The teleportation room materialized around them in a flash of white light.
For one disorienting second, they were nowhere. Then—solid ground, sterile walls, the hum of machinery.
Superior-4 moved before anyone could breathe.
Her daggers appeared in her hands like extensions of her bones, and she became a blur of motion. The lower-ranking Architects in the room—four of them, white masks, standard issue—didn't even have time to scream.
Shink-shink-shink.
Three pieces. Six pieces. Bodies collapsed in geometric chunks, blood spraying across the pristine walls, pooling on the floor in spreading crimson lakes.
The survivors stood frozen, their white masks hiding expressions of shock.
All except Jordan.
He pulled his mask off in one fluid motion, revealing his calm, calculating face. From beneath his uniform, he drew the Umbralite katana—hidden, waiting, ready. The black blade drank the light, a void in the blood-spattered room.
"Let's go," he said.
Then he looked at Superior-4, standing amidst the carnage she'd created, her daggers dripping.
"Don't forget the deal."
Superior-4's head tilted. Behind her grey mask, something that might have been a smile curved her lips.
"Of course I won't."
No one questioned it. There was no time. The alarms hadn't started yet—they had minutes, maybe seconds, before the facility realized something was wrong.
They split.
Wolfen moved first, vanishing into a side corridor without a word. His final instruction echoed in their minds: Don't be near me. You'll get caught in the fire.
Eva went alone, her white mask still in place, her steps silent and certain.
Leo and Derek moved together, two mountains of muscle and violence, their masks already off, their weapons ready.
Jordan and Maya took a third path, the katana and the Omega moving in perfect, silent synchrony.
Chad and Theo, still wearing their white masks, their guns raised, took the last corridor. They were the least enhanced, the most vulnerable—but they had something the others didn't: the desperate need to prove they belonged.
The facility hummed around them, unaware of the predators in its halls.
---
Superior-1's Laboratory
Prime 10 stood before the grey mask, her posture radiating barely contained intensity.
"I want answers," she said. "Why is that girl important? Why did they risk everything to come for her? And most importantly—" Her voice dropped. "Tell me about Wolfen Welfric. Everything. Now."
Superior-1 regarded her from behind his desk, his expression unreadable. For a long moment, he said nothing.
Then he raised a hand, and a holographic display flickered to life.
"Facility X," he said. "They're already inside."
Prime 10's eyes narrowed. Without another word, she turned and walked to the teleportation platform in the corner of the room.
She was gone before the light finished fading.
---
Lily's Room
The door slid open.
Absolute 2 stepped inside, her black mask gleaming in the sterile light. In her hands, she carried a tray—real food, not the nutrient paste of the laboratories. A steaming bowl of soup, fresh bread, a cup of something that smelled almost like real coffee.
She set it on the small table and reached up, removing her mask.
The face beneath was Eva's. Platinum hair cut short, mercury-sheen eyes shadowed with exhaustion, a single scar cutting across her left cheek. She looked... human. Almost.
"Lily," she said, her voice soft, kind—the voice of a sister, not an Architect. "I brought you food. Real food. Please, you need to eat."
Lily was already in the corner.
She'd pressed herself into the farthest point of the room, her arms wrapped around her knees, her body trembling. At the sound of Absolute 2's voice, she flinched, a small, broken sound escaping her throat.
"No," she whispered. "No, no, no—"
"Lily, please." Absolute 2 took a step forward, her hands raised, empty, harmless. "I'm your sister. I would never hurt you. I saved you."
Lily's eyes were wide, unseeing, lost in memories of white rooms and pain. Tears streamed down her face, but she didn't seem to notice. She just shook, and shook, and shook.
Absolute 2 stopped.
She stood there, holding the tray of food she'd brought, watching the sister who didn't know her fall apart. Something in her chest—something she'd thought long dead—twisted painfully.
"Lily," she whispered. But there was no response. There hadn't been a response in days.
She set the tray down gently on the floor. For a long moment, she just looked at the girl in the corner—at the sister she'd lost, the family she'd never had, the life that could have been.
Then she picked up her mask.
Her fingers traced the black surface, the cold metal, the empty eye slits that had become her face. She looked at it for a long, aching moment.
Then she put it on.
The mask settled into place, and Absolute 2 was gone. Only the Architect remained.
She turned and walked toward the door.
Behind her, Lily's sobs continued, muffled by her arms, lost in the sterile air.
The door slid open.
And in the distance, an explosion echoed through the facility.
Absolute 2 paused. Her head tilted, listening. The sound was familiar—fire, destruction, the particular chaos of the anomaly at work.
Wolfen Welfric. The one they'd all been hunting.
She didn't care.
Not even a little bit.
She kept walking, her footsteps steady, her purpose unchanged. Let them burn the facility to the ground. Let them tear each other apart. She had done what she came to do.
The door slid shut behind her, leaving Lily alone with the food and the fear and the distant sounds of war.
---
Lily sat in the corner, her face buried in her arms, her body shaking with sobs she couldn't control. The food sat untouched on the floor. The door was closed. She was alone.
Then she heard it.
Footsteps. Running. Coming closer.
Gunfire—sharp, sudden, close.
The door exploded inward.
Theo stood in the doorway, framed by smoke and sparks. He was covered in blood—covered—but it wasn't his. His eyes found her instantly, and for one perfect second, he smiled.
In his hands, he held a severed head. An Architect's head, white mask still attached, dripping gore onto the floor. He tossed it aside without a second glance, letting it roll into the corner.
"Lily—" he started.
And then something went through his chest.
A blade. White, shimmering, like solidified saliva. It punched through his back and out his front in a single, fluid motion, spraying blood across the room.
Behind him, Jenny Damber smiled.
"Damn, kid," she said, her voice light, almost admiring. "You really killed a lot of these guys. I'm impressed."
Theo's eyes went wide. His mouth opened, but only blood came out.
Jenny leaned closer, her face appearing over his shoulder, her smile wide and hungry. "You know, if I wasn't here to get some updates on Wolfen's abilities, you might have actually succeeded. That's almost sad."
Theo's gaze found Lily. His eyes—those kind, steady eyes—held hers for one last moment.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. Blood bubbled on his lips. "I broke my promise."
Jenny twisted the blade.
Theo's body convulsed once, twice—and then she pulled the blade out, and he dissolved. Not into nothing, but into pieces—hundreds of them, scattering across the floor in a spray of flesh and bone and viscera. His guts spilled across the tiles. His blood painted the walls. What had been a person became a abstract painting of horror.
Jenny bent down and picked up a piece. Examined it. Popped it into her mouth.
"Ew." She made a face. "So gross. Ah, well." She shrugged, licking her fingers. "I came because I thought he might taste good. His friend tasted good, so..." Another shrug. "Ah well. I'm leaving. Got a baby boy to find."
She turned and walked out, leaving behind the carnage, the blood, the scattered remains of the boy who had promised to stay.
Lily stood frozen.
Her eyes were wide—so wide—fixed on the spot where Theo had been. Where his pieces now lay. Where the boy who had looked at her like she mattered had just been unmade in front of her.
She started walking.
Not running. Not screaming. Just... walking. Her feet carried her out of the room, past the blood, past the pieces, past everything. She moved through corridors of white, past bodies of Architects Theo had killed, past doors that meant nothing, past everything.
She walked until she ran into someone.
Eva.
Her sister's face—her sister's face, not the monster's—filled her vision. Relief. Joy. Then confusion. Then horror, as Eva saw the blood on her, the blankness in her eyes, the absence.
"Lily—" Eva started.
Lily's eyes focused. For the first time since Theo died, she saw.
"Let go of my sister."
The voice came from behind her. Deadly. Absolute.
Absolute 2 stood in the corridor, her black mask in place, her posture radiating a violence that made the air itself feel heavy.
Eva's face changed.
The relief vanished, replaced by something monstrous. Her eyes burned with a purple fire that hadn't been there before. Her body tensed, coiled, ready to destroy.
Two Evas. Two sisters. One girl between them.
And somewhere else in the facility, fire was rising.
---
Wolfen stood in a corridor of flame.
Prime 10 faced him, her dark grey mask gleaming, her posture relaxed but ready. Around them, the facility burned—fire he had called, fire he was.
He didn't cast his Dominance Sphere. Didn't need to.
"Round three," he said.
And slowly, the fire around him changed.
It started at his feet—the usual red, the familiar dance of flame. Then it climbed his legs, his torso, his arms. And as it rose, it changed. The red deepened to orange, then to gold, then to something beyond color—a white-hot, solar inferno that looked like the surface of a star given form.
Solar lava. Fire that could melt anything. Fire that had never been seen on this world.
Wolfen's eyes, through the flames, burned with the same impossible light.
Prime 10 watched. Waited. And for the first time, behind her mask, something that might have been respect flickered in her gaze.
"Interesting," she said.
The fire roared.