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.”
