Kael sprinted through the cracked subterranean rails of Sector 9-A, the stolen data core clutched in his hand, and the voice of Arkanis whispering code and warnings directly into his spine. Behind him, every automated sensor, every city-eye, every surveillance algorithm in the district had been triggered by the breach at GENBANK-3.
[Pursuit Units Deployed: 3]
[Designation: Hunter-Class Biomechs]
Kael didn't know what that meant. But the world around him suddenly dimmed, and he felt it—air pressure shifting. Not wind. Not tech.
Predators.
The first strike came from above.
He sensed it milliseconds before impact. A shape dropped from the ceiling of the ruined rail tunnel, eight limbs coiled with biomechanical musculature, obsidian armor glinting in the dark. Its face was a blend of human and drone: hollow sockets with red irises and needlelike mandibles. It let out a shriek that bypassed sound and hit his nervous system directly.
Kael spun.
The strike missed his heart by inches. He retaliated with a blast of dark plasma from his right palm, but the creature twisted mid-air and landed on the wall sideways.
[Entity Identified: HUNTER-X07]
[Combat Intelligence: Tier 3 Adaptive AI]
He barely dodged as two more dropped in from the opposite side.
Kael skidded, twisted, jumped off a broken rail spine—and ran. But even as he moved, the interface buzzed with warnings. The Hunters weren't chasing like soldiers.
They were herding.
"They want to pin me," Kael growled aloud.
Yes, Arkanis hissed. Because you're not prey to be hunted. You're data to be collected. They want your fusion signature.
Kael turned sharply, ducking through a low tunnel. He emerged in a broken section of the old tram station. Rusted beams loomed like skeletons. It was silent except for his own breathing.
Then came the ripple.
All three Hunters stepped out of the shadows at once, synchronized.
Kael's HUD blurred as their fields interfered with his signal.
They spoke.
"Subject D-3781," one said in a voice like shredded glass. "You are in unauthorized possession of Omega-class bio-fusion architecture. Relinquish your core."
Kael's laugh was hollow.
"You want it?" He lifted his cracked palm. The orb embedded there spun, emitting a high-pitched whine.
"Come take it."
The fight was chaos.
Kael ducked as two Hunters came at him from opposing angles. His reflexes—augmented by Reflex Hack—allowed him to dodge, barely, but their strikes still shredded concrete and twisted steel. One Hunter drove a spear into the ground where he had just stood.
Kael jumped forward and activated his new blade—stolen from the exo-rig in Chapter 3. It flared to life, plasma edge humming. He slashed upward, slicing clean through one of the Hunter's arms.
The creature didn't even flinch.
Instead, it adapted.
[Adaptation Detected: Reinforced Anti-Energy Mesh Deployed]
Kael's eyes widened.
"They learn mid-fight," he muttered. "Perfect."
Push them beyond protocol, Arkanis snarled. Force instability.
Kael let go of caution.
He threw himself into a berserker rhythm, ducking under the spear, blasting the second Hunter in the chest with a kinetic pulse from his mutated arm, and stabbing the third directly in the throat. The blade went deep.
But the Hunter grinned.
"Accepted."
And detonated.
Kael was blown across the chamber, crashing into a column with enough force to break ribs. His vision dimmed. His body screamed. Blood ran down his face.
He groaned and sat up.
One Hunter down. Two more closing in.
Then something new happened.
[Symbiote Core Spike Detected][Emergency Unlock Engaged: PHASE FORM - Tier 1]
His body split.
Not physically. Temporally.
Kael's consciousness fractured across three quantum shadows. He moved in triplicate, like a ghost triple-cloned. Every action echoed. Every strike left trails.
To the Hunters, it was madness.
They struck where he had been, but their systems couldn't adjust.
Kael danced.
He flowed.
He ripped through one Hunter's chest and crushed the other with a triple impact of phase-enhanced blows.
When the shadows ended, he collapsed to one knee.
Blood poured from his nose.
[Warning: Cognitive Load Critical – Host Stability at 32%]
He laughed.
Then coughed blood.
"I'm... fine…" he muttered.
No, Arkanis growled. You're dying. You used Phase Form too soon.
"I'm still alive."
He stood shakily. The three Hunters lay shattered. One twitched.
Kael approached and stabbed it clean through the core.
He stumbled out of the station into Sector 8 Fringe. A quarantine zone. Deserted. Unclean.
He found a half-buried medical unit, still partially powered.
Kael hacked it.
Sat inside.
And for a moment, he breathed.
His vision flickered with images—of the boy in GENBANK-3. Of Subject Zero. Of the words etched inside the data core he'd stolen:
PROJECT ARKOS – ORIGINAL DIRECTIVE: SURVIVAL OF THE PERFECT HOST.
He whispered, "What the hell have you made me?"
Not made, Arkanis said. Revealed.
Kael didn't argue.
He slept.
Elsewhere, in the cold halls of NEXUS Central Command, Director Halcor watched the footage.
"He killed three Hunters."
"Phase Form unlocked far too early," murmured the AI technician beside him. "He shouldn't have access to Tier 1 without a regulator."
Halcor narrowed his eyes.
"Subject D-3781 is syncing faster than the models predicted."
"Shall I activate the Phase Reapers, sir?"
Halcor shook his head.
"No. Not yet."
He stared at Kael's image on the screen—flickering, red-eyed, bloody, half-conscious.
"First we show the world what he is."
"Then we make him the villain."
Deep in the sublayers of District 12, a figure in tattered robes looked up from an old terminal.
She watched Kael's data stream ripple through her screens.
Her eyes were stitched shut.
But she saw everything.
"He'll need us soon," she whispered to no one. "Or he'll burn the world before they do."