[06: 21: 14: 14]
...
Dorian sliced the last monster’s chest, his blade slick with blackened blood. With practiced ease, he reached in and yanked out its soulspark—still pulsing faintly before tossing it onto the growing pile beside them.
“That was the last one,” he said, flicking blood off his knife. “How many did we get?”
Cassian blinked trying to fight the wave of exhaustion. “If I counted right, that makes forty-four.” He glanced at the pile. “Majority of them didn’t have any soulspark. So much wasted effort.”
Dorian shrugged, crouching to inspect the soulsparks. “That’s just the reality, Cassian. Honestly, this is the most soulsparks I’ve ever seen. Normally only elite-class monsters manifest them.”
Cassian shrugged “Hmmm, I think this is due to the mother of Kalrach’s existence, Her bloody presence must be triggering unnatural spawn rates.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised,” Dorian muttered. “Any idea how long until she matures?”
Cassian swiped through his interface and brought up the scenario window.
[Hidden Scenario: Kalrach’s Nest | Time to maturity: 30 HOURS 02 MINUTES 21 SECONDS)]
“Thirty hours,” he said flatly. “Give or take a minute. We need something big…explosives maybe. That thing isn’t going down with just bullets and prayers. We need to bring this whole place down.”
Dorian stood, deep in thought. “Weapons Engineering Division was on B3, right? They should do something, I’ll be damned if there weren’t any scientists with this much funding not working on weapons”
“Yeah.” Cassian nodded. “Here, check the floor plans, in the meantime, I’ll absorb these things. You get some rest.”
Dorian raised a brow. “Rest? I’m okay”
“Dorian I can see exhaustion taking a toll on you, hell even with all my enhancements and power I’m still trying my best to stay awake”
Cassian watched as Dorian was unable to retort he just grumbled and retreated down to the B3 gates, only place where it was somewhat clean. Cassian knelt beside the soulspark pile and picked one up. Each was the same—glowing amber, swirling with faint traces of essence. With a twist of his wrist, he crushed it. It cracked like glass in his palm, unleashing a thread of power that surged into his core.
[DING! [SPECIAL] SOULSPARK (COMMON) ABSORBED, SOULKEEP STRENGTHENED SLIGHTLY, 5 WISH FRAGMENTS RECEIVED]
I see so they are all common variety huh…. still the sheer number of them should pull through.
One by one, he absorbed the rest, the notifications streaming past his vision in a relentless flood.
[DING! [SPECIAL] SOULSPARK (COMMON) ABSORBED, SOULKEEP STRENGTHENED SLIGHTLY, 5 WISH FRAGMENTS RECEIVED] x43
[DING! DESTRUCTION ATTUNEMENT (COMMON) GAINED] x5
“Two hundred twenty wish fragments. Five attunement cards. Damn…” Cassian muttered, shaking his head. “I'll wish later, There should be more banner options now.”
[DING! SOULKEEP LEVEL +2, REWARD: +1 CARD SLOT TOKEN, YOU CAN NOW INCREASE YOUR RUN, DECK OR INSTANT CARD SLOT]
“Oh, shit—almost missed that,” he said with a grin. “That’s a good one.”
He hesitated, eyes flicking between options. “Deck slot would probably give me the most long-term leverage. I’ll hold onto it for now. Might change after I wish and what I get.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Dorian’s voice broke through his thoughts. “You done yet?”
“Yeah. Let’s go,” Cassian said, rising to his feet and dusting off his hands.
…
With a groan and a stuttering clang, the doors to B3 slid open.
The air changed immediately—thicker, more vile. Something about it made Cassian’s skin crawl. It wasn’t only the air on B3 that was different, the infrastructure, or rather what has become of it, the entire corridor was terraformed and it looked like they were inside a monster rather than being in a facility. The floor was fleshy and uneven beneath their boots, slick with thin layers of mucus-like residue. Along the walls, metal had been replaced by pulsing sinew and twisting root-veins. Embedded in the warped flesh were small, dim bulbs that throbbed with a slow, reddish glow—like a heartbeat.
Cassian and Dorian raised their torch output, beams slicing through the darkness as they moved cautiously, covering each other’s blind spots.
They moved in silence where Dorian pointed, Cassian kept his mind open but the exhaustion was catching up, he could feel his eyelids going heavy as he blinked to stay awake and because of this, he didn’t even realize the kalrach that was right on him, until Dorian yanked him back with one arm while swinging his knife in the other. The arc of the blade caught the edge of the Kalrach’s skull as it stumbled and Dorian quickly ended it with a bullet to the monster’s head.
“Don’t zone out down here, Cassian,” Dorian muttered, glancing around, already spotting more flickers of movement at the edge of the light.
Cassian stood there, pulse hammering in his ears. He slapped himself hard enough to sting. Then he sucked in a breath and nodded.
He’d fucked up. If Dorian hadn’t been there, that thing would’ve taken his head clean off.
They finally reached the Containment Vaults. Fortunately, they didn’t run into any monster, apart from Dorian's constant nagging, that he should rest.
The Vaults?… please be something of use in here or even beds would work
Cassian swiped his ID against the security pad, and with a low mechanical groan, the blast doors stirred with a mechanical hiss.
The air inside was cold and dry, thick with sterilizing chemicals and something rotten beneath. After what Cassian has been through the smell didn’t even bothered him much.
Cassian stepped through, Dorian close behind, both raising their torches to full output.
The beams cut through the thick gloom—and revealed what remained.
As their torches swept across the chamber, rows of reinforced display chambers lined the walls. Most were broken—some shattered violently from the inside, others ruptured by time and neglect. Jagged glass littered the floors. The air shimmered faintly around one of the cracked tanks as if something still reactive clung to its interior walls.
Cassian’s light caught the details now. Preserved horrors.
Human limbs. Pale, withered, surgically separated at the joints, and suspended in a crystal stasis matrix. Fingers twitching ever so slightly—not with life, but with some automated nerve simulation still looping in the background.
Dorian moved to another tank. He flinched.
A head. Human. Bald, eyeless, with long black wires feeding into its skull-like veins. Its mouth was frozen mid-scream, lips stretched unnaturally. Something pulsed behind its exposed jaw.
Everywhere they turned: horror, preserved in meticulous display.
“Ugh! the more I see this place Dorian, The more I wonder why I even entered… the scientist for sure were twisted” Cassian grimaced looking at the remains.
Monster parts—claws the size of machetes, twitching antennae encased in fluid, insectoid wings like shattered glass. Chitin armor grafted onto what looked like human spinal cords. Some specimens were labeled with etched placards, mostly rusted through:
"Recombinant Tissue Trial – Result: Reject"
"Synthetic Nerve Mesh Prototype – WARNING: Unstable"
"Trans-Bioframe #8: Inactive. Contains residual thought print."
Moving into the vault, some chambers held machines—half-fused with organic material. One had a cube of black alloy that hummed faintly when they passed it. Another, a jar of floating eyes—dozens of them, all locked onto Cassian the moment he came near.
He recoiled. “Fuck”
Dorian stopped beside a cracked containment cabinet and nodded toward it.“Soulsparks.”
Inside, containment orbs sat in a vertical rack where five soulsparks sat, each one flickered softly, like tiny living stars as Cassian picked them up and slid them into his backpack.
Cassian shrugged, “At least that something of worth”
Dorian sighed as he moved to check other cabinets, Cassian approached a nearby terminal. Surprisingly, it still had power, though its interface was damaged, flickering between menu trees and corrupted logs.
He tapped a few keys, scrolling through the logs:
[Specimen Log: 37-B] – “Subject failed biograft integration. Containment loss during phase shift. Recovered partially.”
[Specimen Log: 39-C] – “Neurocore rejected. Implanted aggression spikes proved too volatile. Terminated on-site.”
[Specimen Log: 40-F] – “Sample no longer viable. Reclassified as THREAT CLASS 3. Pending disposal.”
[Specimen Log: 41-A] – “Crystal Lattice Worm Mutation (Human-Origin). Reaction to neural feedback loop inconclusive. Potential for cross-adaptive—”
Static. The log ended mid-sentence. No summary. No outcome.
Cassian stared at it for a moment, unsettled.
He stepped back. The monitor’s faint glow cast long shadows across the room—and something flickered in his periphery.
Drip. A wet, warm sound. Flesh against metal.
He blinked. What the—
Another drip—this time across his cheek.
He froze.
Sticky. Warm.
Blood.
A thick bead of it smeared down the side of his face. Fresh.
Dorian noticed him go still. “Cassian?”
Cassian didn’t answer. He slowly looked up.
Dorian followed suit.
High above them curled into the industrial beams of the ceiling—something moved.
A mass of twitching, coiled flesh. At first glance, it looked like a bundle of piping but then the piping shifted, flexed, and opened its eyes.
The creature uncurled like a spider and a worm mixture waking from hibernation. Hundreds of jagged, needle-like legs clicked and braced silently against the ceiling. Its skin pulsed with faint light—like veins filled with living circuits.
Its face—or what passed for one—was a circular maw of twitching hooks, writhing around a dark pit that opened and closed in slow, wet contractions. No mouth. No nose. Just that pit—and eyes.
Seven of them, glistening like wet marbles, stared down from its hide.
“Shit,” Dorian whispered.
“No shit Sherlock, We are thoroughly fucked, Dorian”
...
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