After Number 23 destroyed the laboratory that had taken his friend's life, he vanished from the ashes of that night and reappeared under the banner of the Empire. There, he was inducted as its newest Transcendent… a living weapon forged from science and tragedy.
His very existence was an anomaly. Unlike the naturally awakened Transcendents, whose powers bloomed through divine chance or personal enlightenment, Number 23's strength was the product of artificial engineering, refined through suffering and blood.
At first, his comrades viewed him with suspicion. To them, he was not a man, but a construct, a soulless imitation that had no right to wield the same power as they did. But all scepticism faded the day he stepped onto the battlefield for the first time.
