[Memory Hive]: By devouring a creature's body, one can obtain that being's memories and store them within the hive network for future access.

-If the target is alive, complete memories will be acquired.

-If the target is dead, only residual memories will be obtained—the longer the time since death, the less memory is gained.

[Mimicry]: After a lifeform or object is liquefied and absorbed, the corresponding data is recorded in the hive network.

-Thereafter, the virus may mimic the appearance and characteristics of the absorbed creature or object using that data.

[Liquefaction Infection]: After invading a biological organism, the Blacklight Virus rapidly liquefies the target's cells, forcibly activating non-coding genetic regions to initiate massive replication and transformation.

-If the infected target is inorganic, it will forcibly be converted into Blacklight Virus raw liquid.

…

A total of five innate abilities.

Lyon's eyes lit up as he read.

Just from the abilities alone, the Blacklight Virus was indeed the embodiment of the evolutionary concept in the world of Prototype.

It was practically a biological evolution juggernaut.

Devour everything, absorb everything, transform everything.

Whether it was organic or inorganic—if it was matter, it could all be turned into nutrients.

When it came to biological organisms, it was even more domineering.

Forget about devouring and liquefaction—those alone already formed a nearly limitless path to the pinnacle of power.

On top of that, even its infectious capability was utterly unreasonable. After all, what kind of virus can infect inorganic matter?

Even when infecting biological organisms, what do ordinary viruses do?

They first have to bind to cell receptors, complete the steps of invasion and breaking through the protein shell, before injecting their own genetic material into the cells to initiate replication.

Now look at what the Blacklight Virus does.

It directly starts liquefying the cells—turning them into its own kind!

How is this even a virus? It's practically a nanotech facehugger.

Thankfully, what Lyon intended to do was simply cultivate a single Blacklight Virus clone.

And since the clone, once born, would naturally be a part of him and governed by his will, whether or not to activate those innate abilities would be up to him.

Otherwise, he truly wouldn't dare bring the Blacklight Virus into the Marvel world for research.

Don't be fooled by how low the virus's base form is—just a bit of fire or a bottle of liquid nitrogen could easily kill it.

But as long as it devoured just a bit of biological matter, its vitality would surge like a flame fed by the wind.

In the story, the protagonist Alex went from being nearly killed by bullets to surviving a nuclear explosion—this transformation took only 21 days.

That kind of evolutionary speed…

If you simply gave it a world with slightly fewer limits than the Prototype universe, it could evolve to be stronger than a Kryptonian.

Blacklight Lyon was so excited he bounced on the ground! Which, in his fluid form, looked like his body just wobbled and pulsed.

"Ugh… why do I feel like a slime right now?" Lyon muttered.

He suppressed his excitement for the time being and began checking the rest of the Blacklight clone's information.

"Let's see… Genetic tier… only 1x? Looks like I'll need to keep devouring things to evolve."

"And… wait, I can reproduce now?"

"The reproduction method is to sever a portion of the virus's consciousness, letting it develop its own mind… Asexual reproduction, huh."

"But I can't mess around with this. If I'm careless, I might end up creating something stronger than the Symbiote God."

"And I definitely can't let Tony get his hands on the Blacklight Virus. Sooner or later, something will go terribly wrong."

Blacklight Lyon muttered to himself.

"For now, let's test out the Blacklight Virus's devour-and-evolve ability."

Outside the internal world, Lyon, who had been enchanting the building materials, paused.

He drew a drop of blood from his palm and sent it into his internal world.

The genetic material in this drop of blood, under his control, was not protected by the gene-lock ability and thus was not neutralized.

It floated unaltered directly in front of the Blacklight clone.

In the perception of Blacklight Lyon, the drop of blood appeared with a ripple of spatial fluctuation, drifting beside him.

He immediately rolled forward and enveloped the blood.

"Devour! Begin devouring!"

All the liquid that made up Blacklight Lyon's body instantly began to boil.

The virus surged wildly into the drop of blood, attempting to devour and assimilate it, to make the genetic material its own.

But just as it invaded the interior of the blood, Lyon realized something was wrong.

"Wait a minute… this is too strong. Way too strong! I can't digest it—I can't!"

In just a few seconds—Blacklight Lyon's body rapidly expanded.

From a black liquid sphere a few dozen centimeters in diameter, he swelled to over ten meters tall.

"Crap, I overate. I can't digest this. I'm done for." Blacklight Lyon shook his nonexistent head.

On the floating island, Lyon opened his hand, revealing a helpless expression.

The next moment, the Blacklight Lyon exploded.

Splurt.

He exploded completely. Because every viral particle had absorbed the genetic material from the blood—

Every single viral particle exploded.

Lyon's three perspectives briefly returned to just two.

"Well then, my first death in the Marvel world… and it was self-inflicted. Heh~ " Lyon shook his head.

He hadn't expected that even after being infused with energy up to the Domain Lord level, the Blacklight virus clone would be blown apart just by the genetic material of his main body.

"Looks like I really do need to start devouring from the most basic organisms."

Inside the internal world—

A massive amount of world energy surged in, and within seconds, the Blacklight clone was fully revived.

Lyon's three perspectives returned once more.

That was one of the greatest advantages of the clone ability.

As long as either the main body or the clone remained alive—Even if the other body was utterly destroyed, it could still be reconstructed using energy and matter, and resurrected again.

(Excluding soul death)

It was precisely because of this that Lyon dared to boldly use the Blacklight clone for experiments.

"If my main body's genes can't be devoured, then the Blood Sea clone probably won't work either."

"Let's start with those creatures I brought back from the Swallowed Star world."

Lyon mobilized the world energy and directed the creatures within his internal world to line up in front of the Blacklight clone.

On land came mutated two-headed wolves, giant mammoths... in the sea swam massive octopuses, giant lobsters...

The monsters either ran in a blur with their legs or leapt out of the water, bouncing forward on their bellies.

In just a few minutes, hundreds of mutated beasts had lined up in front of Blacklight Lyon.

"They're all creatures with a gene level of 1x. Probably not enough to trigger evolution in the clone, but better than nothing."

Blacklight Lyon's body wriggled. Suddenly, a blood-red tendril shot out and pierced into the body of the two-headed wolf at the front of the line.

In less than a second, the wolf melted into a mass of flesh and was absorbed into the Blacklight virus body.

"Not much change in genes," Blacklight Lyon sensed briefly, "but a memory segment has been added to the memory hive, and mimicry is now available."

Lyon immediately activated the mimicry ability.

At once, black and red veins began to ripple across the surface of the black liquid sphere.

Blacklight Lyon's body gradually elongated and quickly solidified, eventually transforming into the form of a two-headed wolf.

"Finally, I have eyes now." Blacklight Lyon looked around—his vision was no longer shrouded in darkness.

He turned his gaze back to the long line of monsters in front of him. "Let's continue!"

Countless crimson tendrils burst from his body, each piercing into the bodies of the queued beasts, devouring them swiftly and thoroughly.

______

Read ahead of WN at Patreon.com/LiveLifeLove