The neon glow of the city bled through the cracks in Seun's apartment blinds, painting jagged stripes across the floor. He hadn't slept. Not after what he'd seen in that facility. Not after what he'd *done* to Yuna.
His knuckles still ached from the impact of her ribs.
The UnRuly System pulsed in his vision, an insistent throb at the edge of his awareness.
**[New Data Detected: Decrypting…]**
Seun exhaled sharply through his nose. The System had been *quiet* since the Bio-Queen's death—too quiet. Now, it flared to life like a rekindled ember, searing lines of text across his retinas.
**[Decryption Complete: Project Lazarus Files Recovered]**
**[Location: Blacksite-7 – Sector 9, Abandoned Bio-Research Facility]**
**[Access Key Required]**
A soft *click* came from the window.
Seun didn't move. His fingers curled around the hilt of the dagger beneath his pillow.
**"You look like shit."**
Yuna's voice was rougher than usual, strained from the bruises he'd left on her throat. She perched on the fire escape outside, her cybernetic eye whirring faintly as it adjusted to the dim light. Blood had dried in a flaking trail from her split lip.
Seun didn't lower the dagger. **"You're lucky I didn't throw you off a roof."**
She smirked, wincing as the motion tugged at her injuries. **"Yeah, yeah. You're *scary*."** Her gloved hand lifted, something glinting between her fingers. **"But you want this."**
A keycard.
Old, the edges worn smooth, the surface streaked with something dark that wasn't rust.
Seun's pulse picked up.
Yuna tilted her head. **"Blacksite-7. Where it all started."**
**"Where *what* started?"**
**"Project Lazarus."** Her organic eye—the one still human, still *vulnerable*—flickered with something unreadable. **"The Association's little pet project. Turns out, stitching together monsters from human parts isn't as easy as they thought."**
Seun stood, the dagger still in hand. **"You sent me into that facility blind. Why should I trust you now?"**
**"Because I'm the only one who knows what they did there."** Yuna tossed the keycard onto the mattress. It landed with a soft *thump*. **"And because you *want* to know, too."**
The System pulsed again, sharper this time.
**[Primary Objective Updated: Investigate Blacksite-7]**
**[Reward: Shadow Monarch Class Unlock +10% | 800 DP]**
Seun snatched up the keycard. The plastic was cold against his skin.
**"Who's Ji-Ah?"**
Yuna went very, very still.
---
### **Blacksite-7**
The facility loomed at the edge of the city's quarantine zone, a crumbling husk of concrete and steel. The air here tasted like rust and old rain, the wind carrying the faint, metallic tang of something *wrong*.
Seun stepped over the carcass of a chain-link fence, the metal screeching in protest. The keycard hung heavy in his pocket.
**[System Alert: Residual Mana Signature Detected]**
**[Warning: Biohazard Containment Breach]**
The entrance was a yawning maw of darkness, the doors long since torn from their hinges. Seun's boots crunched over broken glass as he stepped inside.
The lobby was a graveyard of equipment—overturned gurneys, shattered monitors, syringes crusted with long-dried fluids. And the *bones*.
Dozens of them.
Small. Fragile.
*Child-sized.*
Seun's jaw tightened.
A flicker of movement in the shadows.
His dagger was in his hand before the thought fully formed, the blade humming with latent energy.
Nothing.
Just the wind.
He moved deeper.
---
### **The Containment Chamber**
The heart of Blacksite-7 was a cavernous room lined with shattered tanks, their glass walls webbed with cracks. Fluids—some clear, some unnaturally *vibrant*—had pooled and dried on the tiles in sticky, iridescent patches.
And in the center—
A single, intact tank.
Fogged with age, the glass streaked with grime, but *whole*.
Inside, a figure floated in murky preservation fluid.
A girl.
No older than sixteen, her body skeletal, her skin waxy and bleached of color. Dozens of tubes and wires sprouted from her flesh, sutured into her veins, her skull, the hollow of her throat. Her hair—what little remained—drifted like dead seaweed around a face that might have been pretty, once.
Before they'd *hollowed her out*.
**[Subject Identified: Ji-Ah | Designation: Subject Zero]**
**[Status: Deceased]**
**[Note: Primary Catalyst for Project Lazarus]**
Seun's breath fogged the glass as he leaned closer.
The girl's eyes snapped open.
*Black*.
Pupilless. *Hungry*.
The tank *shattered*.
Preservation fluid exploded outward, drenching Seun as a skeletal hand *lunged* for his throat—
**[Shadow Step]**
He reappeared three meters back, dagger raised, heart hammering.
The girl—*Ji-Ah*—crouched amidst the wreckage of her prison, her too-long fingers splayed against the tiles. Her head tilted, the motion *wrong*, joints popping.
Then she *smiled*.
**"S…Seun…"**
His name in her mouth was a wet, guttural thing.
The System screamed a warning.
**[WARNING: HIGH-GRADE SPECTRAL ENTITY DETECTED]**
**[THREAT LEVEL: A]**
**[RECOMMENDED ACTION: RETREAT]**
Seun bared his teeth.
**"Not a chance."**
Ji-Ah's body *twisted*, her spine arching like a bowstring as shadows *poured* from her mouth, her eyes, the sutured holes in her flesh—
The last thing Seun saw before the darkness swallowed him whole was her smile.
Wide.
*Gleeful*.
**"Play… with me…"**