Smoke filled the lower halls of Black Sector, thick and cloying, tinged with the scent of melted metal and blood. Emergency strobes flashed in rhythmic pulses, bathing the concrete corridors in red light. Sirens howled, distant and guttural, like wounded machines crying out in the dark.
Kael stood frozen, eyes locked on the black screen. Whatever had ripped through Delta Block wasn't human.
Dr. Vex moved quickly, her calm gone, replaced with a clinical urgency. She tapped into a wall console. "Security lockdown. Re-route all drones to sub-level three. Engage asset containment protocol—override code Vex-9."
"No response," came a mechanical voice. "Network breach in progress. External command interference detected."
Kael turned toward her. "What's happening?"
She didn't answer.
Another screen flickered to life grainy footage of a hallway camera catching only fragmented frames. Movement. Bodies flung like rag dolls. Drones sliced apart midair. And then…
A shadow.
It passed between frames like a glitch. Its outline shifted humanoid, but only barely. Too many limbs. Spines along its back. And eyes dozens of them, blinking across its skin, glowing faintly red.
Kael's spiral burned again, hot under his skin.
"It remembers you," the voice in his mind whispered.
He staggered, gripping the edge of the console.
Dr. Vex noticed. "The genome's resonating with the breach subject. That shouldn't be possible…"
The lights overhead flickered.
A new alarm shrieked Containment Chamber breach. Bio-lock failure. Manual override required.
Then: silence.
The power died completely.
Only the emergency backup lights remained.
Dr. Vex drew a small sidearm from her coat. The barrel glowed with bioluminescent blue a gene-tuned pulse pistol. She looked at Kael. "Can you fight?"
Kael blinked. "What?"
"You're the only anomaly with a registered Overlord activation. If that thing is what I think it is, then you're the only one it won't tear apart immediately."
"I've never fought anything."
"You're about to learn."
Without warning, the wall behind them exploded inward.
Shrapnel flew. Kael hit the ground hard as the lab was blown open, smoke rushing in. A heavy footstep thudded through the cloud. Then another. A low, chittering noise echoed, like teeth grinding bone.
From the smoke emerged the creature.
It was tall eight feet at least. Humanoid only in silhouette. Its flesh was a mess of evolving tissue scaled in places, armored in others, with muscle strands shifting like snakes beneath translucent skin. The spiral mark was branded into its forehead, but corrupted twisted inward like a broken sigil.
Its eyes locked onto Kael.
Kael's own spiral flared again, and the creature… paused.
For a heartbeat, Kael wasn't in the lab.
He was somewhere else. A memory. No an inheritance.
A ruined world. Skies torn by riftstorms. Towers of flesh and chrome. Two figures stood across from each other atop a genetic altar one bearing the true spiral, and one bearing the twisted mark.
The voice returned, deeper now.
"One ruled by dominion. The other by hunger. You are not the first."
Then he was back.
The creature lunged.
Kael reacted instinctively, throwing his hand forward.
The air cracked. A red sigil flared around his fingers, forming a spiral construct of energy that expanded like a shield. The creature smashed into it and rebounded, roaring in frustration.
Dr. Vex raised her weapon and fired.
The bolt slammed into the creature's shoulder, forcing it back. It hissed and retreated into the hallway, vanishing into the dark.
Kael panted, eyes wide. "What… was that?"
Dr. Vex holstered her weapon. "A rogue fusion. Something that never should have survived. A failed Overlord heir gone feral. We thought we erased them all."
"You were wrong."
She nodded grimly. "And it's hunting you."
Kael stared down at his trembling hands. The spiral on his chest pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
He wasn't ready.
But the war had already started.
Elsewhere--
Above Black Sector, in a boardroom lined with chrome and glass, six figures stood around a holographic display. Genetic models spiraled in the air, showing Kael's data—his activation sequence, the stone reaction, the breach.
A voice spoke from the shadows.
"He's not a threat yet. But he will be."
A tall man in a red GenCore officer's coat stepped forward. His name tag read: Director Valen Korr.
He turned to the others.
"Begin Project Dominion. Kael Riven is no longer a Null. He's the key to everything we buried."
His eyes narrowed.
"And if we can't control him"
He closed his fist.
"we end him."
---
End of Chapter 3