Chapter 11: The Litter of Legends
The rain in Quezon City didn't just fall; it hissed as it hit the overheated pavement, turning the neon-soaked streets into a blurred, impressionistic painting of corporate greed and urban decay. Elias sat on the back of Ria's modified cruiser, his claws retracted, but his senses dialed to an impossible frequency. Behind them, the Iron Corp Tower remained a silent, black monolith, a tomb for Vane's shattered ego, at least for the night.
"The northern provinces are our only hope," Lyra said, her voice barely audible over the roar of the Rebel Riders' engines. She was huddled behind Ria, her silver cloak acting as a makeshift windshield. "My grandfather used to speak of the 'Cordillera Silence.' A place where the magnetic fields of the mountains are so strong that Iron Corp's satellite grids can't map the terrain. If there are other subjects, that's where they would hide."
Elias looked at his paws. The [System] was quiet, but he could feel a faint, rhythmic thrumming in his core that didn't belong to him. It was like a radio frequency tuned to a station that was almost entirely static.
[RESONANCE DETECTED]
Subject 02: Status Unknown.
Subject 03: Status Unknown.
Sync Rate: 2.1%
They're out there, Elias thought. The realization was heavy. He wasn't just a man in a cat's body; he was part of a litter. A litter born of suffering and science.
The Fate of the Fallen
While the Rebel Riders sped toward the mountain passes of the north, the narrative of Project Dragon stretched far beyond the borders of Manila. To understand Elias's journey, one had to look at the discarded blueprints of Vane's ambition.
Subject 02, codenamed "Kain," had been the first true success after the failures of the skeletal prototypes. Unlike Elias, who had been harvested for his self-sacrifice, Kain had been harvested for his rage. He was a sleek, black-furred panther-cat with eyes like glowing embers. While Elias had escaped into the mountains, Kain had been "broken" differently. He had been turned into the Iron Corp's personal shadow and a hunter of hunters. Somewhere in the sprawling industrial complexes of the south, Kain was already being deployed to track his "brother."
Then there was Subject 03, "Nami." She was the most tragic of the trio. Harvested from a young girl who had drowned saving her younger brother, Nami's feline form was infused with aquatic mana. She was kept in a pressurized tank in the Visayan undersea labs, her consciousness used as a living CPU to regulate the underwater mining operations. She didn't even know she was a cat; she only knew she was the sea.
Elias felt a sudden, sharp pang in his chest sympathetic resonance from Nami. A cold, wet sensation filled his lungs, though he was sitting in the humid rain of Luzon.
"They're hurting," Elias projected to Lyra.
Lyra's hand moved to his head, her fingers stroking the space between his ears. "I know. We'll find them. But first, we have to survive the night."
The Gate of the Cordilleras
By the time the sun began to peek through the heavy cloud cover, the landscape had transformed. Gone were the suffocating glass towers and the rhythmic pulse of holographic billboards. In their place were the emerald-green slopes of the Cordilleras, rising like the spine of an ancient dragon.
The Rebel Riders pulled over at a hidden trailhead near the border of Nueva Vizcaya. Ria dismounted, her boots crunching on the wet gravel.
"This is as far as the bikes can go," Ria said, wiping grease and rain from her forehead. "From here on, it's all old-world trails. My scouts say there's an Iron Corp 'Black Site' hidden somewhere in the Cagayan Valley, but the mountains themselves belong to the spirits."
Elias jumped down, his paws hitting the earth. He felt a surge of energy [Anito's Protection] was pulsing with newfound strength. The mountain wasn't just dirt and rock; it was a living battery of ancestral mana.
[LOCATION UNLOCKED: THE ANCIENT HIGHLANDS]
Stealth Bonus: +30%
Mana Regeneration: +15%
"We head for the Banaue reach," Lyra directed, pointing toward the mist-shrouded peaks. "There's a legendary figure there. A 'Mountain Mother' who supposedly took in a 'Silver Beast' months ago. If Subject 02 or 03 escaped on their own, that's where they would have gravitated."
The Shadow of the Hunter
As they began the steep climb, Elias sensed something was wrong. The birds in the canopy had gone silent. The wind, which usually carried the scent of pine and damp earth, now held a faint, metallic tang. Ozone.
Vane didn't send soldiers, Elias realized.
He stopped in his tracks, his tail bristling. "Lyra, get behind me."
From the shadows of a massive Narra tree, a shape detached itself. It was a cat, but larger than Elias, sleek, muscular, and coated in fur so black it seemed to swallow the light. Its eyes weren't sapphire; they were a cold, mechanical red.
[DETECTION: SUBJECT 02 - KAIN]
Title: The Corporate Enforcer
Level: 15
Status: Hostile / Controlled
Kain didn't meow. He didn't growl. A voice, synthesized and cold, emanated from a small collar around his neck. It was Vane's voice.
"You left your toys in the basement, Elias," the collar crackled. "But I have plenty of replacements. Kain here hasn't had a good hunt in weeks. He's been dying to meet the 'favorite' of the project."
Kain lunged.
He didn't move like a cat; he moved like a glitch. One moment, he was twenty feet away; the next, he was a blur of black fur and steel-tipped claws. Elias barely had time to activate [Void Step], flickering to the left as Kain's claws tore through the space where his neck had been a second ago.
"Elias!" Lyra screamed, raising her staff to cast a barrier, but Kain was too fast. He swiped at the air, releasing a wave of "Ash Mana" that suppressed Lyra's magic before it could even form.
He's built to counter us, Elias realized, his heart racing. He's the anti-system.
The Duel of the Brothers
The mountainside became a blur of blue and red starlight. Elias used his agility, leaping from moss-covered rocks to ancient branches, but Kain followed with terrifying precision. Every time Elias tried to use a skill, Kain's presence seemed to "jam" the System, causing the blue text in Elias's vision to flicker and fail.
[WARNING: SYSTEM INTERFERENCE]
Subject 02 is emitting a Nullification Aura.
Skills restricted: [Nebula Roar], [Galaxy Burst]
I have to do this the old-fashioned way, Elias thought.
He stopped running. He turned to face his brother. He let out a low, primal growl, one that didn't come from the System, but from the man he used to be. The man who had faced death in a parking lot and didn't blink.
Kain hissed, his red eyes narrowing. He charged again, but this time, Elias didn't teleport. He waited until the very last millisecond, then dropped low, using his smaller frame to his advantage. He slid under Kain's belly and delivered a precise, mana-infused strike to the enforcer's collar.
The collar sparked. Vane's voice turned into a distorted screech.
"You... little... glitch..."
The red light in Kain's eyes flickered. For a brief moment, the mechanical coldness vanished, replaced by a look of pure, unadulterated terror. Kain's body slumped, the black fur matted with sweat.
"Help... me..." The thought wasn't Elias's. It was a psychic scream from Kain.
But the collar wasn't just a speaker; it was a bomb. Seeing the mission fail, the device began to glow with a volatile orange light.
"Kain, no!" Elias lunged, not to attack, but to save. He used the last of his mana to trigger [Phase Shift], attempting to vibrate the collar off Kain's neck before it detonated.
BOOM.
The explosion threw both cats back. Elias hit a tree trunk with a sickening thud, his vision swimming. Through the smoke, he saw that Kain, the black cat, was alive, but his side was scorched, and the light in his eyes was fading.
Before Elias could reach him, a silver Iron Corp extraction drone descended from the canopy. A tractor beam locked onto Kain's limp body.
"A temporary setback," Vane's voice echoed from the drone's speakers. "But the data harvested from this skirmish is invaluable. See you at the summit, Subject 01."
The drone vanished into the mist before Elias could even stand.
The Weight of the Soul
Hours later, the group huddled in a small cave near the rice terraces. Elias sat by the fire Lyra had managed to kindle, his side aching. He felt a deep, hollow failure. He had found his brother, and he had lost him again.
"He's still in there," Lyra said softly, wrapping a bandage around Elias's ribs. "Kain. I felt his mind when the collar broke. He's not a monster, Elias. He's a prisoner."
Elias looked at the fire. The System pinged.
[LEVEL UP: 11]
New Skill Unlocked: [Soul Resonance]
Description: Allows the host to bridge minds with other Dragon Subjects.
He wasn't just hungry for food anymore. He was hungry for justice. Vane hadn't just taken his life; he was desecrating the lives of others, turning souls into software.
"We aren't just going to the mountains to hide," Elias projected, the blue text appearing in the air for Lyra and Ria to see. "We're going there to build an army. If Vane wants a Project Dragon, I'll give him one. But I'm the one who's going to lead it."
Far to the North, atop the highest peak of Mt. Pulag, a girl with hair like sea-foam sat by a frozen lake. She looked up at the three moons, her turquoise eyes reflecting the stars. She felt a ripple in the mana, a call from a brother she had never met.
She stood up, her tail (which looked more like a fin) splashing the icy water.
"I hear you, Star-Walker," she whispered into the wind. "The Tides are coming."
The Path Forward
The journey through the northern provinces would be the crucible that forged Elias into a true leader. He would have to navigate the delicate politics of the mountain tribes, evade the increasingly desperate hunting parties of Iron Corp, and find a way to liberate Nami from her undersea prison.
But as Elias curled up by the fire, his sapphire eyes glowing with a quiet fire, he knew one thing for certain: The "glitch" was no longer a mistake. It was the cure.