Iron Reign: The Black Coffin Chapter 12 — Forbidden Existence

 

Chapter 12 — Forbidden Existence

The extraction chamber had become a battlefield between realities.

Gunfire.
Smoke.
Screaming mutants.

And in the middle of it all

A vampire child stood calmly beside monsters from another age.

The shadow crows slowly dissolved into black ash around the Fairy while the Death Reaper stood motionless near the shattered entrance, its clawed hands dripping dark blood onto the steel floor.

No one lowered their weapons.

Not even the Grave Hounds.

Especially not Darius Vane.

The massive Steelborn commander kept his rifle trained directly on Einar Winter while his cybernetic eye glowed brighter beneath the red emergency lights.

The Iron Reign outlawed magic.

Outlawed supernatural entities.

Outlawed anything humanity could not fully control.

And standing before him now

Was proof those laws had already failed.

“You should’ve told us,” Elias said quietly.

Dr. Voss looked shattered.

“We weren’t allowed.”

Cassian laughed once.

Not humor.

Disgust.

“Of course not.”

Another tremor shook the chamber violently. Somewhere far below the facility, something enormous roared through collapsing corridors.

Nobody moved.

Because the greater danger right now stood directly in front of them.

Einar looked almost bored by the tension.

“You’re all very dramatic.”

Darius stepped forward.

Heavy steel boots slammed against the floor.

“You are a classified abomination under Iron Reign law.”

The Fairy slowly turned his head.

Not toward Einar.

Toward Darius.

The atmosphere shifted instantly.

The beautiful creature’s silver eyes became empty.

Cold.

Predatory.

The room suddenly felt smaller.

Kael noticed immediately.

“…Uh oh.”

Darius didn’t stop.

“You should not exist.”

Einar sighed softly.

“And yet here I am.”

The Death Reaper moved one step forward.

Every soldier immediately raised weapons.

Heavy Metal targeting systems locked on.
Drones repositioned.
Shotguns chambered.

The extraction chamber stood one breath away from total violence.

Lucien felt it before anyone else.

Pressure.

Not physical.

Something emotional.

Ancient.

The Fairy’s gaze slowly drifted toward him.

And suddenly

Lucien couldn’t breathe.

His vision blurred faintly as whispers echoed at the edge of his thoughts again.

Not words.

Feelings.

Loneliness.
Hunger.
Centuries of silence.

The Fairy stared at him silently from across the room.

Recognition.

Lucien staggered slightly.

Elias immediately caught his shoulder.

“Ghostlight?”

Lucien whispered weakly:

“…He knows me.”

That froze the room.

Einar’s expression sharpened slightly with interest.

“Oh?”

The Fairy tilted his head slowly toward Lucien.

Then

He disappeared.

The entire chamber reacted instantly.

Weapons snapped upward.

Targeting systems failed.

Dex’s drones lost lock completely.

Even Nero’s eyes widened slightly.

Too fast.

The Fairy reappeared directly in front of Lucien.

No sound.
No movement detected.

Just sudden presence.

Elias immediately stepped between them, combat blade raised.

“Back away.”

The Fairy looked at the blade curiously.

Then at Elias.

Then gently touched the tip of the weapon with one pale finger.

The steel instantly frosted over.

Elias stepped backward instinctively.

“…What the hell…”

Lucien stared at the Fairy up close now.

The creature looked impossibly beautiful.

But wrong.

Not human beauty.

Predatory beauty.

Like something evolved specifically to lure trust before feeding.

Yet his expression held no aggression toward Lucien.

Only curiosity.

The Fairy slowly reached toward Lucien’s face

Darius fired.

BOOM.

The entire chamber erupted.

The Fairy vanished before the round even crossed the air.

The slug struck the wall behind Lucien hard enough to crater reinforced steel.

Suddenly every crow in the room exploded outward in violent black motion.

The Death Reaper roared.

The sound shook the chamber.

Cassian immediately raised his shotgun.

“DARIUS!”

Too late.

The Fairy appeared above Iron Alpha like a phantom descending from nowhere.

One pale hand rested gently against Darius’ rifle barrel.

The barrel bent sideways instantly.

Like soft metal.

The room froze.

Even Darius looked shocked.

The Fairy stood balanced effortlessly on the commander’s weapon while white robes drifted softly around him.

No aggression.

No rage.

Just overwhelming superiority.

Then Einar spoke.

“Enough.”

Everything stopped instantly.

The crows froze midair.

The Death Reaper stepped back immediately.

The Fairy disappeared from Darius’ rifle and returned silently to Einar’s side.

Absolute obedience.

The chamber remained deathly quiet.

Einar looked annoyed now.

“You’re behaving like frightened animals.”

Darius slowly dropped the ruined rifle.

His cybernetic eye locked onto Einar again.

“You control them.”

The vampire child nodded casually.

“Of course I do.”

“How?”

Einar smiled faintly.

“They love me.”

Nobody liked that answer.

Lucien still stared at the Fairy.

The connection hadn’t faded.

If anything

It had become stronger.

The creature looked toward him again quietly.

And Lucien realized something horrifying.

The Fairy wasn’t staring at him like prey.

It was staring at him like kin.

Lucien took an uneasy step backward.

Elias noticed immediately.

“What’s wrong?”

Lucien struggled to explain it.

“When I use my powers…”

His voice became quieter.

“It feels similar.”

Silence crashed into the room.

Even Kael stopped joking.

The implication settled hard.

Lucien’s abilities.
The angelic projections.
The impossible light.

Magic.

Forbidden existence.

Just like them.

Darius turned slowly toward Lucien.

Not hostile.

Not yet.

But thinking.

That almost hurt worse.

Lucien saw it immediately.

And looked away.

Einar watched the entire interaction carefully.

Then smiled slightly.

“There it is.”

Cassian narrowed his eyes.

“There what is?”

The child folded his hands behind his back.

“The reason your empire fears things like us.”

Another tremor shook the facility violently.

Chunks of ceiling collapsed nearby.

The third coffin rattled again.

This time harder.

CLANG.

Something inside slammed against the interior walls.

Everyone turned instantly.

The atmosphere changed again.

Even the Death Reaper slowly looked toward the unopened coffin now.

And for the first time

The monster appeared nervous.

Einar’s expression faded completely.

“That,” he said quietly, “is why I told you not to open the last one.”

The scratching inside the coffin stopped.

Silence filled the chamber.

Then

Something inside knocked back.

Once.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Like it knew they were listening.

Iron Reign: The Black Coffin Chapter 11 — The Vampire Child

 

Chapter 11 — The Vampire Child

Facility K-27 was collapsing around them.

The extraction chamber shook violently as mutant hordes slammed against reinforced blast doors while emergency alarms screamed across every level of the underground complex.

Red lights pulsed overhead.

Smoke rolled through the chamber floor.

And in the middle of it all

The black coffins waited.

Heavy transport rigs dragged the massive containers toward the extraction elevator while both the Iron Wolves and Grave Hounds formed defensive lines around the scientists.

Gunfire thundered constantly.

Mutants poured through the shattered corridors in endless waves.

“LEFT SIDE!” Rowan shouted as four clones opened fire simultaneously.

Blue tracer rounds tore through charging creatures while Varka Holt’s rotary cannon roared like an aircraft engine from hell.

Bodies exploded apart beneath overwhelming firepower.

But they kept coming.

Always coming.

Darius Vane stood at the center of the chamber beside the coffins, rifle raised, cybernetic eye tracking movement through smoke and darkness.

Something felt wrong.

Not battlefield wrong.

Older.

Watching.

Then

A child’s voice spoke behind him.

“You keep pointing guns at my property.”

Everyone turned instantly.

Einar Winter stood beside the nearest coffin.

No one had seen him move.

The pale child looked strangely calm despite the collapsing facility around him. Silver-white hair framed his unnaturally pale face while his piercing blue eyes reflected the red emergency lights like frozen glass.

Lucien stiffened immediately.

“Einar…”

The boy ignored everyone except the coffins.

His expression had changed completely.

Gone was the frightened child from earlier.

Now he looked…

Ancient.

Darius slowly lowered his rifle toward him.

“Step away from the containers.”

Einar finally looked up.

And smiled slightly.

“You still think these are containers.”

The room went still.

Cassian immediately stepped forward.

“Kid,” he said coldly, “now would be an excellent time to stop talking like a horror movie.”

Einar tilted his head.

“You came here to rescue me.”

A pause.

“But nobody ever asked what I was.”

Silence.

The facility trembled again violently.

One of the blast doors behind the squads buckled inward as mutants slammed against it from the other side.

Elias kept his rifle trained outward while glancing back carefully.

“Talk fast.”

Einar looked toward Lucien briefly.

Then toward the soldiers surrounding him.

“You call General Winter my father.”

The boy smiled faintly.

“He isn’t.”

Confusion spread across the room instantly.

Darius narrowed his glowing eye.

“What does that mean?”

Einar’s pale fingers gently touched the nearest coffin.

“It means,” he said softly, “he is my descendant.”

The chamber went dead silent.

Even the gunfire suddenly felt distant.

Kael blinked slowly.

“…Excuse me?”

The scientists looked terrified now.

Like they had hoped this moment would never happen.

Dr. Voss finally whispered:

“We found him beneath the excavation site.”

Einar sighed dramatically.

“She means my tomb.”

Lucien stared at him.

“…You’re not human.”

Einar’s blue eyes shifted toward him gently.

“No,” he admitted.

“I’m really not.”

Then the first coffin unlocked.

CLUNK.

Every weapon in the room instantly snapped toward it.

The black steel door slowly creaked open.

Cold air poured out.

Not normal cold.

Dead cold.

The lights dimmed across the chamber as darkness seemed to leak from inside the coffin itself.

Then

Something moved.

A massive pale hand wrapped around the edge of the coffin door.

The thing inside stood slowly.

Huge.

Bald.
Deathly white skin stretched over monstrous muscle.
A black cloak draped over its body like living shadow.

Its face barely looked human anymore.

Its mouth opened slightly

Revealing rows of predatory fangs.

The Death Reaper emerged silently from the coffin.

Nearly eight feet tall.

The black cloak moved unnaturally around its body, shifting like smoke beneath water. Bullets from earlier battles were still embedded in the fabric

Flattened.

As if the cloth itself had rejected damage.

Several soldiers instinctively stepped backward.

Even Steelborn.

The Death Reaper slowly turned its head toward the squads.

Then toward Einar.

And immediately knelt.

The chamber froze.

Einar patted the monster’s shoulder casually.

“Good evening, Mordecai.”

Kael stared openly now.

“Nope,” he said immediately. “I officially quit reality.”

The second coffin began opening.

Slower.

Smoother.

Unlike the first, this one emitted no darkness.

Only silence.

The door drifted open softly.

And a figure stepped out.

Beautiful.

That was the first terrifying thing about him.

The young man looked almost unreal beneath the flickering red lights. Long black hair flowed past pale flawless skin while elegant white robes moved weightlessly around his body.

His features were soft.

Androgynous.

Perfect.

East Asian facial features framed emotionless silver eyes that seemed distant from the world around him.

He stepped barefoot onto the steel floor without making a sound.

Then

He vanished.

Half the room flinched.

A second later he reappeared standing perfectly balanced atop Darius’ assault rifle barrel.

The seven-foot Steelborn commander froze.

The pale figure tilted his head curiously while looking down at him.

Not hostile.

Not afraid.

Simply observing.

Everyone stared.

Nobody had seen him move.

Not even Nero.

Einar sighed.

“Fairy,” he said tiredly.

The beautiful figure immediately stepped backward off the rifle with impossible grace before gliding silently back beside the child.

Kael slowly lowered his weapon.

“…Why is the terrifying one prettier than me?”

Nobody answered.

Because nobody could stop staring.

The Fairy stood unnaturally still beside Einar while his white robes drifted gently despite the absence of wind.

Not breathing.

Not blinking.

Just waiting.

Then the chamber doors exploded inward.

Mutants flooded into the extraction chamber screaming.

Dozens.

Hundreds behind them.

The Death Reaper immediately turned.

Its black cloak spread wider.

Then it moved.

The monster crossed the room faster than bullets.

One mutant exploded apart instantly beneath a clawed strike.

Another lost its head.

Another was ripped in half.

The Death Reaper moved through the horde like a living execution.

Not fighting.

Harvesting.

Meanwhile the Fairy stepped lightly into the battlefield.

And the shadows around him began moving.

At first

A few black birds emerged from beneath his sleeves.

Crows.

Then more.

Then hundreds.

The chamber darkened as enormous swarms of shadow crows erupted around the pale figure like a living storm.

Mutants screamed as the birds tore through them in violent black waves.

The Fairy himself simply walked calmly through the battlefield untouched while the swarm devoured everything around him.

Entire mutant packs vanished beneath screaming clouds of feathers and shadow.

The soldiers watched in stunned horror.

Orion’s voice cracked slightly.

“…Magic.”

Nobody corrected him.

Because no technology explained this.

Not drones.
Not augmentation.
Not science.

This was something else.

Something forbidden.

Darius finally raised his rifle again

Directly at Einar.

The Death Reaper instantly stopped moving.

The Fairy slowly turned.

Every crow in the chamber froze midair.

The atmosphere became suffocating instantly.

Einar looked almost disappointed.

“You really should stop doing that.”

Darius’ voice became iron.

“You are classified as a supernatural entity under Iron Reign law.”

“Mm.” Einar nodded thoughtfully. “And yet you still need me alive.”

That silence said enough.

Because he was right.

The mission had always been about retrieving him.

Not rescuing him.

Cassian slowly stepped beside Darius.

“Those things are coming with us?”

Einar smiled faintly.

“They’re my toys.”

Kael nearly choked.

“Your WHAT?”

The child looked genuinely confused.

“What else would you call them?”

Another violent tremor shook the chamber.

The center coffin remained unopened behind Einar.

Unlike the others

It was still locked.

And faint scratching noises now echoed from inside it.

Everyone noticed.

Even Einar’s expression faded slightly.

Lucien stared at the third coffin uneasily.

“…What’s in that one?”

For the first time

The vampire child did not smile.

And that terrified everyone more than the monsters did.

Iron Reign: The Black Coffins Chapter 10 - Retrieval

 

ARC 4 THE COFFINS

Chapter 10 - Retrieval

Facility K-27 was dying.

The underground complex groaned constantly now, like a wounded metal beast collapsing beneath its own weight. Emergency lights flickered through clouds of smoke while warning sirens echoed across the facility in distorted loops.

Somewhere deep below

Something enormous slammed against reinforced containment walls.

Again.

Again.

Again.

The sound vibrated through the floor beneath the surviving squads.

The Iron Wolves regrouped first.

Commander Darius Vane emerged from the smoke-covered corridors carrying Lucien Vale over one armored shoulder while Elias Rook walked beside him reloading his rifle. Kael Mordren followed close behind, katana stained black with mutant blood.

Orion Hex limped behind them in his damaged mech suit, one arm of the machine sparking violently.

“You know,” Orion muttered painfully, “I liked this place better before everything tried to eat us.”

“No you didn’t,” Kael answered.

“…Fair.”

Ahead of them, the remaining Grave Hounds secured the central retrieval chamber.

Cassian Dray stood near the center platform beside several terrified scientists while Rowan’s surviving clones guarded the perimeter with rifles raised.

The moment Darius entered

The room became tense.

Not because of the mutants.

Not because of the collapsing facility.

Because of what stood in the middle of the chamber.

Three enormous black steel coffins.

Each one covered in ancient locking mechanisms and strange metallic markings unlike anything produced by the Iron Reign.

The room felt colder near them.

Lucien slowly lifted his head weakly from Darius’ shoulder.

The moment he saw the coffins

His expression changed.

“…Those are wrong.”

Everyone looked at him.

Even Cassian.

“What do you mean wrong?” Elias asked carefully.

Lucien stared at the containers.

“They feel alive.”

Silence followed that.

One of the surviving scientists finally stepped forward nervously.

Dr. Helena Voss looked exhausted beyond human limits. Blood stained her lab coat while one hand shook uncontrollably around a datapad.

“You weren’t supposed to find them yet,” she whispered.

Darius immediately turned toward her.

“Start talking.”

Her eyes shifted toward the coffins.

“We didn’t create the outbreak.”

Nobody moved.

The scientist swallowed hard.

“We found something beneath the desert.”

Orion frowned.

“…That’s never a good sentence.”

Dr. Voss activated her datapad shakily.

A holographic projection appeared above the central table.

Ancient underground ruins.

Massive structures buried beneath mutant territory.

And inside them

Rows.

Thousands of black coffins.

The room went silent.

“The mutants weren’t attacking the facility to destroy us,” Dr. Voss said quietly.

Her voice trembled.

“They were trying to stop us from excavating the tomb.”

Kael slowly lowered his rifle.

“…Excuse me?”

Cassian’s expression darkened immediately.

“You’re telling me the Iron Reign dug into an ancient crypt beneath mutant territory?”

The scientist didn’t answer.

Because she didn’t need to.

The answer was obvious.

Darius stared coldly at the hologram.

“What’s inside them?”

Dr. Voss hesitated.

Then finally:

“We don’t fully know.”

Kael laughed once in disbelief.

“Oh fantastic. We unleashed apocalypse mystery boxes.”

Another massive impact shook the facility.

Dust rained from the ceiling.

Somewhere nearby

Something screamed.

Not mutant.

Not human.

Older.

Lucien visibly flinched.

Elias immediately noticed.

“Ghostlight?”

Lucien stared toward the coffins.

“…Something in there is awake.”

That changed the atmosphere instantly.

Even Steelborn shifted slightly now.

The coffins suddenly felt less like cargo

And more like predators pretending to sleep.

Cassian turned toward the scientists sharply.

“How many facilities were excavating these things?”

Nobody answered quickly enough.

That alone was enough.

Cassian’s jaw tightened.

“…How many?”

Dr. Voss whispered:

“Seven.”

The room exploded with overlapping voices.

“You opened SEVEN sites?!”
“Are you insane?”
“Who approved this?”

Darius remained silent through all of it.

Which somehow felt worse.

Finally he spoke.

“Mission changes.”

Everyone looked toward Iron Alpha.

Darius pointed directly at the coffins.

“We retrieve them.”

Several soldiers stared at him like he’d lost his mind.

Cassian stepped forward immediately.

“You cannot seriously intend to transport unknown entities through Iron Reign territory.”

Darius’ cybernetic eye glowed brighter.

“And leaving them here is better?”

Cassian answered instantly.

“Yes.”

Silence hit the chamber hard.

For a moment it looked like the two commanders might actually fight each other.

Both nearly seven-foot Steelborn monsters stood face-to-face beneath flickering emergency lights while alarms screamed around them.

Two warlords built differently.

Cassian commanded through calculation.

Darius through force.

And neither trusted the other completely.

“The facility is collapsing,” Cassian said coldly. “We destroy the coffins and leave.”

“We don’t have authorization for that,” Darius answered.

“We also didn’t have authorization to unleash hell underground.”

That landed hard.

Even Darius couldn’t argue immediately.

Lucien slowly looked toward the nearest coffin again.

Then suddenly

He froze.

His silver-blue eyes widened.

“…Something moved.”

Everyone raised weapons instantly.

One of the black coffins emitted a low metallic groan.

Not mechanical.

Breathing.

Slowly

One of the outer locking seals began turning by itself.

CLUNK.

Orion’s face paled instantly.

“Oh that’s BAD.”

The room erupted into motion.

“MOVE THE COFFINS!”
“Seal the chamber!”
“GET THE SCIENTISTS OUT!”

Heavy Metal units immediately attached magnetic transport rigs onto the black containers while Rowan’s clones formed defensive lines around the chamber entrances.

Another impact shook the facility violently.

The floor cracked.

Emergency power flickered lower.

Dex Mercer’s drones suddenly flashed warning symbols across the room.

“MOTION DETECTED.”

“How many?” Elias asked.

Dex stared at the readings.

“…A lot.”

The corridor outside exploded with screams.

Mutants.

Hundreds of them.

Not charging randomly this time.

Moving together.

Coordinated.

Like something was driving them toward the chamber.

Kael slowly drew his katana.

“They know about the coffins.”

Another seal on the nearest container unlocked.

CLUNK.

Lucien stepped backward instinctively.

His breathing became uneven.

Inside his head

Something whispered again.

Wake up.

His eyes widened.

No one else heard it.

Only him.

Darius noticed immediately.

“What is it?”

Lucien stared at the coffin.

“…It knows I’m here.”

Then the chamber doors detonated inward.

Mutants flooded the corridor screaming.

And behind them

Something much larger moved through the smoke.

Cassian immediately raised his shotgun.

“Retrieval team move now!”

Heavy transport rigs began dragging the coffins toward the extraction elevators while both squads opened fire into the advancing mutant wave.

Blue tracer fire lit the chamber like lightning.

The retrieval had begun.

And Facility K-27 was running out of time.

just to remind you

To type an em dash (—) on a keyboard, use the Alt code 0151 on Windows (hold Alt + type 0151 on the number pad) or Option + Shift + Hyphen on Mac. This creates the long dash used for breaks in sentences, as opposed to the shorter hyphen (-) or en dash (–)

Iron Reign: The Black Coffin Chapter 9 — Wraith

 

Chapter 9 — Wraith

The deeper levels of Facility K-27 had gone silent.

Not peaceful.

Dead.

Emergency lights flickered weakly through smoke-filled hallways while blood pooled beneath overturned medical carts and shattered laboratory glass.

Somewhere far above, distant gunfire still echoed through the facility.

But down here

Something worse moved.

Lucien walked carefully beside Milo and Einar through the ruined corridor left behind by the Alpha battle. The walls were shredded with claw marks deep enough to expose wiring and support beams beneath the steel.

Milo had returned mostly to human form, though dried blood still stained his arms and neck. His torn uniform barely hung together anymore.

Lucien kept glancing at him.

Still processing.

“You’re really a werewolf.”

Milo sighed.

“Yes.”

“You could’ve told us.”

“You’re literally haunted by an angel.”

“…That’s different.”

Einar smiled faintly between them.

“You’re both monsters,” he said pleasantly.

Neither of them appreciated that sentence.

Then the lights died.

Total darkness swallowed the corridor instantly.

Milo stopped walking.

So did Einar.

Lucien felt it immediately.

Movement.

Not ahead.

Around them.

Watching.

The emergency systems suddenly rebooted.

Red lights returned

And revealed the bodies.

Dozens of mutants hung from the ceiling.

Dead.

Pinned there.

Their limbs twisted unnaturally with surgical precision.

Lucien froze.

“What…”

Milo’s expression darkened immediately.

“He’s here.”

A low growl echoed somewhere nearby.

Heavy footsteps followed.

THUD.

THUD.

THUD.

Another Alpha Mutant emerged from the darkness ahead.

Bigger than the last one.

Its flesh looked reinforced with black armored growths while several human arms protruded half-absorbed from its torso, twitching violently.

Its skull split open vertically as it roared.

Lucien instinctively raised glowing hands.

Milo stepped forward again

But Einar quietly touched his arm.

“No,” the child said softly.

Milo frowned.

“Why?”

Einar looked toward the darkness behind the mutant.

“…Because he’s already hunting it.”

Silence.

Then the corridor lights flickered once.

And the Alpha suddenly stopped roaring.

It looked confused.

Then nervous.

Then

Afraid.

The massive creature slowly turned around.

Something moved behind it.

A shadow.

Tall.
Broad.
Silent.

Noctis Veil stepped into the red emergency lighting like a nightmare taking shape.

The Wraith.

Black armored wrappings concealed every inch of his body beneath layered stealth plating. A smooth black mask covered his face completely except for two faint red lenses glowing where his eyes should’ve been.

Despite standing nearly seven feet tall

He made no sound.

The Alpha Mutant roared and charged first.

Wraith vanished.

Not metaphorically.

One second he stood still.

The next

He was behind the creature.

A black combat blade flashed once.

The Alpha staggered.

One of its arms slid off its body.

Clean cut.

The monster screamed.

Wraith said nothing.

The Alpha swung backward wildly with enough force to destroy concrete walls.

Wraith ducked underneath the strike effortlessly and drove both armored fists into the creature’s spine.

CRACK.

The impact bent the Alpha forward unnaturally.

Lucien stared.

“…He fights like he’s not human.”

“No,” Milo answered quietly.

“He fights like he forgot how.”

The Alpha adapted instantly.

Bone spikes erupted from its body in all directions.

Wraith allowed several to stab directly through his armor.

Lucien gasped

But Wraith didn’t even react.

The giant operative grabbed one spike with his bare hand.

Then ripped the entire growth structure out of the mutant’s body violently enough to expose organs beneath armored flesh.

Black blood sprayed across the walls.

The Alpha stumbled backward roaring in pain.

Wraith walked toward it slowly.

Still silent.

Still unstoppable.

The creature suddenly lunged toward Lucien instead.

Smart.

Target the weakest.

Wraith moved faster.

He intercepted the Alpha mid-charge and tackled the massive creature through the wall entirely.

The next room exploded inward.

Lucien and the others rushed toward the breach cautiously.

Inside

The fight became something horrifying.

The Alpha slammed Wraith through reinforced medical equipment.

Wraith answered by grabbing the creature’s jaw and smashing its skull repeatedly into the floor hard enough to crater steel plating beneath them.

The mutant regenerated.

Wraith adapted faster.

Every movement precise.
Violent.
Efficient.

Not rage.

Execution.

The Alpha roared and slammed all its weight onto him.

Wraith caught it.

Actually caught it.

The massive operative slowly stood back up while holding the creature overhead with impossible strength.

Then threw it through a reinforced containment chamber.

The glass shattered explosively.

The Alpha rose again immediately.

Its wounds healing slower now.

Fear visible in its movements.

Wraith tilted his head slightly.

Studying it.

Like a predator deciding where to cut next.

Then he attacked again.

This time

The room went dark.

Not from power failure.

The shadows themselves moved around him.

Lucien watched in stunned silence as Wraith disappeared between flickering lights and reappeared around the Alpha faster than the eye could track.

Cuts appeared across the creature’s body.

One after another.

Too fast to follow.

The Alpha screamed wildly while chunks of flesh fell from it in strips.

Then suddenly

Wraith stood still behind it.

The mutant froze.

A thin black line slowly appeared across its torso.

Then the upper half of the creature slid off the lower half.

Silence.

The Alpha collapsed in pieces.

Dead.

Completely dead.

Even the regeneration stopped.

Lucien realized his hands were shaking.

“…What is he?”

Nobody answered immediately.

Wraith slowly turned toward them.

Red eye lenses glowing softly beneath the black mask.

Einar smiled politely.

“Hello again.”

Wraith stared at the child for several long seconds.

Then looked toward Lucien.

Then Milo.

A low mechanical sound finally emerged from behind the mask.

Not quite a voice.

“…Alive.”

Lucien blinked.

“You were following us?”

Wraith gave one slow nod.

Milo crossed his arms.

“Kinda figured.”

Lucien stared at him.

“You knew?!”

“He’s saved us three times already.”

“THREE?!”

Wraith ignored the conversation entirely.

Instead, he stepped toward the corridor leading deeper underground.

Then stopped.

Slowly

He looked upward.

Everyone else followed his gaze.

The ceiling trembled.

Far below them—

Something enormous moved beneath the facility.

Einar’s smile disappeared completely now.

“That,” the child whispered softly…

“…is awake.”