The aftermath of the clash between O-889 and the S-Twins choked the training hall in a haze of dread and scorched blood. The air hung heavy—thick with the stink of burned flesh, sweat, and something else… fear.
Everything was still.
Too still.
The test subjects stood like broken statues. Some gasped, as if remembering how to breathe. Others simply stared, their faces streaked with tears, minds retreating far from the horror surrounding them. Overhead lights buzzed with static unease, casting flickering shadows across a living nightmare.
At the center stood O-889.
Or what remained of him.
His face was a charred ruin—blackened flesh clinging in strips, muscle exposed and glistening, bone gleaming beneath melted skin like the grin of a skull. His eyes were gone, scorched into nothing. One arm twitched, more tendon than limb—a grotesque echo of what had once been human.
And still… he stood.
Gasping. Trembling.
A husk. But not fallen.
"He's… dead… isn't he?" Y-271 whispered, voice small and full of fear.
O-243's jaw clenched. His grip tightened on her wrist.
"No," he said, eyes locked on the silhouette. "He's still breathing. Somehow."
In the observation chamber above, Scoff Karios leaned forward, hunger glinting in his eyes.
"Fascinating," he breathed. "He should be dead. Look at him."
Beside him, Livia said nothing. Her gaze flicked between datapods. Vital signs—wild, but rising. Mana pulse—unstable, then stabilizing. Something was shifting.
Suddenly, O-889 convulsed.
One jolt. Then another. Mana surged through him like electricity. A blue pulse crawled up his spine, veins glowing beneath broken skin. Observers recoiled.
"Mana path opening!" a researcher shouted. "Fourth path activated—no, fifth!"
O-889 arched backward inhumanly.
Then it began.
His ruined face rippled. Blood hissed into vapor. Skin began to stitch itself back together, thread by thread. His eye sockets shimmered.
And then—eyes.
Two crystalline eyes, faintly glowing blue. Eyes untouched by fire. Eyes that had never known pain.
"Impossible," one researcher gasped. "He regenerated optical tissue—entirely. Healing rate is over one hundred times the baseline."
Flesh followed—smooth, pale, flawless. The face that had been mangled beyond recognition was now eerily perfect. A child's face. But wrong. Too still. Too silent.
Even R-932, ever the sadist, frowned. His smirk drained. He took a step back.
"This… this wasn't calculated," he muttered.
Scoff burst into delighted laughter. "Start preparations! End the match. Put him down. Ready the lab surgery begins immediately—I want his entire nervous system mapped."
Guards moved quickly. Tranquilizer rifles loaded. Raised. Fired—
Impact.
But O-889 didn't fall.
He smiled.
That same unnatural smile—stretched too wide. His eyes gleamed with vicious glee.
Then he moved.
A blur. Faster than human eyes could follow. One step became twenty. In the space of a breath, he stood before the guards.
CRACK.
Three wet pops.
Their skulls caved in simultaneously—bursting like overripe fruit. Bodies stood for half a second longer, then collapsed, limp and lifeless. The wall behind them ran red.
Screams erupted. Chaos flooded the room like a broken dam.
Children scattered. R screamed and bolted. Y-271 froze. O-243 didn't hesitate—he grabbed her hand and ran. "Move! MOVE!"
Y-906 stepped back, calculating. Already weighing survival.
Scoff gave the orders, voice sharp.
"Deploy the Special Unit. I want him down—try not to damage the body. If you have to kill him, fine… just don't damage the brain. I want every neuron intact."
This wasn't new to Scoff—he'd seen it before, years ago, when Q-001 awakened and turned the facility into a slaughterhouse. He had learned from that failure. That's why the Special Unit existed now—to neutralize those who rebelled when their true powers surfaced.
AB-774 didn't move at all.
His eyes widened, lips slightly parted—not with fear, but awe.
Yes… this was fear incarnate.
"Yes! Fear me!" O-889 roared, arms slick with blood. "I AM YOUR NIGHTMARE! I'll end those wretches—then tear this hell down!"
His gaze turned to the S-Twins.
S-411 flared immediately. Fire surged around her, flames trailing her limbs. She hurled searing streams of flame toward him—each brighter than the last.
It didn't matter.
The fire licked his skin but left no mark. Burns healed before they formed.
"What happened to you…?" she gasped. "Such power… how is it possible?"
She was exhausted—this fight had drained her. S-Class wasn't built for prolonged combat.
She summoned everything she had, condensed it in her legs—just like the first strike that had disfigured him.
She leapt.
Fast. Furious.
He caught her mid-air.
Like a child catching a ball.
His hand clamped around her ankle. The world paused.
Then he began swinging her.
Side to side. Faster than the eye could track. Her body slammed into the floor—
Once. A crater bloomed beneath her.
Twice. Blood sprayed like mist.
Thrice. Limbs went limp. Her head dangled.
Then—
He left her on the ground, barely breathing.
Then his foot came down.
CRACK.
Her skull split beneath his stomp. Brain matter scattered. Her once-blazing form now twitched only on instinct.
AB-774 stood just outside the blood-drenched circle. He didn't flinch.
He was… captivated.
It was like art to him.
A line surfaced in his mind from a book he read recently:
"What adults normalize in a child's world becomes the voice inside their head for life."
The children in Karnell had grown up under steel boots and sterile stares. To them, the guards, the researchers, the officers—these were parental figures. And like all children, they imitated their parents.
But these parents showed no love. No warmth. Only cruelty. Discipline. Violence.
So that's what the children learned.
Had they grown up in kindness, they might've become kind. But they didn't.
O-889 proved it.
Early notes described him as kind. Gentle. Forgiving.
But the lab erased that. Slowly. Perfectly.
They made him in their image.
—
But he wasn't finished.
He raised S-411 again.
The final blow—meant to erase her utterly—
CRACK!
His right arm burst into mist.
O-889 howled in rage, pain twisting through him.
Special Units had arrived.
Their rifles hissed—Empire-grade nanite shells, engineered to eat through living tissue. Even his monstrous regeneration struggled now. Every blood vessel that formed was dissolved again. His body began to fail him.
The Special Unit moved like shadows cast from steel.
Each operative wore a titanium-black exosuit, ribbed with mana-insulating alloy mesh—impervious to raw energy surges and psychic shockwaves. Their helmets were sleek, visorless, equipped with multi-spectrum optics that could trace bio-signatures through walls, detect mana pressure in real-time, and predict motion via neural drift modeling.
Instead of conventional weapons, they carried modular rifles calibrated to each target's genetic profile—firing nanite disruptor rounds, bio-nullification pulses, and electro-thaumic harpoons that could interrupt regeneration or sever core-path channels.
Each member had undergone surgical augmentations—muscle grafts, reaction boosters, and synaptic stabilizers—making them half-machine, half-strategist, and wholly terrifying. Where guards failed, the Special Unit executed surgical brutality—not to suppress, but to neutralize evolution itself.
They weren't just soldiers.
They were fail-safes. Born from past failures.
Engineered to end monsters before they learned how to dream of freedom.
His arm hung half-vaporized, tendrils of it writhing.
Behind him, S-410 She moved—barely, slowly
She blinked, vision blurring.
Then she saw her sister.
What remained of her.
A mangled, broken wreck.
Her heart twisted in her chest.
"Sis…?" she whispered, her voice trembling.
She started crying—tears spilling before she even realized. Her cold eyes turned soft, glowing faintly. Emptiness flooded her chest—like she'd lost something.
No… like she'd lost herself.
"Please… say something." Her voice was barely a whisper.
"… Y….You said we'd get out… together…" tears filled S-410's doll like face
No answer.
Only silence.
Her trembling fingers reached forward, brushing blood-slick skin.
"Sis…?" she whispered again, light lost in her eyes
And something inside her broke.
Her heart raced—each beat a stab of agony. It hurt more than when O-889 slammed her head into the concrete.
But this pain wasn't physical.
It was grief.
Suddenly, mana surged inside her.
A flood. A roar inside her body cells.
It poured into all five core paths—arms, legs, spine, skull, chest—like lightning igniting every cell.
Her eyes burned. Her tears turned to steam. The pain in her chest was no longer of the body.
Her entire form transformed—no longer flesh, but a living blaze.
She looked like a human torch, yet nothing about her burned with love.
It was sorrow that moved in the flames—mourning shaped into fire, grief given form.
O-889 turned.
He felt it. The pressure. The shift.
He stared at her.
And what he saw wasn't fear.
It was void.
She saw O-889 and felt fury, strong killing intent.
Her gaze was no longer that of a child.
It was the birth of something dangerous.
Something vast.
The battle was not over.
And Karnell…
Karnell had just become far too small for what was awakening within.