Aozaki Aoko [624-625] (Patreon)

Chapter 624: Angel Embryo

“Be careful. The impact that that thing has on humans is lethal to a certain extent. Before entering the Final Cocytus System, we can’t afford the slightest slip in protection,” the director reminded Touko and the others while donning his protective suit. “This isn’t just about responsibility to others—it’s about your own safety.”

Touko silently nodded, then meticulously suited up. The suit looked a bit like a spacesuit, but slimmer than any spacesuit she’d seen before—and more advanced.

Its exterior and lining were covered with many cuneiform patterns. Ordinary scholars with no background in the occult might think they were just curious devices, but Touko recognized at a glance that these cuneiform spell-scripts were very close in effect to the ones on the sealing pillars—their purpose was to isolate a specific kind of force field.

Do Angels generate this kind of strange field?

She pondered in silence. Based on the information Aoko had previously provided from the Golgotha Object, although each Angel’s form and abilities differed, what they had in common was the use of an AT field so powerful it manifested visibly and could resist human thermal weaponry.

However, from the AT-field data she obtained by studying the self-destruct device inside Asuka, it was clear the spells on the sealing pillars and the protective suits were not countering AT fields. So what field was it?

With that question in mind, Touko and the research team, led by the director, passed through five layers of isolation doors and underwent five security checks before finally entering the interior of the Final Cocytus System—the place she had previously suspected housed an Angel.

“Th-this is!”

A middle-aged researcher stared in shock at the thing floating in the cylindrical transparent container at the center of the spherical chamber: a semi-transparent mass of flesh that pulsed with steady rhythm.

“What is this? An egg of some organism?” Touko asked, feigning surprise. “Why would there be an egg of such size? How is that even possible?”

“This is an egg nurturing an Angel,” the director said reverently. “An ultimate lifeform that has won a seat before ‘God’…”

“What ‘God’?” a researcher complained, clearly displeased. “We’re scientists. Suddenly bringing up ‘God’ and ‘Angels’ here is an insult to our education!”

“I’m sorry, but this is the truth of the world,” the director sighed, looking at that researcher like one would a naïve child. “God exists, Angels exist, and these Angels are after humanity’s lives…”

The Bethany Base director then droned on, explaining all manner of matters regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, Angels, and humanity. Touko kept her expression forcedly neutral while carefully comparing what he said with what she knew.

Most of it was accurate, but when it came to NERV’s ultimate goal, the director did not mention anything about the Human Instrumentality Project.

Touko didn’t know whether he truly had no knowledge of it or simply chose not to reveal it to researchers like them. According to his account, the Angels attacked humanity because they feared humans who had acquired the Seeds of Life, and swore to exterminate all life descended from Lilith.

And Lilith, originally also one of the Angels—specifically the Second—did not possess the Seeds of Life like the other Angels but held the same Seeds of Life as humans, and when creating humanity, shared that Seeds of Life with them.

For humanity to survive, they must abide by the covenant with Lilith, the Mother of Life, and protect her against the Angels contending for seats before God.

There were issues with this narrative, because after seeing the Unit-06 body on the moon, whether Lilith counted as an Angel in this cycle was questionable.

If the director’s intel was true, that would imply discrepancies in the information Aoko received from the Golgotha Object. Perhaps the differences arose from slight variations between cycles—but those were not things Touko could immediately verify.

The director’s story continued; he had reached Second Impact.

The First Impact was when Lilith rode the Black Moon to create Earth’s life. The Second Impact was when Dr. Katsuragi’s team discovered the four ADAMS, which led to today’s state of oceans being utterly uninhabitable and the reduction of Earth’s population by half.

That event took place in 2000. The world’s current time is 2004, the year the Unit-01 activation test is about to take place.

Touko didn’t understand why Asuka’s mother, Kyoko, had dissolved her soul into Unit-02 so long before the Unit-01 activation test; by rights, that should have happened afterward.

But there had always been a huge rift between NERV’s European and Asian branches. Given SEELE’s tighter control over Europe, perhaps the lunar SEELE council intended to act ahead of Gendo in this cycle.

Is Gendo really so capable that, even across multiple cycles, after learning what he intends to do, SEELE still chooses to let him act?

There must be information Touko lacked. At the very least, Gendo and SEELE had shared interests from beginning to end; otherwise, they would never have coexisted.

While turning these things over in her mind, Touko outwardly raised a few innocuous questions to the director, acting just like the other researchers. The director didn’t perceive anything amiss with her. The day’s activity went smoothly for all involved.

However, beyond the information provided by the director, Touko discovered new issues within this Angel embryo.

First, the sealed Angel was accelerating toward awakening, but absent external sabotage, it could not break the Bethany Base seal through its own power.

Second, Touko sensed within the Angel a very familiar presence: a materialized soul. From the embryo’s exterior, the Angel’s general form resembled a snake with many legs, or perhaps an elongated lizard. Within it was a red, spherical object visible even through the embryonic wall—the Angel’s core.

In past cycles, the core was the S2 engine—the source of infinite energy, the God-given Seeds of Life.

But Touko detected something different in this Angel: its core was merely a product of some method by which it had materialized its own soul. Its Seeds of Life was not a concrete physical object, but an abstract concept—some special ability.

Its mode of existence appeared identical to the Seeds of Life humanity possesses…

Chapter 625: Heresy Stirring

The aura of the red core was not unfamiliar to Touko; this wasn’t the first time she’d seen such a thing in this world.

Besides the Angels’ red cores, another product of materialized souls was this planet’s red oceans.

Though the two seemed to share nothing in common beyond their redness, Touko still found components of materialized souls within them.

She believed that the many wandering souls in the Golgotha Object were only a small fraction of what got materialized during Second Impact; the vast majority of the spiritual cores of marine life remained in the oceans, which was why they looked red.

But how strange, she thought. The souls she materialized using the Third Magic were golden, yet this world’s were red. Is it a difference in method?

At present, the director was tirelessly recounting all kinds of secret knowledge. Most researchers listened intently, but Touko and a few others were staring blankly at the Angel embryo.

To those monitoring the situation, Touko’ state was perfectly normal. After all, if a scholar who had spent most of their life studying metaphysical biology had their worldview overturned in an instant, they might well end up like this. Touko was already being very composed.

What they didn’t know was that Touko was plotting. She wanted to stir things up.

Letting this Angel embryo just float around in there was far too dull, she thought. Why not test its mettle and see what an ultimate lifeform with the Seeds of Life can really do?

With that, she quietly separated out a thin, nearly imperceptible wisp of golden energy from her body.

It was a portion of the inexhaustible magical power she had created by materializing her soul. If this Angel was truly awake, it would definitely react to it.

And just as she expected, the instant Touko let that materialized soul-energy slip beyond her protective suit, the Angel—previously drifting around the embryo unconsciously—froze and fixed its gaze on the group of people.

Everyone present, including the director, felt enormous pressure. On the plane of life, an Angel utterly overwhelms ordinary humans; it’s the feeling an animal has when facing its most lethal natural enemy.

“D-Director, is there something wrong with the Angel’s state—” one researcher began, noticing the embryo’s movement, but it was already too late.

Having received the slightest wisp of Touko’s energy, the Angel began to develop rapidly. Its body quickly grew beyond the embryonic stage, and its various limbs and organs differentiated with greater clarity…

“Alert! Sealed Angel shows sudden embryonic agitation. All personnel within the Final Cocytus System, evacuate immediately! All personnel within the Final Cocytus System, evacuate immediately…”

The blaring alarm echoed through the entire Bethany Base. Personnel across departments returned to their posts and immediately activated the base’s emergency protocols.

Dozens of Angel-Sealing Hex Pillar dropped from above, encircling the Angel embryo’s container so tightly that not even water could pass through, and instantly activated the anti-Angel field. Red lines composed of cuneiform spell-scripts on their surfaces began rapidly rotating and pulsing.

Touko could feel a slight hitch in the flow of her own magic, which shocked her. Since arriving in this world, aside from the means used to block Aoko’s divination ritual, this was the first time she’d encountered a method that could impede their magic.

A new discovery.

Feigning panic, she followed the director in retreat while splitting her attention to observe the sealed Angel.

This Angel did not yet possess the world-ending might recorded in the Golgotha Object—at least, the one in this base didn’t. After a burst of rapid development and movement, it was immediately suppressed by the special counter-field of the Angel-Sealing Hex Pillar and returned to slumber.

Touko was pleased with her probe. First, she confirmed that the Angels in this world do react to her materialized soul-energy. Second, she learned, in the most straightforward way, how this world’s mystic system impedes the magecraft of the Type-Moon world.

Judging by her colleagues’ and the director’s expressions, none of them noticed her covert interference. Everything was perfect…

“Director, what exactly caused the Angel to react like that…?” a researcher asked in the elevator. “I could have sworn it cast its gaze on us…”

“This may be the hatred that God’s Angels, bearers of the Seeds of Life, feel toward us, the children of Lilith who bear the Fruit of Knowledge Seed,” the director said, frowning gravely. “We may need to conduct our research more cautiously—at the very least, keep personnel farther from the Angel…”

Touko said nothing, instead putting on the air of a young, fragile woman shaken by the Angel. A colleague even stepped up to comfort her, unaware that she was the mastermind behind the incident.

But to be born of Lilith and yet bear the Seeds of Life: Fruit of Knowledge?

None of the researchers, including the director, would simply be sent back to their quarters as if nothing had happened.

Everyone would undergo a period of quarantine and observation. Only after confirming there were no issues would they be released and return to work.

Uncharacteristically, Touko didn’t pull any stunts around this process, because the one who caused trouble today wasn’t her true body—or rather, not the whole of it—but a spare body she had crafted, indistinguishable from the original.

Touko’ true body was now essentially a mass of pure materialized soul, usually maintaining human physiological features via a shape-shifting ability similar to Lugh Beowulf’s. When necessary, she could become any form of Earth life she understood.

She took out a spare body that was of little use to her now, infused it with a small amount of her materialized soul, and sent it to today’s tour, while her true body hid in her room, observing remotely from the shadows.

When the Angel-Sealing Hex Pillar were urgently activated earlier, Touko actually stuttered for a moment, only recovering once she increased her magical output.

From this, she concluded that SEELE’s method—at least one of them—for blocking Aoko’s divinatory magic was definitely related to those pillars. Even the protective suits she’d worn earlier partially employed this technology.

With that in mind, Touko rose from her chair and pulled a portable teleportation array from under the bed. She needed to return to France to discuss her recent observations with Aoko and Alice’s group and adjust their strategy going forward.