Chapter Three: The Iris Equation

Leila pressed the sapphire against the iris scanner, and as the database unlocked, the cultivation pods suddenly burst open. Fluorescent green mucus splattered across the floor, forming a DNA double helix, each base pair a photo of her and Aidan together.

"How romantic," Spider Shadow quipped from the doorframe, tossing a scalpel in his hand. "But you've got 7 minutes and 12 seconds to get out of here."

Ignoring the warning, Leila strode over the shattered glass in her high heels. When the surveillance footage displayed a baby picture of Sample No. 13, she ripped off her pearl necklace and scattered the pearls into the air—each pearl embedded itself perfectly into the ventilation grilles, forming an inhibitory magnetic field.

"The yield of the Hiroshima nuclear explosion in 1945, multiplied by the temperature of our first kiss..." She rapidly input the formula, her pupils fracturing into golden rings due to the intense calculations. "Wrong! This equation is missing a π coefficient!"

The alarms abruptly fell silent, and a holographic projection unfurled Aidan's diary. The words swarmed like fireflies into her ear canal: "Forgive me for loving you this way..." Dizzy, Leila scratched five crystallized blood marks into the metal tabletop with her fingernails.

Spider Shadow's mechanical spider legs swiftly wrapped around her waist. "You should see your eyes right now." In the mirror reflection, her irises were oozing a fluorescent blue liquid, coalescing into tiny butterfly shapes.

The lab door crashed down, Grey's claws laced with lavender scent lunging towards her. Instinctively, Leila raised her hand to shield herself, only to realize that the scales on her palm had quantum entangled with the beast's claws—they shared the same genetic origin.

"Grab the light spots!" Spider Shadow sliced open his wrist and dipped his mechanical spider legs into her iridesal fluid. In a moment of clarity, Leila understood that the floating light spots were projections of three-dimensional gene maps.

As the beast's fangs neared her artery by mere millimeters, she suddenly kissed the wound on Spider Shadow's arm. Their mixed blood crystallized mid-air, forming a Klein bottle structure that blocked Grey's attack.