The phone line crackled with Miguel's gruff voice. "Boss, I have good news. It seems we've located the old lady's whereabouts."

On the other end, Riquelme narrowed his eyes with a scowling expression. "Your information better be reliable this time. I'm not wasting any more time on your bullshit."

"I assure you it's solid intel, boss," Miguel hurried to respond.

Riquelme kept a tense silence, pondering before nodding to himself. "Very well, I'll assemble a team to bring her in. This time I won't mess around..."

He abruptly ended the call and leaned back in his armchair, an evil sneer distorting his features. At last he would have more answers about that supernatural phenomenon.

♢ ♢ ♢ ♢

In the darkness that enveloped him, Arnaud perceived faint flickers of consciousness fluctuating between nothingness and memory. Fragments of his ancient life, centuries ago, passed before his eyes in unraveling shreds.

He remembered the sunny plains of Gascony, the gray castles and the murmurs of old conversations in the Occitan dialect. He relived the sounds of fierce battles, the screech of steel and the heavy smell of blood...

A deep sorrow invaded him every time those images assaulted him. Throughout his life, his inhuman nature was constantly reaffirmed in every battle fought, every life taken to feed. No matter how hard he tried, violence and death seemed to be his only path.

A child's sob suddenly pierced his thoughts, unleashing a torrent of painful memories that assailed him viciously. The scene materialized before his eyes:

A little redheaded boy, huddled in a corner, crying disconsolately as he gazed upon his attacker's corpse. His white eyes, a vampiric trait, shone with tears of fear and incomprehension.

"Why didn't you defend me? Why did you abandon me to his mercy, mother?" the little one sobbed bitterly.

Arnaud shuddered as he relived that heartbreaking memory. A trauma that had marked him even before his maturity. A stigma that had haunted him over the centuries, fueling that inner fire and turning him into a fearsome, merciless monster.

Was that rage really necessary? Or was it just his convenient excuse to give in to the darkest, most violent impulses? He contemplated the images of the massacre he had perpetrated the previous night against those thugs. That ruthless brutality, was it really part of his nature or just an addictive indulgence?

For a moment, he considered the idea of simply letting go, of sinking into the darkness of oblivion and rage... Perhaps then he would finally find the peace he had so longed for.

♢ ♢ ♢ ♢

In the no longer so modest laboratory, Dr. Gálvez watched in fascination through the microscope as one of Arnaud's tissue samples was consumed under the intense UV rays.

"Amazing..." he murmured, studying the accelerated cellular apoptosis process. "It's as if the ultraviolet radiation triggers an aggression mechanism in the exposed cells, by the inner cells..."

He made some frantic notes before proceeding to the next phase of the experiment. With utmost care, he extracted a tiny portion of the tissue and injected some cells into the small test rodent.

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The little animal screeched pitifully and began to thrash violently, its internal tissues apparently being consumed at an alarming rate. Gálvez observed with growing excitement, noting every detail in his notebook.

Shortly after, the rodent stopped moving, its body reduced to a bloody, viscous mass. The doctor licked his lips, letting out a slight snort of disappointment at the failure of that attempt.

"The cellular nanostructures fail to successfully integrate into a foreign organism, they just consume it..." He mused aloud as he collected the small mass of remains. "But perhaps if I introduce genetic material into a blank host, before gestation..."

He headed over to another of the cages where there were several pregnant female rabbits. With expert movements, he extracted a fertilized ovum and successfully introduced a microdose of the strange specimen's blood, before reimplanting it into the rabbit's uterus.

"Let's try with an embryo in a primary state... And add some stem cells from the subject to stimulate development..." he murmured, his eyes flashing with eager anticipation.

Over the next 2 days, Gálvez continued experimenting tirelessly, using samples from the extraordinary being in an attempt to replicate its regenerative and survival abilities in living organisms...

♢ ♢ ♢ ♢

One day later, Gálvez was hunched over his scrutiny, pupils dilated and an intense look of concentration etched on his features.

Before him, in a transparent container, a small gelatinous pinkish mass moved lazily, its irregular edges contracting almost imperceptibly. The scientist held his breath, clinging to the small glimmer of success represented by that minimal signal of metabolic activity.

"Finally..." he murmured in a hoarse voice, not taking his eyes off the unstable life form. "After so many failed attempts, I have finally achieved a minimal viable amalgam..."

He took some frantic notes in his worn notebook, his eyes shining with a glint of triumph mixed with renewed determination. He made some adjustments to the controlled environment chamber where the peculiar entity rested, ensuring to provide the precise conditions to foster its growth and development.

"If this small form manages to consolidate and grow further... Perhaps I can isolate the key gene sequences and attempt to reconstruct the original creature..." He left the sentence hanging, his thoughts wandering to the enormous possibilities that would open up before him.

Perhaps achieving the coveted dream of replicating those abilities in his own being was not impossible. The immortality desired since the dawn of Humanity, finally within reach...

He forced himself to set aside those delusions of grandeur, focusing again on the irregular cellular mass. Slowly and very carefully, he used precision pipettes to extract a minute portion of liquid from the original subject. He held his breath as he injected that compound into the container next to the small life form.

For a few tense minutes, no change was perceived. Gálvez began to think that attempt had also failed when, suddenly, the mass seemed to swell and take on a more pinkish hue. His pupils dilated to the max when several semi-solid extensions began to sprout from its surface, contracting and elongating in an undulating motion.

"Yes! It reacted to the original's cellular compounds!" The scientist's jubilation was evident in his voice. "It's trying to grow and branch out further!"

He watched avidly as the small irregular form began to slowly spread through the container in multiple appendages, apparently establishing its own connections. A few hours later, a tiny glassy network began to flicker weakly with the first vestiges of a basic circulatory system.

Gálvez let out a snort of weariness and fascination. After days of frustrating failures, he was finally beginning to make some real progress. Perhaps his dream of replicating that astonishing biotechnology wasn't so far off after all...

A vibration in his pocket abruptly pulled him from his musings. Cursing under his breath, he checked his phone to find an urgent message from Riquelme.

"You'd better have something to report or else."

Gálvez swallowed hard with apprehension. If the drug lord canceled the investigation, all his efforts would have been in vain. Reluctantly, he forced himself to go report to the boss, meticulously noting every detail before proceeding to leave for the night.

As he hurried out, he failed to notice the tiny movement the small regenerated life forms began to make erratically. As if following a primal impulse, the minuscule cellular offshoots began to undulate and move slowly toward the large glass container in the center of the room.

Inside that main container, Arnaud's massacred and seemingly inert remains waited, a faint internal pulsation beginning to stir once more...