The facility's sprawling open ground stretched before Nameless, a concrete and gravel expanse leading to the ultimate barrier: a massive, reinforced perimeter wall topped with razor wire.
Looming watchtowers with blaring sirens punctuated the boundary, like stone sentinels under the night sky.
And the security guards that made sure no one crossed the walls without their oversight—even through the main gate—were closing around him. Fast.
'To survive,' Nameless concluded, 'I must slaughter them all.'
But how?
A blinding light had ignited within him upon his rebirth, empowering him to pass the deserved sentence upon all those who'd tormented him in this prison for over a decade.
But now its glow had dimmed.
As if each time he took a life, he lost some of his own as well.
However, that hadn't strictly been the case, so it wasn't a matter of morals.
With the security guards cautiously creeping toward the laboratory, Nameless tried recalling when he'd truly lost his shine, while also trying to figure out why it didn't happen with the execution of each white coat.
What it came down to was obvious: understanding his rebirth, and the lethal power he now carried within him.
Nameless didn't know what the ethereal voice whispering into his ear was, nor did he understand the glowing runes that shimmered at the edges of his sight whenever he did something extraordinary.
He'd seen them, each time he butchered one of the scientists.
But only thrice did his inherent power dwindle while doing so, marked by some numbers dropping:
Once when he'd frozez all the assistants with only his stare, again when he'd moved after them with snakelike swiftness, and the last time when he'd poisoned Eana with the vicious venom coursing through his body.
Merely thinking about those events, he heard the ethereal voice respond.
This time, however, Nameless didn't ignore the runes in front of him.
[Divine Spark: Dull.]
[Phase: (Emergent)]
[Stage: (Stark)]
[Vital Specks: (20/100)]
'So,' Nameless mused, 'this is the blessing the Basilisk Venom bestowed upon me.'
It was a simple yet brutal bargain: receiving supernatural power in return for something vital.
And now, he had very little of this vital essence left to spend.
Nameless didn't comprehend it fully, not understanding the meaning of most of those runes.
But he instinctively realized he needed to conserve whatever these Vital Specks were.
Now, it was about using everything else he had left to survive.
Nameless slipped into the deeper shadows along the side of the main building, pressing his back against the cold concrete.
He could clearly hear them stampeding inside, their frantic shouts echoing in the halls, the crackle of comms over the corridor alarms.
No sound escaped his enhanced ears if he focused deliberately upon it.
"Casualties… multiple fatalities!" one announced with an astonished tone from the bright experiment room. "Dr. Threl is down! Repeat, Dr. Threl is dead!"
"What in this damned world happened here?" another asked with dread from the bloody corridors. "It's… it's a massacre!"
Nameless listened to them without making a sound himself, a grim satisfaction settling over him.
His captors now felt a hint of what he'd felt every time one of his brothers and sisters were tortured to death.
But they'd only discovered the surface of his retribution.
Nameless vowed to the spirits of his siblings he wouldn't hesitate to drown them in its depths if they even dared to imprison him again.
'Slaughter over shackles,' Nameless embraced his new creed. 'Try taking my freedom and I'll take your life.'
The night air was cold, the scent of damp earth and distant pine needles a stark contrast to the metallic tang of blood from the lab.
Seemed all his senses had sharpened to an unnatural level following his rebirth.
Using them, Nameless scanned the outer perimeter in search of an escape, his emerald-gold eyes piercing the gloom to find a blind spot between the looming watchtowers with searchlights.
A part of him wanted to get as far away as possible from this place of pain and suffering.
Another part wanted him to hunt down every last one of his armed captors.
Both of these parts fought inside him, tearing his heart apart.
But as it was already broken, he felt a calm sense of control: knowing if he actually lost it, it'd only be intentional.
'Must get out,' Nameless repeated to himself. 'While executing anyone who tries to stop me.'
The reinforced concrete wall surrounding the facility seemed insurmountable in its height, the looping razor wires atop it set in thorny spirals so sharp they'd slash open even his scaly skin.
That was the biggest challenge for his escape, not the armed guards.
But as their numbers swelled to over two dozen, he changed his mind on that.
Going after them would not be the ideal move, Nameless concluded, as more shouts erupted from inside the lab.
He could try executing them all tonight, but there were simply too many of them to judge.
"Check the containment logs!" one guard commanded. "What was the last active subject?"
A stunned silence spread over the comms before a new, enraged voice cut through, loud and distorted.
"It's Subject 13!" he said. "He's loose! Outside! But how in this damned world did he take out so many?"
'Isn't it obvious?' The faintest of cold grins touched Nameless's lips. 'Their experiments finally succeeded.'
It was a pity for his slavers that the seed they sowed and cultivated for the past decade bore only the most poisonous of fruits upon harvest.
The security guards finally understood they were no longer tracking down a human subject, but trying to avoid being hunted by a lethal predator on the loose.
Flashlights began to pierce the dark spots outside the lab, swinging wildly, then methodically.
They were coming for him—and he wanted them to.
Eight figures moved from the shadows, their rifles glinting.
They wore the standard black combat gear he'd become so accustomed to seeing through this past decade.
Nameless's serpentine eyes also noted the faint outline of blades strapped to their thighs and the heavier pistols holstered at their hips.
These weren't spectacled scientists but hardened security, hired to take care of any trouble.
And there was no bigger trouble than a subject trying to escape.
'There is,' Nameless thought, a grim resolve hardening his sharp features. 'But you can take care of me no longer.'
There was no joy in it for him, only the righteous necessity of their punishment for his freedom.
Under the resilient scaly skin, his muscles flexed, making him faster and stronger, as their flashlights found him hidden in the shadows.
What they'd discover soon enough was that Nameless was more dangerous than anything they could've ever created and contained.
"Found him!" the lead guard, a burly man with a scarred face, barked into his comms. "Contact! He's outside! Engaging!"
Rifle fire erupted in a series of loud bursts, momentarily muffling out the alarms as searchlights from the watchtowers showered him in blinding beams.
Nameless lunged at the armed guards, a serpentine streak against the floodlit ground.
His eyes didn't glow as he did so, his body never stretching or coiling.
Nameless simply moved with his raw physicality, channeling the enhanced strength granted to him by the Basilisk Venom.
Bullets flew past him, some tearing into his arms and legs.
They didn't fully pierce his toughened skin, but each one struck him with sickening force, sending searing pain through his scaly limbs.
Nameless hissed through clenched teeth as every stabbing impact made an ugly, rapidly purpling bruise on his skin.
'Can't take too many of those,' he realized, finding the upper limits of his resilience. 'But after this… won't even feel the razor wire.'
Nameless closed the distance on the lead guard, taking his mind off the stinging impacts.
Using the sheer momentum of his lunge, he slammed his shoulder into the man's torso with the force of a small boulder.
[Banal Mortal: Butchered!]
The guard's armored chest plate buckled inward with a sickening crunch, making his limp arm shoot wild shots everywhere as he crumpled upon the concrete.
Before the others could even react, Nameless ripped the rifle from the fallen guard's grasp, twisting the barrel into a grotesque knot of metal, rendering it useless.
Just because he knew what these weapons were capable of, it didn't mean he could use them better than those who carried them.
Instead of firing bullets back at the security, Nameless used the now mangled weapon like a bludgeon, swinging it with bone-shattering force into the helmeted head of the next closest guard.
[Banal Mortal: Butchered!]
His visor shattered, and the man dropped without a sound.
"Loosen the formation!" a guard yelled, fear creeping into his voice. "Subject 13 has gone rogue!"
'Rogue?' Nameless thought, his emerald-gold eyes piercing the night to stare them down. 'No. You always had this coming.'
The burning rage in his heart was cold now, a precise, calculated tool for retribution.
Nameless was never fueled by blind fury, only by an unwavering resolve to dismantle everything that had tormented him and his brothers and sisters for so long.
The remaining six guards of the group, momentarily stunned, backed away, trying to create distance.
One fumbled for a strange, spherical object on her belt.
Growing up within this locked facility, Nameless had always known guns, been aware of their deadly purpose.
This round object the guard pulled the pin off of and hurled at him, however, was unknown—
It landed near Nameless's feet as the others bunched together, before detonating with a thunderous roar.
A wave of concussive force slammed into him, throwing him backwards.
Shrapnel peppered his side, tearing shallow, searing slits in his stomach.
Nameless hit the ground hard, gasping for air, the explosion ringing in his enhanced ears.
The pain was cutting, immediate, a smoky burn that made his scaly skin crawl.
Rolling onto his knees, Nameless pushed himself back onto his feet, eyes fixed on the six guards standing against him in a tight circle.
The one who threw the explosive sphere stared back with a gulp, before pulling out another one of those from her belt.
'Not again.' Nameless rolled forward, grabbing the rifle he'd mangled.
As she tossed the explosive sphere at him again, he swung the rifle butt in a wide arc, smacking the thrown object.
There was a hollow knock as it connected, sending it flying back towards her with deadly speed.
"No—" The sphere exploded mid-air, engulfing all six guards in a fiery bloom.
[Banal Mortal: Butchered!]
It repeated six times.
Shrapnel ripped through the air, making Nameless crouch for cover.
When the smoke eventually cleared, only a charred crater with scattered pieces of flesh and bone remained where the guards were standing.
Nameless straightened his spine when he found himself alone for a moment, breathing deeply.
His chest heaved from fatigue, his body aching from the explosion and the various bullet impacts it'd been battered with.
The wounds from the shrapnel oozed blood; they were shallow but burning gashes that bled freely and throbbed with every beat of his heart.
The constant whisper of the ethereal voice brushed his senses, accompanied by the fleeting appearance of the cryptic glowing symbols, but he pushed them away for now.
Understanding would have to wait.
Escape was his highest priority at the current moment.
However, Nameless realized grimly: hunting the eight guards invigorated him—not with any delight, but with a primal energy that made him feel profoundly alive in a way he had never been before.
More guards were emerging from the main building, their lights cutting through the darkness.
But Nameless couldn't afford to feel alive at the cost of his life; he had to cross the final barrier to survive. Right away.
Before the next group of guards stumbled upon the charred remains in the smoking crater, Nameless slipped into the deeper shadows along the perimeter wall, his enhanced senses scanning every inch of it.
He watched the high searchlights sweep as they failed to keep track of him, memorizing their blind spots.
The reinforced wall was seamless concrete, too high to jump over, too thick to punch through.
But there had to be a weakness.
If not: he must create one.
Then, as the second group of armed guards also beamed their flashlights at him, Nameless's gaze fell upon a thin drainage pipe, barely wider than his arm, running vertically up the wall, ending near the razor wire.
It looked flimsy, barely anchored, but it was his best option.
Nameless grabbed the pipe as the guards closed in on him with their rifles raised.
He tested its strength: the metal tube groaned weakly, but held.
Nameless began to climb it, pulling himself up using the strength of his battered upper body.
The scales of his skin provided a surprisingly firm grip against the smooth concrete—
The drainage pipe buckled, creaking under his weight, threatening to rip free.
Below, he heard a new wave of shouts over a dozen barrels pointed at his back.
"Subject 13 is scaling the wall at Section Treehouse! Do not let him escape! Engage to eliminate!"
Nameless braced his entire body against the barrage of bullets.
His muscles screamed from the strain of scaling the mighty wall with such a weak support, his bones aching as lead repeatedly punched him from behind.
And right when every fiber of his being was set ablaze, he found the razor wire was only inches from slashing open his face.
'If this is the price of freedom,' Nameless thought, 'I'm willing to bleed to my last bone.'
Nameless pulled himself up at the top of the wall, squeezing his strengthened forearms and shoulders through the tearing coils of the razor wire.
His scaly skin ripped open with many deep gashes all over his body, icy blood gushing out with fiery bursts from each searing cut.
What remained of his frail white shirt and trousers was but a pair of tattered rags soaked in crimson hanging onto him loosely.
With a desperate heave as bullets sprayed up his legs and back, Nameless pulled himself over the top of the wall, rolling with a triumphant grunt to the other side of it.
The fall to the forest ground was long; the outside air immediately smelling different.
Fresher, with the fragrance of wilderness—
Nameless crashed upon the soft earth covered in rotting leaves, the hard impact knocking the wind out of his lungs.
Gasping desperately for some air, the scent of damp soil and pine needles quickly stuffed his nostrils.
The chaotic blare of the facility's alarms sounded muffled now, a mere echo in the vast forest under the stars.
Nameless had broken out of his prison. At last.
But the pursuit of his captors wouldn't end here, he knew.
Once his lungs filled with air again, Nameless heard the distinct sounds of vehicles revving, the distant shouts of guards converging upon the facility's main gate.
They were planning to pursue him into the dark forest, he realized. Immediately.
Clenching his jaw against all his bleeding wounds, Nameless climbed back to his shaking feet. 'I won't ever return to this accursed place. And if you come after me, neither will you.'