my mouth to object. "How—"

"I know this is hard on you, but let me finish," the old woman cut me off.

With an unfamiliar weight in my chest I closed my mouth... I had no choice but to listen.

And she didn’t leave me waiting. "Like I said at the start, your body is corrupted... completely."

She gave a sideways glance at Alicia, who was leaning forward, before she went on. "Every cell and every tissue big or small... even your bones and what’s inside them... all of it is one serious mistake."

She stepped back and sat across from me, hesitating over whether she’d speak or not. "You might think I’m exaggerating but—"

She stopped for a few moments but I pushed her to keep going. "But what?"

The old woman let out a breath. "You’re not supposed to be alive... or at least you’re not supposed to last long, maybe a few more years and your condition will start deteriorating."

I opened my mouth again but Mary got ahead of me. "Of course that’s if you stay in this state."

"I don’t get it... I was fine, I’m always fine... so why?" I muttered without meaning to.

"So you can treat him?" Alicia’s tone sounded faster than usual.

Mary laced her wrinkled hands together between her knees. "I can’t answer that directly, at least not a full recovery."

"You have to understand the problem isn’t like a missing limb, or even one of his main organs... all of that is very easy to heal with my ability or even for any other healer... but with your body it looks like you were injected with dozens of unknown substances that merged together and became a part of you."

I clenched my jaw without meaning to until I almost heard my teeth cracking.

"With every injury you heal from, whether by your regeneration or from an outside source, all of it is built from your cells, and every time those serums blended into you until they became a part of you."

"Then at some point, your body will start collapsing in on itself... exactly like now."

I stared at my palm... how many times had I regenerated, how many times had I been injured, not since I joined the Axis, but much older than that.

They were countless... hundreds or thousands?

Mary leaned back on the couch. "I don’t know what you’ve lived through, so I can’t understand how you got into this state, but obviously it was years of continuous injections from an early age."

At that moment I don’t know if I should be impressed by her ability to work out my past so precisely, or if I should laugh at my damn self.

I clenched my fist until my knuckles turned white, and Mary’s calm, medical words crept into my ears in a question I never expected to be asked... I thought I’d gotten past that a long time ago.

"So Caius, from your reaction I see that I’m right. I just need you to tell me... what exactly were you injected with?"

I raised my head, my eyes meeting hers, and I answered honestly. "I don’t know."

How the hell would I know what exactly they were putting in my body... maybe monster blood, human... I don’t know.

"Well, that’s a problem," Mary muttered.

"Can you fix this somehow?" I asked.

The old woman nodded, answering in that detailed medical tone. "Like I said there’s no specific answer,... I can try with everything I have and get to a good result and remove any risks to your life or future complications... but that will take a lot of time."

I couldn’t help but ask grimly, "How much time?"

"It’ll be a gradual process that needs a lot of sessions with me... maybe a year or more."

"A year?!..." The word escaped my mouth as I felt my stomach turn.

"Aren’t there any items or substances that could treat him?" Alicia asked with her elbow on her knee, leaning forward, letting her white hair block her face from me.

Mary crossed one leg over the other. "I told you, little one, there are hundreds of items that carry those healing abilities, but nothing useful... his condition is more complicated than what I’m describing here."

She looked at me. "A year seems like way too much for you... I don’t know why you put in all that effort you talked about, I’d rather not get into your privacy."

"But Caius, maybe it’s time you took a break." Her medical tone changed and became warmer, like an old mother giving advice to a small child.

"Hehe..." I found myself letting out a short laugh without meaning to, which made both women look at me with surprised faces.

A break... a year or more with uncertain results... no matter how I thought about it this was really funny.

I mean what’s the point now of all the running I’ve done since I escaped... I killed the ones I spent years with in the lab in cold blood.

I trained day and night, slaughtered every monster I came across in Ancient Earth and almost died several times and taken the others with me.

For a month and a half I tore my body apart without rest and pushed to the furthest limits.

And now... a long break?

How funny... or maybe not.

Mary’s hands landed on my shoulders again, her voice coming from behind me... I don’t know when she got there. "Let me look again, maybe I judged this wrong." It was obvious she wasn’t convinced by what she said.

While that warm feeling came back, I couldn’t help but think about all those experiments I went through... when I slowly started gaining the ability to regenerate.

"You might feel some pain." The moment she said that my body stung from the inside like something wanted to get out of my veins but with no use.

Alicia blinked at me, her beautiful crimson eyes glimmering with something... it looked like pity?... sympathy?

I don’t know... but it made me angry!

In the end Mary took her hand away and the pain faded, at the same time Alicia spoke like she was trying to make sure one last time. "Are you sure there’s no item that can treat his condition?"

The old woman came forward from behind me. "You know, my lady, that I know almost everything in this field... but of course I’ll ask some friends from far away."

...

In the end we left the old woman Mary and went... she said she’d keep Alicia updated on anything new, and on her plan for me.

That day I felt like every breath I took was threatening to literally make me explode... I didn’t want to talk or see anything or even think.

So all I did was sit in silence and alone until the next day... it was the first time I’d done that.

But isolation and silence weren’t useful things in the end.

"So?" And even after a whole day I couldn’t hide the frustration and the anger in my voice as I asked Alicia, sitting behind her desk.

And even though Alicia hadn’t called me or anything, I came back to her now, hoping that old woman had found something like she said she’d try.

At that moment hope was like sweet poison to me.

No matter how I thought about it this was stupid, really stupid... how the hell was this happening to me?

I knew the experiments they ran on us weren’t something safe or good... hundreds died from them after all, each one in a different agony.

But whoever survived among us became stronger... and even though I was the only one who could regenerate and got something useful out of them, the others were fine too.

At least until I killed them... and I was fine too until recently, and it turns out I’m dying slowly, and my body is corrupted to the marrow with everything that was injected inside me... and now?

And now here I am facing the fallout from this, my body refuses to achieve Fusion, and the more effort I put in and the more I endure the worse things will get for me.

Taking a break for a year, which could turn into forever, wasn’t an option for me... so I need to use everything I have.

And I didn’t have much... maybe just the person in front of me.

"First I want you to know that Mary is one of the best healers in the world, and she’s a very precise person." Alicia leaned her elbows on the surface of the desk, her crimson eyes fixed on my face.

And even though I was in no mood for these introductions, which were strange for her usual character, I didn’t cut her off.

"Unfortunately, she didn’t find any quick treatment for your condition." I tightened my jaw as I felt my chest closing in.

"But she said that with time she’ll be able to treat you, which removes the future dangers from you... then you can advance to Rank 4."

"Time?" The word left my mouth in an indescribable growl, which silenced Alicia.

"You of all people know I don’t have time, I barely escaped from them, erased the evidence behind me, and now I’ve slipped through their fingers again!... if there’s one thing I learned from everything that happened to me, it’s that I’m very weak."

"That’s why I’m trying with everything I have... I’m not like you, Alicia, I can’t do anything when someone shows up in front of me and takes me, or when a Great monster comes out of the mist, all I can do is try to run... and I’m sure that won’t work."

Alicia blinked calmly, listening to my anger with a frown, that’s when I realized I was literally screaming at her.

I let out a long breath. "I’m sorry."

Her crimson eyes dimmed a little. "I understand, but rushing isn’t always the answer... sometimes you have to relax and let things take their course, instead of trying to fight everything by force."

For a moment I was going to say that she of all people was saying that, but I closed my mouth in the end... she was right.

She glanced at the phone on the desk before she came back to me. "There’s also something else... I didn’t want to lift your spirits for no reason until I made sure of it, but it’s better that you know."

My ears twitched at hearing that, while she went on. "Mary said there’s something that could help you... the Lifeweaver Serum."

I didn’t know this name. "Is it a monster?"

She nodded. "Yes, a Great one."

I stiffened in my place, I couldn’t even imagine how I’d deal with that... but before I could think about anything, Alicia was already going on.

"The problem is that it was killed seventy years ago by the Luminar Empire, at that time its serum was like a miracle, so taking advantage of that Luminar sold it and traded with it, and over the years the serum ran out and disappeared without a trace."

I closed my eyes for a few seconds before I opened them. "So it doesn’t exist?"

Alicia’s expression softened a little. "Right, in Solaria and the rest of the world... but the Imperial family in Luminar will have kept some of it until now."

"I don’t think buying it is possible."

She nodded, agreeing with what I said. "Yeah, in the past years they’ve refused to sell a single drop of it no matter the price, but you have a chance to get it another way."

"How?" My voice came out full of urgency.

"The Game of Kings... even though there’s one host, it’s carried out by the four Empires together, and so will the prizes."

This event again?

"But what if Luminar doesn’t offer it as a prize?"

Alicia tapped her finger on the desk. "That’s fine... the winner can change the prize and demand something else from any of the four Empires as long as it’s within reason of course."

So Ivan wasn’t exaggerating when he said the prizes make the rich drool, I looked out the open window for a few moments.

"So I need to take part and win... but what about Medirin?" The meaning of my question was clear.

"It’ll be impossible for someone like her to show up there, under the eyes of so many Kings.... and I’ll be there too, and in any other case you can use what I gave you."

My eyes moved away from the window and landed on her beautiful face on the other side of the desk, at least now there’s something to work on, instead of sitting and waiting.

Winning the coming event... well, this reminds me again of those novels I used to read on Earth.

I let out a long breath as I stood up, I looked at Alicia... honestly I was more grateful than ever.

She didn’t have a real reason to go to all this trouble to help me... but she always did, especially recently.

I smiled at her honestly. "Thank you, really... in the end I’m not the only one who’s changing, right?"

She tilted her head in confusion, her hair falling to the side. "What do you mean?"

I almost laughed. "I mean, you look a lot better than the first time we met."