Chapter 274

‘Imprint? That’s ridiculous.’

During the time he and Siron had been apart, the difference in the information each of them had gathered had grown enormous.

Lewis only knew that an alpha’s life span never exceeded thirty-five years. He had never heard from anyone that the way to cure an alpha’s sickness was through an Imprint with an omega. That bastard Baekgyeong had only told him vague stories about Gezar Bazelli, the first alpha, supposedly living past the limit of an alpha’s life span. Because Baekgyeong wanted to monopolize Yoon Siron for himself, he had never said a single word about Imprint. FindingWriting Tools

What was surprising was that even the Designer had not revealed anything about Imprint—not even to the handful of Executors who worshiped him. Lewis had no trouble guessing why. Imprint was a chemical reaction that could only happen between an alpha and an omega, a closed world of two. Since no third alpha could intrude, it was an act of complete monopolization. An omega, the only hope of curing alpha sickness, carried within him the potential to collapse the alpha hierarchy forever.

The Designer, instead of disclosing Imprint to his followers, had presented them with another path. On Traits and Thought, a text shared only with a chosen minority of alphas, contained quite detailed information about alpha life span.

In the twenty years since the alpha species had been born, no alpha had ever overcome the genetic limit on their years of life—Gezar Bazelli’s case had been deliberately concealed. Every alpha had succumbed to the same fate, the onset of a genetic illness called Apollyon Syndrome. The only exception had been a single fetus, conceived between an alpha and an omega.

Analysis of the DNA of the fetus carried in the womb of the omega Yuri Berec revealed no mutation associated with Apollyon Syndrome, even though its traits had been determined as alpha. It was the first case of breaking free from the fixed life span that defined the entire alpha race. A possibility that could change the fate of the species had become reality. Which meant: the first generation of alphas could not overcome their genetic limits, but from the next generation onward genetic improvement would occur.

If Isaac and Baekgyeong’s desire was to monopolize the omega through Imprint to overcome the first generation’s genetic disease, then the Designer had chosen the path of allowing the genes to improve naturally in the next generation. The difference was clear, but either way the plans were impossible without Siron.

Lewis suddenly felt it unfair that Siron, without knowing any of this, was just being dragged along. He had finished two slices of pizza in an instant, and wiped his greasy hands with a napkin.

“Bebe.”

“Hm?”

“Have you ever thought seriously about why Hybris is chasing you?”

At the word Hybris from Lewis’s mouth, Siron flinched and studied him warily.

“Why ask the obvious? Because I’m an omega.”

“And why do you think they’re chasing you for being an omega?”

This time Siron hesitated longer before lifting his shirt to sniff at his own scent.

“Because of Imprint, I guess. The pheromones are just a bonus.”

“Yeah?”

Lewis nodded slowly, rubbing the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. He realized then that Siron knew nothing of the crucial facts about the omega body. Isaac, who had recreated Yoon Siron as an omega, had deliberately kept that knowledge from him.

An alpha could reproduce through an omega’s body. And a child conceived through an omega’s womb could transcend the alpha’s short life span and evolve into a more complete being. But Siron had not the faintest idea that he had become a vessel of new possibility.

“Why? Is there another reason?”

As Lewis’s silence dragged on, Siron put down the bit of pizza he’d been pecking at with a nervous expression. After a long stare, Lewis finally spoke, his voice firm and unhesitating.

“I don’t know the exact reason. But I can guess a few. It’s not just because they want to have sex with you. It’s because they want to Imprint with you—or breed through you.”

Siron’s eyes went wide. Staring at Lewis in shock, his face gradually filled with horror. His mouth opened soundlessly, then he stammered in disbelief.

“B-breed?”

Lewis jerked his head up and glanced down at him from under his brows.

“You really didn’t know?”

Siron’s face went blank, struck dumb. He managed to spit the words out like vomit.

“I never even imagined it.”

“Of course they never told you.”

For an instant, rage surged across Siron’s face, only to crumble away.

“If all they wanted was Imprint, they probably kept quiet because you’d reject it. All they wanted was to live past their limit, not to get you pregnant.”

Breed. Pregnant. The words repeated, and Siron’s face twisted in misery.

“Even if you did get pregnant, they’d just leave you behind when it was over...”

“W-wait! Shut up, just shut up. I can’t—my head—can’t process this.”

Siron squeezed his eyes shut and covered his face in his palms, breathing raggedly. Panic swelled, nausea rising like he was trapped in an unfamiliar shell of a body.

He gagged, retching, and then realized the act itself recalled morning sickness. The thought turned his face ashen.

“F-fuck, I’m losing it.”

He remembered that strange place inside him, that new part of his body that was always stimulated in alien ways during sex. It hadn’t been made for “enjoying” sex more diversely. It was an organ with a clear purpose, and like a fool he had never thought deeply about it.

At last, calming down after some time, Siron’s mind went to Anna. Somehow she felt like his only ally. He wanted to find her right now, beg her to wipe out every alpha on earth.

Anger surged up his throat. He wanted to scream, to thrash, but he crushed it down and instead pleaded hoarsely with Lewis.

“Please, let’s get out of here. Pizza isn’t the point. We need to get out... find Anna. Let’s think with Anna.”

But unbelievably, Lewis ignored him and reached for another slice. Siron found the sight of him biting calmly into the sharp tip of the pizza terrifying and alien.

“Hey! I said let’s go!”

“Wait a little. I’m starving.”

The mechanical chew of Lewis’s jaw shocked Siron in a strange way. He didn’t want to admit Lewis had changed, but the question he could no longer suppress pushed up his throat.

“Why didn’t you go to Anna?”

Lewis devoured two more slices in a flash, wiped his greasy hands, and answered flatly.

“Because I couldn’t.”

“Why? Because you’re with Hybris?”

Siron hurled the half-eaten slice at him, demanding.

“So that’s why you were waiting outside the prison? With that lunatic from the second floor?”

Lewis glanced down at the sauce on his chest, eyes narrowing, and sighed, annoyed at Siron’s barrage. He leaned back against the chair, kneading his stiff shoulders, staring at the wall clock. After a while, still watching the minute hand, he spoke in an ordinary tone.

“I killed someone.”

The words hit Siron like a club to the back of the head. He jolted, trembling.

“K-killed? ...You?”

Lewis nodded.

“Who?”

He shrugged as if even answering was a bother, letting out a flat breath that was somewhere between a sigh and a groan.

“Someone you know. The supervisor at Millander Shelter. And Joseph Miller.”

“...What? Joseph Miller? ...That social worker?”

“Yeah.”

Siron was struck dumb. From the night the Langford Bridge collapsed to the dawn after, he still remembered clearly everything that happened at the shelter. He had half-killed that pink-sausage Joseph Miller when the man tried to rape him, then blacked out and been abducted to the island.

He had assumed Lewis had found out later and confronted them, maybe leading to an accident. But he had to ask.

“H-how did you end up killing him?”

Lewis just stared at him, then turned his head away with a blank face.

“I don’t want to remember.”

Siron was shaken. Even if they were human trash, the Lewis he knew wouldn’t have spoken so coldly about killing.

“You killed someone and didn’t want to pay for it... so you joined Hybris?”

“I never planned that. I just reached out to someone who could help me.”

“Who?”

Lewis kept his mouth shut.

“Did you even try Anna?”

Lewis sighed long, irritated by the endless questions, and stared at a bit of pizza crust on the table. Even her name drew no feeling from him. Not only that—he didn’t regret the killings, didn’t worry about Siron, didn’t even reflect on himself. He seemed to feel like a stranger to his own existence.

“Lewis, get up right now! Just trust me, let’s go!”

“Go? To Anna?”

Lewis began chuckling like he’d just heard a good joke.

“I can’t go to Anna. That’s not where I belong.”

“Then where do you belong?”

“Hybris.”

Without hesitation, he answered, and even defended them.

“Hybris isn’t all bad. They gave us a second chance at life, when we should already have been dead.”