117 GENESIS CORE HEART
Damen climbed the fortress wall.
Below him stretched an endless black tide — the Annunakin horde was advancing like a sea of shadows. Their forms shifted and writhed, dark shapes glinting in the dying light.
The soldiers manning the walls stood tense and silent. Many were young, too young for their posts, their grips tight on their weapons. For most, this was their first time facing an alien swarm.
"Why are there so many new recruits on the line?" Damen asked.
Captain Green, standing beside him, exhaled. "We don't have a choice. The constant raids have worn down our veterans. We're rotating in the younger troops just to keep the wall manned."
Damen's gut twisted.
If the defenders of Fortress Myrone were already thinning while the alien numbers grew stronger, the outcome was obvious.
The fortress wouldn't last. And that silent realization showed on every soldier's face.
Then the swarm began to move.
The ground trembled as Shadow Hounds of Anubis broke forward — sleek, muscular beasts of darkness, with eyes glowing like molten gold. They scaled the walls with terrifying agility, finding every crack, every weakness.
Damen wasn't technically part of the fortress garrison. He wasn't under orders. But watching the soldiers panic as the first hounds reached the battlements, he couldn't stand idle.
"This isn't working," he thought. "We can't just stand here and defend. They'll pick us off one by one."
A scream pierced the chaos.
A young soldier was pulled from the parapet, blood spraying as a hound tore into his neck.
"Where the hell are the Heroes?" Damen shouted over the din.
Captain Green grimaced. "They've stopped coming. The major families haven't sent a Hero unit in months. We're on our own now."
In better times, Melrose City and its ruling houses sent both resources and Hero volunteers to reinforce Fortress Myrone — that was the pact.
But lately, the shipments had slowed, and the Heroes stopped altogether.
This was timed with the families' economic coercion of Fortress Myrone…. If the fortress didn't lower their prices for sale of artifacts, they would not get supplies and Heroes support.
Now the fortress stood isolated — Lord Nicaesa and his exhausted soldiers were facing the swarm alone.
"It's those damned major families again," Damen growled. "They've even cut off Hero support."
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Damen couldn't stand it anymore.
The injustice. The oppression the fortress endured.
It was too much to bear.
He had never planned to become a Hero.
Yet Fortress Myrone had carved itself deep into his heart—his parents had died here, protecting its soldiers and the city beyond its walls.
That memory burned.
It was that attachment, that unresolved grief, that finally made him boil over.
With a roar of fury, Damen vaulted over the wall and plunged into the battlefield below.
The shadow hounds swarmed toward him — sleek, black, and snarling, their eyes glowing with hellish light. The air was thick with their stench and the pounding of claws against the earth.
Damen's blood boiled.
The nearest hound lunged with wide jaws. Damen met it head-on with a punch — the impact rippled outward, followed by a shrieking soundwave.
"Sonic Smash!"
The sound wave tore through the air, disorienting the beasts around, freezing them mid-charge.
Damen didn't waste a second.
He smashed forward, kinetic pressure built around him, before cascading forth pulling stunned hounds before him. Then the hounds were electrocuted by a powerful charge.
"Thunder Crush!"
The explosion of force and electricity vaporized everything in reach. Dozens of hounds collapsed, their black forms dissolving into ash and static.
It was his new Fusion Meta Skill, a perfect combination of Momentum Collapse and electrocution.
"This fusion is fantastic… but tiring", Damen admitted.
The fusion skill was devastating, but at the same time, costly. Damen could feel the tremendous drain of meta energy each time he unleashed it.
Still, he kept fighting.
His fists shattered bones and metal, each strike echoing like a cannon blast. His soundwaves stunned the packs, his kinetic waves folded the battlefield, while his lightning burned through the dark.
More hounds came.
Damen charged as his power roared with fury.
And yet… something strange was happening.
He wasn't tired at all…. At least not as exhausting as he originally expected. His body should have collapsed long ago under the meta drain — but instead, energy kept flowing, endlessly, ceaselessly into him.
"That's not right," he thought between strikes. "My Command meta shouldn't last this long… what's happening to me?"
There was no time to dwell on it. The battlefield demanded his full attention.
From atop the wall, the soldiers stared in awe as waves of lightning split the swarm apart.
"Was that— Damen Dark?" one soldier who recognized him shouted.
"He's fighting alone down there!", Captain Green gripped the railing. "How the hell is he doing that? He's killed hundreds already — and he's not slowing down!"
"This is unbelievable…. Is he really human?" another asked.
Captain Green smiled and replied, "Perhaps not… but he's definitely a Superhero in the making."
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Beneath the fortress walls, Damen carved a path through the black tide. Each strike split the ground, each blast of lightning sent waves of death rolling across the battlefield.
The shadow hounds no longer climbed the walls — they had turned on him instead, driven by vengeance, converging from every direction.
But Damen didn't slow.
He was a blur of thunder and motion, adopting a storm given form. In moments, hundreds more fell before him. To the watching soldiers above, he had become a Demon of Death.
Then, amid the carnage, something flickered before Damen's eyes — a message across his Vision Connect. Vision Connect has been his new interface of choice during combat.
"Congratulations. Assimilated Genesis Core Heart activated."
"Genesis Core Heart…?" Damen muttered, crushing a hound under his fist. "I didn't expect to see this."
Memories flashed through his mind of what he'd once seen about the mysterious core:
Name: Genesis Core Heart
Description: The heart of the Genesis Core — the foundation of its power. Drawing upon Annunakin blood, it generates sufficient energy to sustain a city. Primary source of the Core's transmutation processes.
His stomach twisted. He understood now.
Blue Blood — the cursed Annunakin essence — was fuel.
That was why Stacy Qiltera had wanted to drain him of blood when he was in GenSyn: to use his blood to power the Genesis Core Heart.
Realization hit him like a blow.
"I get it now," he thought grimly. "I'm not exhausted because my meta is being refueled by the Genesis Core Heart — and it's using my cursed blood as fuel."
The shadow fiends swarmed him without hesitation, their claws raking, and teeth tearing but each one died in turn, electrocuted, crushed, or shattered by the waves of power he unleashed.
The slaughter deepened.
Damen's movements became faster, harsher, more violent — until he could barely tell where his will ended and the blood's hunger began.
"Damn it… I'm losing to the curse again."
He called up his internal stats:
Name: Damen Dark
Strength Rank: C Meta Rank: D Blood Rank: B
Strength: 478 | Charm: 202 | Meta: 153 | Command: 152 | Blood: 481 | Armor: 604
His Blood Rank had jumped to B — fueled by the manic frenzy of battle and killings.
"Hell no," he whispered, panting. "Am I… turning into a Deacon of Anubis now?"
He looked at his blood-stained hands, trembling. The power flowing through him was intoxicating and unstoppable, but it came with a terrible price.
He was becoming something else.
While his body tore through the battlefield like an immortal weapon, his mind was slipping, piece by piece, into the grip of the blood curse.
And the cruelest truth was — to survive, he had to keep killing.
He gritted his teeth, eyes blazing blue and red in the stormlight.
"What am I supposed to do now?" he whispered.
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