Nathaniel stood before the ruins of a forgotten district, where a rusted sign swayed in the breeze:
ARKAM'S WORKS
The letters were faded, half-buried in rust—like a secret the city had tried to erase.
The Thought Cube pulsed faintly in his hand—steady, rhythmic, like a heartbeat in sync with something older than the concrete and metal around him.
Without a word, he descended.
The stairs spiraled downward through an alley choked by time and dust, into a maze of crumbling warehouses.Each structure was a dead husk, interiors yawning with forgotten machinery and silent halls.It wasn't just a district.It was a labyrinth—twisting corridors and cold echo chambers where memory clung to the walls like mold.
Eventually, he stepped into an overgrown garden—nature long unkept, left to flourish beyond human control.He crouched and touched the dirt. Ash-like residue clung to his fingers, tingling with residual energy.The Thought Cube pulsed.
He smirked.
The ground split—reality rippling beneath his feet as space expanded and swallowed him whole.He landed in a forested clearing.
Above, the breach sealed.
The Thought Cube shot off and vanished, becoming a localized biome core.Nathaniel picked up a leaf.
Not monocot or dicot—this one was multicotyledonous, with a multiclone structure and traces of bound Ura enriching its tissues.It felt alien.All biomes were.
He moved deeper.
His senses flared, pulsing outward like sonar. That's when the attack came.A shard of arborwood—hardened with tempered amber—slammed into a nearby tree, narrowly missing his head.
He grabbed it—deflected the next volley.
The source revealed itself: a towering figure in the treeline. Slender limbs ended in three matte-black fingers, its skin a mix of dark grey and black tones. A smooth dermal plate masked its face, its smile full of glossy black lips and stark white teeth.It watched him. It could sense him. And he could sense it back.
Its body rippled—powerful legs, a hooded tail, tribal markings etched in amber. Then more presences flared into his awareness.
An arrow loosed.
Amber projectiles, trailed in Uratsu, screamed toward him.He blocked them with a gauntlet forming over his arm, eyes pulsing with reactive clarity.
Imps swarmed—twisting, wolf-like creatures lunging from the flanks.
Nathaniel struck, impaling two, watching as amber crystals spread across their bodies.Infected. Encased.
Then came the huntress.
She dropped in from above, a downward heel kick.He caught it in a cross-guard and skidded back, grabbed her, threw her.
She hit a tree—snarled—then rebounded instantly, springing with reverse-jointed legs, loosing arrows in a precise tri-shot spread.
He tried to dodge, but the amber on his gauntlet spread, locking a limb.A blow hit him in the gut, lifted him off the ground.
But Nathaniel planted his feet. Used the amber's expanding matter against her, locking her in a full nelson.
His eyes glowed.
He slammed her into the ground.
A hiss of pain. Her bow folded. She slashed his arm with jagged metal edges.Blood sprayed.
Nathaniel hissed—white light swept over the wound, knitting flesh together.
He lunged for the kill——but five more huntresses emerged, weaker but identical.
He saw it.
Not just a monster.
A hive leader.
Not the boss.Just a gatekeeper.
His smirk returned.
Kinetic Muscle surged—charged slightly, but enough.
He dove into motion, targeting the smaller wolf-like spawn.One blow each—instant kills.
He slammed the ground at 15% charge, sending a shockwave.
He catalogued them.
Nubi Spawn.A precursor form of what stood before him.
He summoned his blades from the inventory—twin weapons forged from Uratsu-conductive alloy, their shriek echoing as they tore into reality.
The edges pulsed faintly, a sheen of energy rippling along the surface as he forced the meager charge he had left into them.
Kinetic Maw: Equipped.
He launched forward, blades angled, teeth bared.
The swarm surged to meet him—Nubi spawn snapping and crawling, matte black fur and hardened limbs thrashing in a blur.
Above them, the Rekiri loomed, eyes locked, limbs drawn like a predator reading weakness.
Amber projectiles fired.
He moved through them like a storm—slashing, deflecting, enduring.
Each blocked shot left bruises.Each glancing blow fed Kinetic Muscle with its pain.Every cut he delivered drew lines of dark ichor and flickers of Uratsu discharge.
His blades carved through the mass—amber shattering, limbs falling limp, bodies encased in crystal mid-motion.
Nathaniel didn't stop.Couldn't stop.
Every impact fed him.Every moment of pain made him faster.Sharper.
The hunt wasn't over.But the tide had turned.
The five huntresses pulsed—legs coiling with explosive force.
They pounced, tackling Nathaniel in coordinated succession. He was thrown from one to the next like a ricochet, each blow slamming him deeper into the trap as the others repositioned, pushing him with feral precision.
But he didn't buckle.
His body snapped forward mid-air—twisting violently into a brutal 25% charged R.K.O., driving one of them headfirst into the ground.
Crack.
Its body spasmed. He didn't hesitate.
Blade out. Throat slit.
The second spawn lunged at him—only to be gored as he shot forward with clean momentum, running it through in a flash.
Then—
Impact.
Their leader's foot crashed against the side of his face like a hammer, rage in every fiber of her form. Nathaniel's body skidded back as yellow sparks flickered from the strike. Her leg buckled from the blow's own force, the tension of her body palpable as her eyeless face twisted in pain and rage.
Her sensory range extended—searching, twitching—magnifying the environment until it isolated him again.
A single figure. Cyan Uratsu. Faint. But alive.
The swarm below responded first—screeching, frothing, amber haze rising from them like heat. They dissolved into a tidal mass of glowing resin, howling toward her.
Nathaniel landed, boots cracking soil, blade in hand. He came down hard—swinging.
Two remaining Rekiri spawn shrieked—cut down mid-surge as they lunged for his throat.
His breath caught as one's claws raked down his back, pain flashing—but not stopping him.
Then his eyes widened.
The Rekiri Hive Leader stepped over her fallen kin—lifting their bodies with reverence before they transmuted into shimmering, liquified amber.
She absorbed them.
An oppressive aura rolled outward—crushing, suffocating—his senses screaming from its weight.
She shrieked.
It wasn't just rage.
It was grief, fury, and evolution all in one.
The filled amber—packed with biological sludge and raw Uratsu—crashed into her like a meal she'd been starving for.
She devoured it.
Veins lit up in an instant, glowing like furnace filaments beneath her skin as the biomass dissolved inside her. Her body convulsed, then lengthened.
Posture snapped upright. Limbs stretched. Bones cracked like steel beams re-forging.
What little clothing she wore tore away as black chitinous plating formed over joints—layered like panel armor. Palms that once bore three fingers now held five razor-tipped claws. Her legs thickened with brutal musculature, thighs and glutes corded like a sprinter's, enhanced. The forearms bulged, mirroring the power of her legs—honed, forged, grotesquely beautiful.
A long armored prehensile tail lashed behind her, bristling with plates.
Amber crawled up her arms, settling into a grotesque elegance as it solidified into a jagged spear with pulsing core veins, thrumming with heat.
Her face remained mostly intact—framed by black armor, but lips still visible—glossy, humanlike, wrong.
She screamed—a splitting, layered howl—as her mouth tore open sideways along the jaw, mandibles unfolding like a monster birthed from the biome's will.
The interface snapped online in Nathaniel's vision:
REKIRI + NUBI SWARM + JUNIOR IV MERGEDDesignation: HIVE HUNTER NUBIANThreat Level: 15