Francis found an abandoned building after shaking off his pursuers, ducking through three alleyways and doubling back twice before he was certain no one had followed.

The structure sat at the dead end of a collapsed service road, half-swallowed by overgrown weeds that crept up its corrugated walls like fingers.

Inside, old cars sat in silence, covered in dust and thick cobwebs. The air tasted stale — oil and rust and something older underneath, the particular smell of a place that had been sealed too long from the outside world.

One glance told him no one used the area for years. Rusted tools hung on pegboards with empty hooks between them.

Broken lifts sat frozen mid-raise, locked in whatever position they had died in.

He chose the storage area at the back as his temporary hiding spot.

The narrow gaps between shelves broke the space apart — difficult to move through quickly, easy to disappear in.

’Good enough.’

Francis slipped inside and kept low, settling between two shelves where the angle made him invisible from the entrance. He steadied his breathing and listened.

Nothing.

Only then did he let himself collapse slightly against the shelf behind him.

[DING!]

[Host, the body you are using has reached its structural limit. You have three options.]

He read through them without rushing.

[Option 1: Leave the body and convert it into energy. This will allow you to upgrade your energy level. Current data suggests it can double your capacity.]

[Option 2: Convert the body into a semi-organic object, allowing you to use it at any time. Its base attributes will drop to half of their original level, but energy consumption will be far lower.]

[Option 3: Force a full-body stabilization. This will preserve the current attributes and can reverse the side effects of crystallization.]

[However, the host will have to endure the process, and the pain will be severe. You will also be locked into this body for one week]

[Chance of Failure : 20%]

Francis took in each option and didn’t choose right away.

What he needed now wasn’t impulse. It was to retrace the previous fight and use what he had learned. Only then could he pick the option that fit his current needs and situation.

When he took over Lex’s body, its speed didn’t come from the body alone. It came from his skill, Infestation, which boosted the stats of anything he controlled

However, the boost never reached the supposed 300% after reaching Category 4. He would have known, since a true 300% increase would have let him steamroll all five of them without effort.

His working theory: Lex’s body was too strong on its own, leaving little room for Infestation to push it further.

This meant the skill didn’t act like a magical multiplier. It had a ceiling—a natural limit each body could reach—and once that limit was hit, the boost stopped increasing further.

’If I pick option two, even with the base stats halved, Infestation can still fill that gap.’

The semi-organic form carried its own advantages — low energy drain, availability on demand. But half of Lex’s attributes was still a significant cut, and in fights at his level, the margins between winning and dying could be razor thin.

Option one offered something different. Doubling his energy capacity had obvious appeal on paper. More energy meant longer operations, more aggressive use of his skills, fewer moments where he was forced to hold back.

But in genuinely high-level battles, the problem had never been how much energy he carried — it was how fast the opponents burned through it. A larger tank didn’t help if the drain rate outpaced any reasonable reserve.

His eyes settled on option three and stayed there.

A twenty percent failure rate was not a small number. In most contexts, he would have dismissed something with those odds outright.

But the upside wasn’t just recovery — it was restoration.

If his current body returned to full stability, he could access the complete 300% boost from Infestation without the constant energy hemorrhage that crystallization caused.

His body would also stop fighting itself. It would move the way it was built to move — fast, precise, and without the hairline fractures spreading further every time he pushed it

And beyond combat, it solved problems that strengths couldn’t.

It would make concealment easier. Parashift could do a lot more with a human body.

The right appearance, the right posture, the right walk, and he could disappear into any crowd.

For an ex-operative like him, the ability to blend in while planning his next massacre was too hard to pass up.

’The one-week body lock is a problem, but if I stay under the radar, I can just let it pass.’

His fingers slowly tightened against his knee.

He sat with it for a moment longer. Not because he was afraid to decide, but because he wanted the decision to be clean. No second-guessing once it started.

’If I keep avoiding risk, I’ll just keep losing ground.’

[Option 3 selected.]

The system paused for exactly one second.

[Commencing full-body stabilization process.]

Heat surged through his veins like burning metal poured through channels too narrow to hold it.

His body jerked forward without warning. His hand shot out and slammed into the nearest shelf to keep himself upright.

’It hurts. Damn it.’

Metal groaned under the force of his grip and the shelf shuddered, sending a few loose bolts skittering across the floor.

crack!

crack!

Tiny fractures formed under his skin, glowing faintly at their edges before something clamped down and forced them back together — like watching broken glass reverse itself in real time, except from the inside.

Then the real pain arrived.

Muscles seized like they were being torn loose and reattached wrong. His bones felt like they were grinding against each other at every joint, forcing new alignment millimeter by millimeter.

His nervous system registered all of it simultaneously and his breathing fractured under the sensation.

"—Tch..." A sharp gasp escaped before he could contain it.

He dropped to one knee.

[Stabilization: 12%]

’This is harder than I expected,’ he thought to himself, trying to steady his mind. ’But I can’t give up now.’

Another wave hit.

This time, it felt like his body was being split and rebuilt at the same time.

[Stabilization: 38%]

The pain didn’t fade. It only changed shape.

Now it felt like something inside him was being compressed. Forced into a smaller, tighter structure.

The system kept counting.

[Stabilization: 61%]

"Finish it..."

His words came out rough and broken. Almost unrecognizable as his.

[Stabilization: 84%]

The final stretch was the worst — a concentrated pulse that moved from the base of his spine outward, hitting everything at once. He held on through it.

[Stabilization: 100%]

"Finally..." His exhale came out long and slow. He stayed on one knee for a second, breathing, before he raised his hand and looked at it.

It was better than the old body. His skin looked fresher, younger. The wounds that once covered it were gone.

When he clenched his fist, he only felt about 30-40% weaker. That meant his Infestation enhancement was working properly and had room to grow.

’Yeah, I can work with this.’