Kaiden didn't remember walking back to the fortress. His feet moved on their own, heavy and automatic, while his mind stayed blank—like the Pulse Core had tucked the violence into a dark corner he wasn't allowed to open yet. The grass, the torn bodies, the young hero's face—all of it drifted behind his thoughts as if they belonged to someone else. But the blood on his hands stayed, clinging to him like a second skin.
As the fortress walls rose ahead, the first sense of relief hit him—and shattered instantly. The obsidian barrier, usually humming with the warped, comforting distortion of demon mana, felt wrong. Corrupted. It pulsed with a thin, invasive purity that stabbed into him like needles. Human mana. Holy. The exact opposite of the demon energy that made up his Core.
The reaction was immediate. His Core skipped violently. Pum—k-k-k. Pum. Pum—k-k. His stride turned into a jerking lurch as his joints froze and unlocked in broken, half-second bursts. Sonar pulses shot out of him unevenly, like a dying machine gasping for power. The leftover holy imprint from the hero burned inside him—white fire dissolving black metal.
Kaiden doubled forward, metal jaw clacking as he tried to steady himself, and retched. Nothing came out but thick black sludge that sizzled when it touched the dirt. His Core was rejecting the purity, and the rejection was starting to tear his internal rhythm apart.
The sentries at the gate didn't salute. They stared. At the smoke hissing from his chest valves, at the trembling violet glow inside his ribs, at the blood caking every inch of him. One guard stepped back, whispering, "Lord Zarkus, his energy is destabilizing—" before the gate hissed open to let Kaiden through.
Zarkus's personal Magister was already waiting—a skeletal demon with carved runes along his jaw. His eyes widened the moment he saw Kaiden. "The Core rhythm is collapsing! Get him to the inspection arena—now!"
Hands grabbed him, dragging him through the corridors. Kaiden didn't resist. He couldn't. His body wasn't responding, even when he tried to stop or breathe normally. Rage had burned away. All that remained was a cold realization: the machine part of him was moving without permission.
Inside the inspection arena, they strapped him to a reinforced platform. Probes punched into alloy skin. Runes blinked frantically across monitors while engineers and magisters barked readings at each other.
"He's reacting violently to residual holy mana!""The Pulse Core's void layer is mutating—look at the distortion!""Thermal bleed rising! Back up!""Was he exposed directly? The output is exceeding tolerance!"
Kaiden stared at the ceiling while they discussed him like a faulty engine. A tool. A machine. Something to adjust, repair, recalibrate. And he hated how true it felt.
Then a young augment specialist stepped forward, hands shaking, activating a silver-thread dampening rune to calm the Core. A small, holy-tinged spark flickered.
Barely a flash.
But enough.
Kaiden's Core screamed.
His consciousness disappeared under a wave of instinct. The restraints snapped apart like brittle twigs. His arm shot forward faster than the specialist could inhale. The man was dead instantly, body folding around the force of impact. Tools clattered. Tables shattered. Researchers threw themselves away from him in terror as a violent shockwave tore through the room.
Kaiden stood in the center of the wreckage, steam blasting from his valves, chest glowing with a burning violet that flickered like a starving star.
The reinforced door slid open.
Zarkus walked in without hesitation, stepping over the destroyed restraints and mangled equipment. He watched Kaiden struggle to control his own breathing, his own light, his own body—and he smiled.
"You felt disgust when you touched human mana," Zarkus said quietly, stepping closer. "And now your body remembers it. Excellent."
He tapped two gloved fingers against Kaiden's pulsing Core.
"You're not a puppet, Kaiden. Puppets wait for commands." His eyes gleamed with satisfaction. "You're becoming something far better. A weapon that moves before it thinks."
Kaiden wanted to deny it—to hold onto the idea that he still had some form of control. Some part of himself left.
But when he looked at his trembling metal hands, twitching with leftover energy, he realized the truth settling cold in his chest.
It wasn't fear making him shake.
It was hunger