---
The fluorescent lights buzzed like swarms of trapped hornets over steel autopsy tables, their flickering glow casting jagged shadows across the morgue's tiled walls. Chen Mu tightened his latex gloves, the stench of charred flesh and chemical disinfectant clawing at his nostrils. The corpse before him—a John Doe dredged from the third harbor district—lay with 89% of its skin carbonized, the melted imprint of a cargo container seared into its left pectoral. The police report had labeled it an "industrial accident," but the faint blue luminescence pulsing beneath the cadaver's cracked epidermis told another story.
"Let's see what you're hiding," Chen muttered, adjusting the magnifying lamp to examine the peculiar blister patterns. The air tasted metallic, heavy with the tang of ionized particles that shouldn't linger in a standard autopsy suite. His breath fogged in the chilled air, mingling with the acrid smoke still rising from the cadaver's fingertips.
The corpse's hand snapped upward with a wet crack, charcoal-black fingers clamping around his wrist with hydraulic force. Chen's breath hitched as his spine erupted in ice-crackling shivers. Blue veins throbbed beneath the cadaver's scorched flesh, converging at the shattered larynx where an otherworldly glow pulsed—not the sickly green of radiation burns, nor the crimson flicker of thermal residue.
*This isn't in the coroner's manual.*
Cobalt light snaked up Chen's arm like liquid electricity. His vision fractured into shards of dying memory:
*—flames consuming steel shipping containers, men screaming in languages he'd never learned. A silver briefcase cracking open, spilling liquid shadow that moved with predatory intent. The burn victim's final thought burned brighter than the pyre: **"Code Phoenix active. Containment breached at Sector—"***
Chen staggered back, crashing into a tray of autopsy tools that clattered to the floor. The corpse's hand fell limp, its eerie luminescence extinguished. His own fingertips shimmered with residual energy, the taste of gasoline and seawater coating his tongue.
"Fuck." He stared at the smoldering body, sweat soaking through his scrubs. "Fuck, *fuck*, **fuck**."
The digital wall clock flickered 03:17 AM as Chen fumbled for the emergency intercom. His thumb hovered over the crimson panic button when the false memory struck like a psychic blade:
*—his mother's laughter, warm and whole before the chemotherapy stole it. Her hands guiding his through delicate dumpling folds, the scent of chives and pork filling their cramped apartment kitchen.*
Except Chen's mother had died when he was six. In a car crash. He'd never learned her dumpling recipe.
**
**Ability Acquired: Pyroclastic Surge (Tier-2 Combustion)**
**Corruption Index: 1.2%**
**Memory Degradation: 0.8%**
Chen stared at the holographic text flickering at the edge of his vision—warnings only he could see. When he flexed his hand, blue flames erupted across the autopsy table, devouring flesh but leaving steel untouched. As the fire died, the corpse's burns had vanished, revealing intricate tattoos beneath: a winged serpent coiled around GPS coordinates that matched the harbor's darkest shipping lanes.
His phone vibrated. An unknown number lit up the screen:
**"Welcome to the masquerade, Reaper. Check drawer C-14."**
The steel drawer screeched open. Inside lay three artifacts wrapped in black silk:
1. **Phoenix Coin**: A 19th-century Qing dynasty relic, its edges thrumming with residual heat. The phoenix's eyes gleamed with captured starlight, and faint etchings along its rim read: *"From ashes, dominion."*
2. **Nano-Shifter Syringe**: Mercury-like fluid shifted between liquid and crystalline geometries, casting prismatic shadows. The label warned: **"Neural Override Protocol—72% Lobectomy Risk."**
3. **Polaroid Snapshot**: Chen buying noodles two nights prior. Someone had circled his reflection in the shop window—a shadowy figure leaning against a lamppost, eyes glowing faint cobalt. The timestamp read *03:17 AM*, and the air around the figure shimmered like heat haze.
Chen's throat tightened. He'd walked past that lamppost every night this week.
---
#### **Expanded Section: The Code Black Crisis**
The morgue doors exploded inward.
"Mu!" Chief Medical Examiner Voss stormed through the chemical fog, her lab coat flaring like a cape. A jagged scar peeked above her collar—a relic from last year's "quarantine incident" she refused to discuss. "Code Black in Ward 3. Seven nurses down. The board wants all available—"
She froze, nostrils flaring at the scent of incinerated human fat. Her hand drifted toward the shock pistol at her hip, its biometric lock glowing faintly.
Chen's stolen flames sparked to life between his fingers.
**
**New Objective: Survive Until Dawn**
**Suggested Loadout: Pyroclastic Surge / Memory Fabrication (Locked) / Corpse Marionette (Locked)**
**Threat Level: Baseline Human (Non-augmented)**
The phoenix coin burned in Chen's palm. Somewhere beneath the hospital's sterile facade, something ancient and hungry stirred in its slumber.
"Lead the way, Chief."
The quarantine ward's airlock hissed open, revealing a nightmare. Fluorescent lights strobed erratically, casting the containment pods in hellish shadows. Nurse Alvarez—or what remained of her—twisted against her restraints, limbs bending in directions anatomy forbade. Her scrubs had split along the seams, revealing skin mottled with hexagonal patterns that pulsed like circuitry.
"Third collapse this hour," Voss muttered, her voice tight. "Started seizing during med rounds. Now they're... *evolving*."
Chen's system interface flared:
**
**Countermeasures: Cerebral Incineration (Available) / Soulforge Extraction (Locked)**
Alvarez's head snapped toward them, jaw unhinging with a wet pop. A sound like grinding glass erupted from her throat—a distorted scream spliced with radio static.
"We tried everything," a junior intern whispered from behind a overturned gurney. His nametag read *J. Park*, and his left eye twitched uncontrollably. "Anticonvulsants, sedatives... even the experimental inhibitors from Blackmoor."
The name jolted Chen. Blackmoor Foundation—the same group that funded the hospital's "renovation" three years ago. The same logo stamped on that silver briefcase in the corpse's memory.
Voss raised her shock pistol. "Stand clear."
Chen grabbed her wrist. "Wait."
The nano-shifter syringe glinted in his other hand. The holographic label flickered: **"Application: Neural Override. Side Effects: Temporal Lobectomy (72%), Spontaneous Combustion (18%)."**
"Trust me?" he asked, though it sounded more like a challenge.
Voss's scar pulsed faintly. "Do I have a choice?"
The needle plunged into Alvarez's carotid.