The cold bit into Kael's synthetic nerves as he limped across the fractured boundary of District 9. His mutated leg hissed softly with every step, releasing tiny clouds of thermal steam from the artificial muscle lines. It wasn't pain. It was evolution rejecting limitation.
Behind him, drones swarmed the upper sectors. Patrol lights flickered like red eyes in the sky. He was no longer in hiding. He was being hunted. The alert had gone out—Omega threat, terminate on sight. No trial. No recovery. No mercy.
Kael ducked through a collapsed tunnel, entered a maintenance shaft barely wide enough to crawl through, and descended into the dark.
Destination: The Ghost Sector.
Once a classified research hub buried beneath the city, the Ghost Sector had been sealed for years after a NEXUS test reportedly "went wrong." Rumors said entire battalions disappeared inside. The official reports claimed seismic failure. Survivors—if any—never spoke. Most called it a myth. Others called it cursed.
Kael just called it empty.
Which meant no one would look for him there.
Perfect.
The descent was brutal. Ladders missing rungs. Collapsed floors. The air smelled of rust, ozone, and something sweet and rotting. The deeper Kael went, the more his senses shifted. Light bent unnaturally. Echoes stretched. Footsteps—his own—lagged half a second behind.
He passed doors with warning signs in a dozen languages. Most had been welded shut. Some had claw marks. Others had burst outward from the inside.
He kept going.
Eventually, he reached a vast chamber lined with pods. Not sleek like the one he'd been fused in. These were crude, early prototypes. Some were cracked open, dried fluids staining the floor. Others still hummed faintly, forgotten by time.
Dozens of pods. Hundreds.
He read a few labels:
[Specimen B-11 | Host: TERMINATED][Specimen D-03 | Fusion Incomplete | Status: UNSTABLE][Specimen A-00 | Host: FAILED | Status: UNKNOWN]
Kael moved toward A-00.
The pod's glass was frosted, its core pulsing dimly. Something was inside. Motionless, but not dead.
Then, a sharp pulse flooded Kael's vision.
[NEXUS CORE ONLINE][Skill Tree Access Unlocked]
A neon diagram exploded in front of him. Glowing branches extended from a burning central core. Labels danced across his vision: glyphs, fragmented Latin, recursive equations.
He blinked.
The system translated.
Mutation Tree: ACTIVE
Phase Shift (LOCKED)
Neural Surge (LOCKED)
Core Assimilation (LOCKED)
Primordial Hunger: Tier I [Available]
Arkanis whispered in his mind, a voice of stone dragged across metal: Choose. The world will not wait.
Kael's breath came hard. He felt like a needle about to snap.
"Fine."
He selected it.
[PRIMORDIAL HUNGER UNLOCKED]
Pain bloomed.
His chest ignited. Not heat—pressure. His right arm peeled open like a blooming flower, revealing obsidian bone laced with shifting crimson light. A pulsing orb embedded in the forearm throbbed in sync with his heart.
He dropped to one knee.
He didn't scream.
He absorbed.
Power flowed in—raw, jagged, chaotic. Energy from the decayed systems, from leaking conduits, from even the light in the room. Bits of corrupted data and memory slammed into his skull: schematics, names, deaths.
He saw a test subject ripping off their own skin. A scientist laughing as a child burned. A symbol scrawled in blood: the Arkanic Spiral.
Then silence.
He stood.
He could see more now. Smell electricity. Taste rust. His vision showed temperature gradients, motion signatures, aura fields.
He turned to the pod.
A-00 was moving.
The locks disengaged with a hiss.
Frost cracked. Steam hissed. A groan echoed.
Then a thing spilled out.
It had once been human. But no longer. Its skin was calcified, stretched tight over armor-plated bones. Tentacles jutted from its spine. Its eyes were replaced with glowing white nodes. Its jaw hung open unnaturally wide.
It didn't stumble.
It charged.
Kael reacted.
[Danger Level: Omega Subtype — Incomplete Symbiote Fusion]
He raised his mutated arm. The orb flared.
Dark tendrils exploded forward, colliding mid-air with the creature. It shrieked—a sound like tearing metal.
They crashed together.
Kael saw its memories. Screams. Test logs. "Subject unstable." "No sedation required. It doesn't feel pain anymore."
He saw himself in its reflection.
Too close.
He pushed harder.
The tendrils wrapped its skull. Crushed. Absorbed.
It convulsed.
Then lay still.
[Neural Harvest: COMPLETE][New Skill Acquired: Predatory Echo — Tier I]
Kael staggered back.
His spine tingled. His eyes shifted focus without his will. Data readouts danced across his vision. His limbs twitched with reflexes not his own.
He had stolen instinct.
And it felt good.
He looked down at his hand. It had begun to reseal. The orb dimmed. The veins glowed faintly, slowly returning to their default state.
He wasn't alone in his mind.
Not anymore.
Far above, in a secure control room hidden in the clean sectors, an old surveillance feed blinked alive.
A technician frowned. "Sir… we have motion in Ghost Sector Delta."
A man in a lab coat turned slowly. His ID read: Director Halcor, Omega Division.
"Patch it through."
The screen showed Kael, standing over the corpse of A-00.
The director stared.
Then smiled.
"So... another one survived."
Kael didn't know any of this.
He only knew the hunger was back.
[Bio-energy Required — 18:45:12 Remaining]
He stepped deeper into the dark.