Chapter 133: Worse Than Death (Patreon)

"You can choose to endure the most extreme pain, in pursuit of a power ceiling no one else can reach."

"Or you can choose safety and ease, and accept an ordinary, unremarkable ceiling of combat strength. Whatever you choose, it's your own decision. Whatever the outcome, good or bad, don't blame anyone else for it."

Alex's words were gentle but firm, his tone carefully neutral throughout.

Out of a sense of responsibility, he laid out every advantage, risk, and consequence in plain terms.

All he could promise was that Genos wouldn't be deliberately deceived or forced into the experiment against his will.

As for the final choice, it had never once crossed his mind to make that decision for the boy.

Whether the road ahead proved bitter or sweet, purgatory or plain sailing, Genos would have to walk it himself and bear the weight of it alone.

When Genos finished listening to Alex's warning, he slowly lowered his head.

Eyes downcast, fingertips curling tight, his mind raced, torn back and forth between the two paths.

After a brief silence, he snapped his head back up. The hesitation and confusion in his eyes were gone, replaced by a blaze of absolute resolve.

Hatred, obsession, and the hunger for power had finally overwhelmed his fear of pain.

"I've decided."

"I'll undergo the Immortality Series experiment."

Genos's voice wasn't loud, but it was unshakably firm, without a trace of wavering.

Not a flicker of surprise crossed Alex's face.

He'd read the answer in Genos's eyes the moment that spark of decision first appeared, and had already expected this outcome.

A boy carrying the weight of his family's slaughter would never settle for mediocrity — still less for standing helpless before his enemies.

"Since you've made up your mind, from here on you'll work with Dr. Genus and cooperate fully with the experiment."

Alex looked at him, his tone turning serious as he issued one more warning.

"I don't need to spell it out — you already know this experiment's suffering will go far beyond anything you can imagine."

"You'll endure torments beyond anything the world's cruelest punishments could match — every trial grinding down both flesh and will alike."

"Pain no ordinary person could withstand — you'll have to grit your teeth and endure every bit of it alone."

"But you can rest easy on one count — Dr. Genus has a dedicated regenerative serum on hand here."

"Even if you're gravely wounded, at death's door, even if your body is torn to ruin, the serum can force you back to life and restore you to perfect condition."

"In other words, what you're about to face is an endless purgatory where death itself is denied you, and living is worse than dying."

Alex laid out every brutal detail deliberately, one by one, putting the worst-case outcome bluntly in front of Genos.

He watched the boy's face closely, searching for any sign of hesitation, any crack in his resolve.

Genos's cheeks paled slightly, and a flicker of unmistakable fear surfaced in his eyes.

Burning by fire, freezing by cold, dissolving in acid, being sliced apart, being eaten alive... just hearing the words was enough to make anyone's scalp crawl and blood run cold.

Yet even with fear rising in him, his spine stayed straight, the resolve in his eyes undimmed, without a hint of backing down.

He forced down a dry swallow, his throat bobbing, his voice trembling faintly with nerves — yet every word rang out firm.

"I— I understand! No matter how much it hurts, I won't back down!"

Beside them, Dr. Genus spoke up mildly at that, his tone flat but carrying a note of quiet finality — and a faint undertone of a scheme that had just paid off.

"Even if you wanted to back out now, it's too late."

"Now that you've made your decision in front of witnesses, even if you have second thoughts later, there's no dropping out halfway."

Alex gave a small shrug, a trace of helplessness in his eyes, as if to say: I've already warned him everything there was to warn — the consequences are his to bear now.

"Since the choice is made, then let's begin the experiment right away."

Dr. Genus pushed up his glasses, brisk and decisive, wasting not a moment.

"Right now?!" Genos's eyes went wide with shock, and he froze on the spot.

He'd braced himself mentally, but hadn't expected the experiment to start so abruptly, without even a moment's grace.

"Of course," Dr. Genus said, as if it were self-evident, not breaking stride as he walked straight toward the depths of the lab.

"Every single minute of this experiment is precious — there's no time to waste."

"The sooner the experiment is finished and the power locked in, the more composure and the better odds you'll have when you face powerful Mysterious Beings in the future."

The moment he finished speaking, he reached out and grabbed Genos, who was still frozen in place, and strode deeper into the lab.

"Sir... I..." Genos turned instinctively to look at Alex, his eyes full of tension and unease.

At the end of the day, he was still just a teenage boy. No matter how firm his resolve, suddenly facing unknown, extreme pain was bound to stir fear in him.

Seeing this, Alex gave a faint smile and softened his tone to reassure him.

"It's all right. I'll go in and watch with you."

With that, he fell into step behind the other two, following them into the sealed testing area.

With Alex there watching beside him, the tension in Genos eased just slightly, giving him a faint thread of courage.

But Alex knew perfectly well that Dr. Genus's experiments were never gentle.

Once this obsessive doctor started an experiment, all he saw was data and results — no room for sentiment, no room for mercy.

Sure enough, the moment they stepped into the testing chamber, Dr. Genus cranked the intensity straight to maximum, with none of the gentle, gradual buildup he'd promised.

"No need to be nervous — the early tests won't be too extreme."

Dr. Genus said soothingly, his tone flat, as he adjusted the precision instruments beside him.

"First I need to get a full baseline reading of your body — your physical tolerance limits. After that, I'll raise the difficulty step by step based on the data."

It sounded mild and reasonable, as if it were nothing more than an ordinary physical checkup — nothing dangerous at all.

Genos's tense nerves relaxed completely, and he let out a small breath of relief.

But the instant he got a clear look at the equipment Dr. Genus had prepped, he froze in stunned disbelief, cold sweat breaking out across his back.

A cold, massive hydraulic press stood at the center of the testing platform, its whole surface gleaming with a chilling metallic sheen, radiating pressure the moment you looked at it.

"Come here, and put your hand under the press."

Dr. Genus pointed at the machine, his voice giving the order calmly, without the slightest ripple of emotion.

Alex raised a hand to his forehead at the sight, at a complete loss for words.

He'd known all along Dr. Genus was never going to run some mild, routine test — the man never played by conventional rules.

Genos turned instinctively toward Alex, his eyes full of a plea for help and helplessness.

Alex shook his head slightly, his eyes signaling that Genos shouldn't look to him — this was something he had to face alone.

Every risk worth mentioning, every consequence worth warning about, he'd already laid out in full. Now that Genos had made his choice, Alex wouldn't interfere even a little.

"What are you standing there for? Have you forgotten the hatred in your heart, forgotten your family who died so horribly?"

Seeing that he still hadn't moved, Dr. Genus pressed him in a low voice, striking precisely at Genos's weak point.

Driven by hatred and obsession, Genos gritted his teeth, clenched his trembling fists, and shuffled reluctantly toward the press.

He drew a deep breath of cold air, closed his eyes for a moment, and finally, slowly, reached out his right hand and laid his palm flat on the press's loading plate.

Hummm— A low mechanical growl suddenly rose, and the cold press began to descend.

The pressure built up bit by bit, growing steadily, shifting swiftly from a faint soreness into bone-deep, searing pain.

Within mere seconds, a shrill scream tore out of Genos's throat, echoing through the sealed lab.

Dr. Genus paid it no mind at all, his expression calm to the point of coldness, his focus locked on the readings flickering across the screen.

He recorded each stage methodically — from the crushing damage to soft tissue, to bone fractures and displacement, to the bones being pulverized.

Finally, he logged the entire process in clear detail, right down to the moment the whole hand was ground into pulp — every set of data precise and exact.

Agony ripped through his whole body. Genos shook violently, tears and mucus streaming down his face, cold sweat soaking through every stitch of his clothes.

He looked as if he'd just been fished out of cold water, drenched from head to toe, his face bone-white, his body wracked with uncontrollable spasms.

Even so, Dr. Genus remained utterly unmoved, and issued the next order in an icy tone.

"Take the regenerative serum out of your chest pocket and drink it."

Alex stood quietly to the side watching, the corner of his mouth twitching faintly, shaken to his core.

Watching an intact hand get ground to a pulp right in front of him — even someone like Alex found the sight bone-chilling.

He felt genuine admiration for the sheer grit and resilience buried in Genos's bones, and understood in that instant why this boy had become a central character in the original story.

This kind of willpower and endurance, far beyond an ordinary person's, was something most people could never reach in an entire lifetime.

At the very least, Alex had to admit to himself that he could never endure torment this extreme.

This wasn't a sudden injury that ended in an instant — it was pain inflicted layer upon layer, slow and deliberate, like death by a thousand cuts.

Every increase in pressure, every fracture, transmitted clearly to the nerve endings, letting him feel the entire process of his body breaking down.

And after each round of crushing, the press would lift, waiting for Dr. Genus to finish taking CT scans and confirming all the data before starting the next, even stronger round.

Enduring this kind of suffering willingly, over and over — it rivaled the most extreme self-harm cases people posted online, a mental fortitude and sheer will that beggared belief.

When the agony finally faded, Genos went limp, half-collapsed on the cold metal floor.

The once-spotless metal floor was already stained red with warm blood, streaks of it smeared everywhere, a gruesome sight.

His whole body ached, drained of strength, even his fingertips trembling faintly, as he struggled to raise a hand and grope for the serum at his chest.

His shaking fingers closed around the vial. With great effort he pried off the cap and drank the pale-blue serum down in one gulp.

The moment it went down his throat, it turned into a wave of warm energy sweeping through his body, and a remarkable change began at once.

The mangled flesh left smeared on the press's plate, and the bare stump of his wrist, began sprouting fresh new tissue at a furious rate.

The regeneration was astonishingly fast, visible to the naked eye.

In mere seconds, the shattered bones, ruptured vessels, and torn flesh were all restored.

A brand-new hand, whole and as nimble as ever, reappeared on the end of Genos's wrist.

After a brief moment of shock, Dr. Genus gave Genos not a second to catch his breath before issuing his next order in a cold voice.

"Get up right now. The experiment continues — next we need to test the limits of your legs."

In Dr. Genus's eyes, Genos at this moment barely counted as a living person — just a superior test vessel that happened to breathe and scream.

Alex watched the whole thing unfold, watching Genos, under Dr. Genus's merciless orders, endure extreme physical crushing tests one after another — hands, arms, legs, in turn.

Thanks to the regenerative serum's absurd restorative power, within just a few hours Genos had become like a rag doll, handled and broken over and over again at will.

Every bone, tendon, and inch of flesh on him shattered and regrew again and again, until he was utterly drained, without even the strength left to lift a hand.

An ordinary person couldn't even begin to imagine the hellish torment he'd endured in those few short hours.

In just a few hours, every inch of Genos's limbs, torso, flesh, and bone had been thoroughly crushed and destroyed, at least once over.

It wasn't only his limbs and torso — even his skull, the most fragile part of him, was completely shattered during the experiment, then rebuilt and healed by the serum.

This regenerative serum was near-perfect — its only drawbacks were a limited duration of effect and the massive energy replenishment it required afterward.

In every other respect, it matched exactly what Dr. Genus envisioned as the ultimate product of the Immortality Series.

It was precisely because of this that Genos had been able to survive every extreme trial of torture, swallowing every ounce of pain whole.

Dr. Genus gave him no rest, no buffer at all — the instant Genos collapsed from exhaustion, he immediately had clones step in.

The expressionless clones hauled Genos's limp body upright, pinning him in place, cooperating to carry the next stage of the experiment forward.

After the brutal crushing tests came a whole procession of extreme torments — searing by fire, freezing by extreme cold, dissolving by corrosive acid, repeated cutting by blades, and more.

Dr. Genus's earlier reassurance that "the early tests wouldn't be too extreme" now looked like the bitterest irony — an outright lie.

He didn't treat Genos as human in the slightest — while the serum's effects still held, he seemed determined to cram in every extreme experiment he could possibly run on the boy.

In the cold, dark lab, there was nothing but the hum of machinery and the boy's stifled groans and screams, cycling over and over, never letting up.

Watching the brutal scene before him, Alex turned to Dr. Genus beside him and spoke slowly.

"Looks like you're planning to run him through this all night, without a moment's rest."

Dr. Genus pushed up his glinting glasses, his expression cool, his tone perfectly even.

"No, I'll let him rest."

"If I ran him through twenty-four straight hours of high-intensity trials, his mental defenses would almost certainly collapse completely."

"And even if that gave me a test subject with flawless data, you wouldn't approve of my methods, would you?"

Alex raised an eyebrow and said, "Fair enough — but you could easily strip out his pain nerves before running the experiment. That would spare him no end of suffering."

Dr. Genus refused without a moment's hesitation, his tone carrying a note of obsessive certainty.