The room reeked of antiseptic and cold metal. Rows of surgical arms hung from the ceiling like vultures waiting to feast. The children lay on smooth black tables under the white light—silent, stripped of everything, heads shaved clean, the faintest mist of frost drifting from their mouths.
They were motionless, but not dead.
The X-Gene compound had been administered.
The first was Y-271, a four-year-old girl with soft amber skin and hollow eyes. She had screamed so loud her voice fractured, her throat bleeding. She felt as though her heart had ignited—a furnace that wouldn't cool, pumping mana-fed agony through every nerve in her body. But she survived. Her vitals stabilized after nearly an hour.
One after another, they came forward.
O-243, ten years old, convulsed for six minutes straight. His bones cracked against the restraints. Then he stilled. The medical team marked him as a potential "matter-type," though his abilities hadn't yet manifested.
The twins, S-410 and S-411, only three years old, screamed in unison. Their cries bent glass in the adjoining chamber. But they lived.
R-932, three and a half, fell into unconscious spasms. Her heartbeat flickered—but never failed.
K-109, he feel unconscious couldn't hold the the pain but survived somehow.
Out of the eighteen who had survived the EL-Serum, only nine lived through the X-Gene procedure. Of those, three were still infants, too young for stable injection. They were placed under observation. They could not walk or speak, but mana pulsed faintly through their blood—signs of growing potential.
And then there was AB-774.
The newborn. Unclassified. Untouched.
The X-Gene would kill him instantly—his body too undeveloped to endure it. But he was different. His hair, bone-white. His blood, darker than it should've been. His eyes, when open, were the color of ocean storms. The only AB-Class child in the last four years. The last one had died before his power could be understood. This one was too rare to risk.
Scoff Karios watched the post-injection procedures through the glass, arms folded behind his back.
The survivors were processed and reassigned.
O-243 was sent to Chamber 1.
R-932 to Chamber 5.
K-109 to Chamber 9.
Y-271 to Chamber 8.
S-410 and S-411, the S-class twins, were placed together in Chamber 7.
AB-774, along with twelve other infant test subjects, was placed into Chamber 12—a specially sealed pod-chamber. Mana-sensitive gas flowed through the life systems. They slept beneath the flicker of soft-blue containment lights, like preserved ghosts waiting to awaken.
Scoff's gaze lingered on Chamber 12.
"Still breathing," one of the white-suited researchers noted, checking a panel beside him.
"He'll breathe until he doesn't," Scoff replied coldly. "He has no idea what's inside him."
The assistant hesitated. "Do you think we will get good results from him?"
Scoff didn't answer. His mind was already drifting—ten years into the past.
Back then, he was a doctor of genetics, a professor at Bohia Academy, one of the top minds in the empire. He had gone to the Academy Head in secret, desperate to share his discovery: that mana from the Elemor realm was leaking into the bodies of newborns, altering them.
But the Head dismissed him. Called him a freak. Mocked him publicly. Scoff felt humiliated.
Furious, he left Bohia behind.
He returned to his home—the Stella Empire.
Scoff was of distant royal blood. Through his lineage, he used his influence in court and secured an audience with the one man who might understand.
Arkanos Stellare III. Emperor of Stella. Cold, calculating, brilliant. He had seized the throne thirteen years ago in a bloodless rebellion, outmaneuvering both his father and elder brother, the crown prince.
The Emperor listened carefully to Scoff's theory.
And asked only one question:
"What do you need to prove it?"
And so, Project Dominion was born.
The lab's construction began in silence—beneath the ruins of Karnell, once a city of fifty million, now ash.
The city was said to have been burned to the ground by a dragon during the Merge War.
Grannus, the God of Fire.
His flames incinerated everything. They say even a mountain of water couldn't quench his fire. His wingspan was massive—some claim a quarter the size of the city itself. But others whispered darker theories: that it had been no dragon at all, but a nuclear weapon unleashed by Stella's enemies, disguised by propaganda while the world's eyes were fixed on the Merge War.
Whatever the truth, Karnell vanished in a day.
Six years to build the underground facility.
Workers were silenced, records erased, memories replaced. And then, four years ago, the real work began.
The Empire wanted soldiers with powers—but the X-Gene killed adults too easily. It burned through their cells. Children, however—especially those born in every new generation had stronger mana genetics than the generation before them—were ideal. Their bodies had adapted from birth.
But abducting children openly would cause chaos.
So the Emperor launched covert wars on the weak border nations. Small countries that no one would mourn. Villages were wiped out. Survivors taken. All witnesses—eliminated.
No one ever noticed.
Inside Karnell, the children lost everything. Names. Families. Futures.
All they had left were codes.
Scoff stood before the pod chamber, now sealed.
Eight survivors.
Eight weapons in the making.
And in Chamber 12, beneath layers of glass and steel, AB-774 stirred in his sleep—surrounded by twelve other infants.
Still breathing.
But not for long.