Author's Thought:
Before you dive in, quick warning: you're about to see the word "SHARD" in this chapter.
If you don't know what that is (which you most certainly do not), check Auxiliary Chapter 1 at the top of the volume.
It's short. It won't hurt. Probably.
Highly recommended unless you enjoy being confused on purpose.
Thanks, you glorious reader.
____________________
Kane woke to the sound of metal being pried loose.
His vision swam. Smoke drifted above him in thin gray sheets. Shapes moved through the haze, people bending over bodies, armored boots crunching through debris.
His limbs felt like they were filled with sand. Heavy. Unresponsive.
A man's voice carried across the crater, irritated.
"Bag the shards first. Don't waste time on the soft parts."
Someone else answered with a snort.
"Yeah, yeah. Hold her still. The damn armor fused into the spine… gotta slice the chip out."
The grind of a blade meeting metal cut through the air.
Kane's breath hitched. He tried to push himself up, nothing. His hand twitched against the dirt, that was it.
Shapes sharpened as his eyes adjusted. Three scavengers walked between bodies, turning them over like they were broken appliances. One knelt beside a corpse and yanked hard on an arm guard until it snapped free.
Another scavenger kicked a helmet out of the way. "Waste of good steel. Should've looted before the blast cooked everything."
Across the crater, a woman in a stained coat crouched and pulled something from beneath a slab of twisted concrete.
Lira's visor.
Kane felt his stomach drop.
The woman turned it over in her hands, shook off dust, then laughed.
"Well, look at that. Another User who thought she was special."
She let the visor fall back to the ground with a clatter.
"Worthless now. Grab the chip from her neck, that's the only thing that still sells."
Kane's fingers curled into the debris.
His throat tightened. He tried again to move, a groan slipped out before he could stop it.
None of them noticed.
They were too busy rifling through bodies, stripping armor plates, prying loose anything that glowed, hummed, or looked sellable.
One of them muttered, "Don't leave anything shiny. Last thing we need is some other crew swooping in."
Another chuckled. "They can swoop over the crater edge if they want. Won't find much besides fried meat and leftovers."
Kane's jaw clenched.
Every word felt like a needle under his skin; grief, anger, disbelief all twisting together in his chest. He forced air into his lungs, trying to stay quiet, trying to think past the ringing in his head.
Lira.
The visor.
These people cutting into her body like she was spare parts.
Something cold formed in him, not numbness… but something.
Kane blinked hard, trying to stay conscious. The scavengers' voices blurred into distant noise, sharp words softened by the ringing in his ears.
Then something flickered across his sight.
A horizontal line, thin and white, cut straight through the world like a digital tear.
Kane frowned. "What…?"
He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again.
The line was still there, drifting now, and splitting into more of them. Symbols he didn't recognize. Fragments of code sliding over the surface of broken machines, shattered armor, even the ground.
He stared at a chunk of twisted steel nearby. A string of numbers hovered over it, faint but real, like a ghost tag.
His pulse jumped.
He raised his hand… and froze.
His skin was torn, bloody, scraped raw — yet the cuts were already closing. Fast. Too fast. The blood dried into flakes and fell off before he could process what he was seeing.
"What the hell…?" Kane whispered.
A soft hum answered inside his mind, the same tone he heard right before losing consciousness.
"Predator Protocol active."
Kane stiffened. "No. No, not again—"
The voice overrode him:
"Nearby Core fragments detected."
His heartbeat spiked. He scanned the crater, not with intention, but… instinct. Something pulled at him, like an invisible current tugging at the center of his chest.
He turned his head slowly.
A broken drone lay half-buried in rubble, its metal cracked open. Maybe a recon unit from the defense patrol, maybe something else, he couldn't tell. But a faint orange glow pulsed inside it.
Then the glow sharpened.
Lines of data extended from the drone in thin strands, twitching gently in the air.
Drawn toward him.
Kane swallowed hard. "I'm not touching that. Absolutely not touching—"
His arm moved anyway.
His hand kept reaching, shaking violently.
His fingertips brushed the drone's casing.
The world snapped white.
The drone's internal glow erupted into bright, crawling code; thousands of tiny, needle-like threads that surged up Kane's arm. They burrowed through his skin without breaking it, disappearing into muscle, spreading under the surface like electricity.
Kane gasped and jerked his arm back.
The drone collapsed inward, its entire shell turning to dust.
A notification blinked sharply across his vision:
[Fragment Absorbed — Skill Extracted: Thermal Vision (Tier F)]
Kane stared in horror.
"What did you do to me…?" His voice cracked.
A faint red overlay flickered across his vision. For a split second he saw the heat signatures of the scavengers, bright silhouettes outlined in the distance, then the effect vanished.
He scrambled backward, almost slipping on loose ash. His hands shook uncontrollably.
This wasn't a glitch.
Hallucination?… No
Something inside him was changing.
Fusing with fragments.
Absorbing them.
And he had no idea why.
The red overlay in his eyes blinked on and off like a faulty HUD he never asked for.
A crunch of boots sounded behind him.
"—Oi. Hold up."
A rough voice. Sharp. Suspicious.
Kane froze.
A shadow leaned over the edge of the rubble pile, squinting down at him. The man's goggles were cracked, and he had a beard so impressive it deserved its own trophy.
Then the man's eyes widened.
"Holy shit. He's alive!"
Kane flinched.
The scavenger shouted back toward the others, "Get over here! The Null's still breathing!"
More boots. More voices. Three, five, maybe more. They slid down the debris slope and closed in around him.
One of them whistled. "Look at his eyes. They're flickering like a busted display."
Another snorted. "Means he's holding something. Nobody survives a blast like that empty-handed."
"I'm not—" Kane tried to push himself up, but his limbs trembled. "I don't have anything."
The tallest scavenger stepped forward. His armor plates were mismatched, probably stolen from dead users. He tapped a metal pipe against his palm.
"Nulls don't get to keep loot," the man said flatly. "You know the rules."
Kane's stomach dropped. "I'm telling you, I didn't loot anything. I'm just—"
A boot slammed into his ribs.
Pain shot through him, sharp and immediate.
He folded over, coughing.
Another scavenger laughed. "He squeaks. Do it again."
A second kick hit his backside, rolling him onto his back.
Kane raised an arm weakly. "Stop—"
"Not until you drop whatever's glitching your eyes."
The tall one crouched beside him, grabbing Kane's jaw and forcing him to look up. "Shards? Chips? Cores? Hand 'em over."
"I don't—" His voice cracked. "I swear, I don't—"
A fist punched the side of his face.
Kane hit the ground hard, dust billowing around him. His vision blurred red.
His breath came shallow. The world felt too heavy again, like he was sinking into it.
Boots circled him. Someone unholstered a knife. Another cracked their knuckles.
And then—
The voice slipped into his head again, quiet and cold:
"Survive."
Kane clenched his jaw, eyes widening.
"Consume."
Something inside him stirred, the same force that dragged his hand toward the drone earlier.
A deeper part of him, primal, instinctive, not entirely his, snapped awake.
Kane's fingers twitched.
The scavengers didn't notice.
They were too busy arguing about how to strip him clean.
"Hold him down."
"Check his pockets."
"Cut the jacket off if you have to."
"Nulls don't fight back."
Kane felt his heartbeat slow, flattening into an eerie calm.
That whisper echoed again, right behind his thoughts:
"Host in danger. Initiate survival response."
Kane's hand closed around a wrist near him, without him thinking about it.
The scavenger hovering over him turned slowly.
"…Hey. What do you think you're grabbing, freak?"
Kane didn't answer.
He wasn't sure he could.
Everything inside him had shifted.
The scavenger yanked his arm, trying to pull free.
"What's your problem, Null? Let go."
Kane didn't let go.
His fingers tightened around the man's wrist like a clamp. He felt heat, not real heat, something deeper, like static crawling under his skin.
The other scavengers noticed.
"Hey. Back up."
"What's he doing?"
"His eyes, they're flashing red."
Kane couldn't see them clearly.
The world around him froze.
The colors drained out.
Only the man in front of him remained highlighted, outlined in red lines of shifting code.
Like the body wasn't flesh anymore, just data waiting to be rewritten.
Kane whispered, "I… don't… know what's happening."
The man panicked and swung his free arm toward Kane's face.
Kane's other hand shot up on instinct and grabbed it.
A red ripple spread across the scavenger's skin.
"What the— hey— HEY— GET HIM OFF ME!"
The code lines tightened.
The man's flesh cracked like glass up his arms.
Digital fragments peeled away.
His scream choked off.
Then—
Fwoosh.
His entire body dissolved into pixel-like ash, streaming into Kane's hands like dust sucked backward by a vacuum.
The ash vanished inside Kane's palms, absorbed so fast he barely processed it.
A bright red alert flashed before his vision:
[Core Absorbed — Assimilation 0.3%]
Silence.
No one moved.
No one breathed.
The scavengers stared at the empty space where their companion had been standing seconds ago.
One finally stammered, "Wh—what did he just do?"
Another stumbled backward. "He… he ate him. He fucking ate him!"
Kane gasped and scrambled back on the dirt.
"I didn't, I didn't mean to—"
His hands trembled uncontrollably. "I didn't mean to do that!"
But he felt it.
Electric clarity surging through his veins.
Strength easing into his limbs.
A faint hunger somewhere deep, satisfied for a moment.
He hated that it felt good.
Another system prompt flickered:
[Predator Function Unlocked — Host now self-sustaining.]
"What does that mean?" he whispered. "Self-sustaining? No… no, no—"
The scavengers were still frozen in shock.
"Kill him," one finally spat. "Before he does that to all of us!"
Kane staggered to his feet. "Don't come near me!"
His voice was filled with terror.
Not at them.
At himself.
His hands still glowed faintly red. Ash residue shimmered around his fingers before fading.
The scavengers lunged.