OP: AMP Ch. 197

Fear, unease, and the creeping edge of madness.

These emotions crashed over the remaining staff members like waves, each one stronger than the last. Every fiber of their being screamed at them to get as far away from this thing as possible. But rationality, that thin thread of discipline, held them in place. If they fled now, they might survive this danger. But when Shiki found out they'd abandoned their posts? When he learned they'd left Indigo alone with an unstable experiment? They'd wish the creature had killed them instead.

So they stayed. But their bodies betrayed them anyway. Step by step, they backed toward the walls without consciously deciding to move. Their rational minds told them not to run, but their legs had different ideas. Slowly, inch by inch, they retreated until their backs hit the cold stone walls of the chamber, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the thing inside Cage Number Five.

Because calling it a sheep would've been a joke at this point.

The creature in the cage had almost nothing in common with the blocky sheep it had been minutes ago. Everything had been warped beyond recognition.

If someone forced you to describe it, you might call it a goat-man. The horns curled backward like those of a mountain goat, but everything below the neck was disturbingly humanoid. Muscular arms ending in five-fingered hands. A torso that was too broad. Legs that bent the wrong way at the knees, like a goat's hind legs, but scaled up to support a body that stood nearly two meters tall.

If Marcus had been present, he would've recognized it immediately. This was a Goatman, straight out of one of the Minecraft mods he'd played. In the game, they hadn't been particularly threatening. Maybe 300-500 health points. Dealt around 5-7 damage per hit. When players got close, they'd emit a creepy voice line that sounded like "I see you." But in-game, as long as you had decent diamond armor and knew basic combat tactics, they were manageable. At worst, they were tanky and sometimes clipped through blocks in ways that made their attacks unpredictable. Nothing truly scary. And the ambient music they triggered? Just turn your volume down and they became glorified high-HP zombies. Hell, they were easier than fighting the Wither. At least the Wither could fly.

In the game, Goatmen were just another mob to farm. But this wasn't a game. This was flesh and blood.

The Goatman let out a low, rasping growl from deep in its throat. Its eyes roamed freely over the humans in the room. It wasn't considering which one to attack first. It was considering which one would taste better.

Indigo found himself staring directly into those eyes, unable to look away. He'd seen killing intent before. Rage, mindless aggression... those were par for the course when dealing with beasts. Most creatures that survived the modification process were violent by nature.

But the Goatman's gaze held none of those emotions.

Instead, he felt curiosity radiating from those eyes. And a hunger so vast and empty it felt like staring into an abyss. The creature's eyes moved over their bodies. It was the gaze of something that wanted to explore them piece by piece. Bite by bite. Chew their flesh slowly to savor every texture and flavor. Then crunch through their organs one at a time, saving the liver and kidneys for dessert.

This was a predator's gaze.

He felt deeply unsettled, though he couldn't quite say why. Such ravenous hunger shouldn't exist in a sheep. Yes, sheep were technically omnivores. Yes, they primarily ate grass but wouldn't turn down meat if it was available. There were even documented cases of sheep eating small animals or scavenging carrion.

But this interest in human flesh? That went beyond normal animal behavior.

It made sense why so many cultures associated goats and rams with demonic imagery. Those horizontal pupils and curved horns, they'd been symbols of malevolence for thousands of years. Early demon depictions had borrowed heavily from goat anatomy for good reason.

The Goatman slowly pushed itself up from its prone position. Its movements were shaky at first, like a newborn trying to figure out how its limbs worked. It wobbled, nearly fell, caught itself. But within five minutes, the shaking stopped. Its movements became fluid. It had quickly adapted to its new body.

The metal bars of Cage Number Five pressed down on its shoulders, preventing it from standing fully upright. The creature seemed to register this problem. The growling stopped. Instead, it looked up at the cage. Its head tilted slightly, eyes examining the bars that restrained it. Then, after only a moment of study, it knew exactly what was holding it down. It understood the concept of imprisonment.

An inhuman roar erupted from its throat.

The sound bypassed their ears entirely and resonated directly in their skulls, vibrating against the inside of their craniums.

The assistants and staff members pressed against the walls trembled violently. The hallucinations they'd been fighting suddenly intensified. In their mind's eye, they could see it so clearly, the Goatman bursting free from the cage, crossing the distance in a single bound, jaws opening to tear into their throats.

Fear didn't just sprout in their minds. It exploded.

Instinct took over completely. Training and discipline evaporated in an instant.

They just wanted to run.

"MONSTER! IT'S A FUCKING MONSTER!"

The scream came from the largest man in the room, a mountain of muscle who should've been the most composed. His massive body didn't give him even a shred of courage. He turned and fled. The second guard broke immediately after, then the third. They didn't even try to maintain formation or pretend they had everything under control. They just ran, desperate to put as much distance as possible between themselves and that thing.

Only Indigo's assistant remained.

He didn't consider himself particularly brave. He'd seen countless modified beasts, and mutations so grotesque they'd made hardened researchers vomit. But the fear he felt now surpassed everything he'd experienced before. "Should I call for reinforcements?"

But Indigo wasn't listening. He stood there stroking his chin.

"So the sound induces fear, triggering stress hormones. But how? What's the mechanism? Why does it bypass the ears and resonate directly in the brain? Is it exploiting specific neural pathways, activating some kind of fear response hardwired into the human brainstem? How can a sound exist purely in the mind yet produce a physiological reaction? Is it altering brain chemistry directly, or somehow releasing a psychoactive agent internally?"

He took a step closer to the cage, completely ignoring his assistant's increasingly breathing.

"And why did it develop into a humanoid form? The IQ plant causes mutations, yes, but they're supposed to enhance existing characteristics. This is a complete restructuring of the base organism."

His curiosity was overwhelming every other emotion. The Goatman represented something beyond anything he'd created before. All his previous beasts had been things he could understand through logic and observation.

Take the segmented bear, for example. His IQ serum had been designed to increase muscle density and bone strength. Bears were already apex predators, so enhancing their natural advantages made sense. The increased size was a side effect of stronger muscles and denser bones. The multiple segmented arms? A mutation, possibly a side effect of how the serum interacted with the bear's genome. But the extra arms didn't offer any qualitative improvement. They were different, sure, but if he had to score that creation... maybe a 60 out of 100. The enhancements were mediocre. Only its strength and speed had improved to a satisfactory level, and even that was marginal.

Worse, the modifications had created reproductive isolation. The bear could no longer breed with normal bears. Its genome had changed too much. That was a massive flaw. He couldn't create a self-sustaining population, which meant every specimen had to be individually modified at great cost and effort.

But this Goatman? If he had to score it, this was a perfect 100.

A creature that could induce fear through sound alone was far more effective than any physical enhancement. Better than electrical discharge or increased strength. Fear was a weapon that worked on everyone, regardless of their physical capabilities. As for reproductive ability or lifespan? Those concerns were secondary at best. The advantages of a fear-inducing predator far outweighed any potential drawbacks.

Just as Indigo was mentally cataloging the Goatman's features and planning future experiments, the creature made its move.

Those elongated fingers wrapped around the bars of Cage Number Five. The specially reinforced steel was designed to hold creatures ten times stronger than normal animals. Modified gorillas had bent those bars, but only after ramming them for hours.

The Goatman bent them like soft plastic.

Metal shrieked as it twisted under impossible pressure. The bars warped, then separated entirely, creating a gap large enough for the creature to push through.

"Oh. It possesses that level of strength as well. Fascinating," Indigo muttered. His eyes lit up even brighter. "Even beasts specialized for physical power need their full might to damage that cage."

His assistant grabbed his arm. "Lord Indigo, we need to leave!"