Nathaniel righted himself, breath low, stance grounded. No words passed between them—only the language of raw force and instinct.
The Nubian Hive Hunter loomed ahead, spear pulsing with amber resonance, her monstrous frame thrumming with inherited rage.
He charged.
No hesitation. No signal.
He slammed forward—grabbing her oversized tail mid-motion, fingers locking tight as it tried to hurl him away with sudden, brutal torque. The force of it nearly lifted his feet off the ground, but he held.
Her black lips twisted into a vicious snarl—the only window into the strain behind her mask of chitin and armor.
She struck back—slamming fists and claws down like piston-hammers, trying to force him into the dirt. Each blow drove tremors into the earth.
But his muscles coiled, his frame resisting the descent.
Like a car jack, he pushed back—inch by inch, muscle by muscle, slow-twitch and fast-twitch fibers firing in symphony. Veins flared. Tendons locked.
He rose.
Then—he exploded forward.
The impact sent them both hurtling through the clearing.
Trees shattered.
Massive trunks splintered into toothpicks as he tackled her through one, then another, and another—momentum building with each crash. She lashed at him mid-flight—blows smashing against his ribs, arms, face—but he didn't stop.
He kept driving, every hit fueling the next surge of strength.
The forest gave way to carnage in their wake.
His veins glowed—faint canyons of light running beneath his skin, pulsing with coiled power.
Nathaniel didn't stop.
Blade summoned in a flash of heat and sound, he charged without hesitation. His senses sharpened—refining, narrowing—until the primary energy core inside the Hive Hunter burned like a beacon in his vision.
He struck.
The blade tore through its core with ruthless precision.
The Nubian Hive Hunter convulsed in his grasp, her clawed limbs thrashing one final time as the life faded from her visage. Fallen logs splintered beneath their weight, leaves spiralling around them in shafts of broken sunlight.
Then—stillness.
The corpse slumped, massive and armoured, against the forest floor.
A chime rang out. The interface blinked to life across Nathaniel's vision.
His eyes gleamed white as dark sliver material erupted from his pores, flowing like liquid shadow. It coiled over the corpse, consuming it—subsuming flesh, armor, and amber in a cascading metamorphosis. The materials collapsed inward as their essence was transmuted.
Power surged through him.
Not part of Kinetic Muscle—this was something new.
AUGMENT ACQUIRED:Springload Fibre+ Substance HardeningUratsu Reservoir: +7%Level Up: +1
The energy shift was immediate. He felt it like a second heartbeat, like a pressure behind his skin. Yet beneath it all, deep within his consciousness, he could still feel the remnants of the Nubian Hive Hunter—a subdued echo, faint but present.
He moved to test the new ability.
With a breath, he summoned a portion of his reserve—dark cyan resin oozed from his hand, viscous and slow at first, before hardening into tough crystalline shards, almost mineral-like in density.
He flicked his arm—they launched.
The spines struck a nearby tree, embedding like thrown knives.
He activated Springload.
The next volley exploded from his palm with twice the velocity, punching deep into the bark, splintering the trunk with sharp cracks.
Nathaniel stared at the impact, then at his hands—feeling the raw capability hum under his skin.
His senses flared—a surge of tension prickling through the forest.
The hardened resin trail behind him hummed, its crystalline edges bleeding faint waves of energy. It wasn't just residue—it was reacting to something.
Nathaniel followed it deeper, the canopy thickening above. The air turned damp, dense with something unnatural. A low pulse trembled through the soil beneath his feet.
Then he saw it.
A cave, carved into the landscape like a forgotten mouth. Within it—still and silent—stood something that made his breath catch.
It resembled the Hive Hunter he'd slain. But it was male-presenting—taller, broader. Its skin was obsidian black, glossy like stone left in the sun too long. A thick cowl-like structure curled around its head, seemingly fused with its body. Its face was masked, machined white with two cold, circular eyeholes.
Wings folded along its back—white, armored, subtly shimmering with heat distortions. Dormant. For now.
Nathaniel marveled at the being. A thing of purpose. Of designed destruction.
But then the scent of ichor—still fresh on his arm—reached it.
Its eyes opened.
Not with surprise. Not with rage.
But with certainty.
A soft chime pinged through his interface, calm and cruel:
ROGUE SOLDIER HORUSThreat Level: 22
His heart thudded once.Level 22?
Nathaniel's heart pounded.That number hit harder than any strike.
He did the math instinctively. The Hive Hunter Nubian had been Level 15. Horus was Level 22. With each level scaling at 1.5x, that meant...
He was staring down something over eleven times more powerful than what he'd barely survived.
And it hadn't even moved yet.
Horus was beyond that.
He didn't even have time to act.
A flaming palm crashed into his chest.
The impact launched him backward—flesh sizzling, the scent of scorched skin sharp in the humid air. His body slammed into a cave wall, breath hitching.
No emotion showed on Horus' mask.
Then came blue flame.
A torrent of it.
It washed over the chamber, a royal blue inferno that seared the very oxygen. The cave roared as light tore through the dark. Nathaniel rolled, barely clearing the blast, his body now coated in hastily summoned resin, shielding him in a partial shell.
The interface flickered—health pool dropping, fast. He could feel it too—blood evaporating in the heat, lungs tightening. He ripped the burnt sleeve of his hoodie free with a grunt, baring raw, reddened flesh.
He stood.
No escape.Only the Thought Cube biome core, pulsing deeper inside this monster—its energy woven through Horus' form like veins of lightning.
Those eyes stared back at him.
Eyes of Horus.Cold. Precise. Ancient.They saw everything.
Nathaniel exhaled slowly, knuckles cracking as he brought his hands up.
No more holding back.
His muscles coiled.Uratsu surged to the soles of his feet.
He launched forward.
Kinetic Muscle—75% charge. Enough to break trees. Enough to crack bone.
His body became a projectile—coated in dark cyan resin, hardened into a lightweight insulating shell. It flexed with his movement, burning at the edges when flame kissed it—but holding. Just enough.
He aimed straight for Horus.