The air thickens without warning.
Black fumes slither into existence, curling around me like a nest of serpents. My half-burned arms, my torn legs—the same broken flesh I thought was gone, scattered in pieces across the vault—stitch themselves back together. Bone, muscle, skin… clawing, writhing, forcing themselves back into place with a grotesque kind of rebirth.
The sound is worse than the sight. Wet tearing. Bones grinding against themselves like stones. My own sinews pull taut, snapping into alignment with sharp, electric jolts of pain.
Who the hell would've expected this? Not me. Not in reality. Things like this happen only in nightmares. But this—this is real.
The fumes coil tighter, spiraling upward, lifting me into the air as if invisible hands have claimed me for their own. My body dangles like a marionette on strings I can't see.
I don't know where they come from.
I don't know why they cling to me.
But they do. And they're not letting go.
What really unsettles me isn't the pain, not the sensation of being rebuilt piece by piece—it's the look on Bheeshma's face.
A flicker. Disbelief. A soldier who's seen monsters and wars, who's carved down armies, staring at me like I'm the aberration.
"What's happening…?" His voice cracks.
Behind me, Vault B10 groans. The restricted zone—steel walls reinforced with layered alloys, encrypted locks, and C.O.S.M.O.S.'s paranoia—throbs like a living thing. Each metallic pulse vibrates through the air, setting my teeth on edge.
Then—pressure.
It comes like a fist squeezing the entire chamber. The oxygen turns heavy, crushing. Bheeshma drops to a knee, his skin slick with sweat, teeth grinding as the force doubles… triples.
And then—
BOOM.
The vault splits like rotten wood, spilling black light into the world.
From inside, something emerges. Not with violence. Not with noise. It simply drifts out, still and deliberate.
A lotus. Blacker than shadow. Its petals swallow light itself, each movement so unnervingly smooth it's like watching oil ripple on water.
Bheeshma's voice breaks, desperation leaking into every word.
"What is that flower…? That intensity? Chairman—what secrets have you hidden?"
The lotus reaches me. And unfurls.
Its twenty-four petals slide apart like surgical blades, and then—without hesitation—they press themselves into my eyes.
One.
By.
One.
The pain is instant. No warm-up. No slow burn. It is molten agony—like someone is pouring fire straight into my skull, carving out my vision and replacing it with something else. My veins light up like wires overloaded with current. My bones creak as if they want to split apart from the inside.
I scream. A sound not human anymore. A sound I don't recognize as mine.
Through the haze of suffering, I catch Bheeshma's face. Frozen. Unreadable. His fists clench—not from rage, but from something closer to… powerlessness.
Then it ends.
The silence after the pain is deafening.
I am not a nineteen-year-old boy anymore.
I stand taller. Heavier. My very shadow warps, stretching like it doesn't belong to me. I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a shattered fragment of steel. Not a man. Not human. A silhouette carved from nightmare.
I clench my fists. Power surges through me, intoxicating. Yet wrong. My movements blur, twitch, act on their own accord. My limbs respond to intentions I haven't even thought of yet.
And strangely—I don't care.
Why should I care?
When every twitch, every involuntary motion, spills blood and tears flesh. Why resist when I can feel the hot, slick proof of my dominance coating my hands?
Bheeshma's face twists. Not fear. Something worse—humiliation.
For an A-rank soldier, failing to kill me instantly is not just defeat. It is sacrilege.
"Don't you dare think you'll walk out of here alive!" he roars.
His aura flares. His attack is sharp, desperate.
"Judgement Arc!"
Pathetic. Typical. Every so-called legend clings to a name, to a ritual, screaming their moves like priests calling gods that never answer. His arm explodes in plasma, each swing fast enough to shred steel to ribbons.
Not a single strike touches me.
Before he can breathe, my fist buries itself in his gut. Dead center. Right where his Volt Chakra pulses.
The impact folds him. His body rips through floor after floor—ten levels down.
I land lightly, my body an executioner's blade cutting through the battlefield.
Around me, chaos. Soldiers sprawl. Moan. Fall silent. Unconscious. Maybe dead. I don't care.
Then I see it.
The Necradron. A grotesque serpent, its body writhing, scales slick and alive, dozens of eyes sliding and blinking across its flesh.
And fighting it—Bheema. C.O.S.M.O.S.'s right hand. Elder brother of the broken man I just gutted. Stone Chakra hardens his fists, each strike pounding against the beast with desperate grit.
Then his gaze cuts toward me. He sees his brother. And then he sees me.
"What the fuck happened here, Bheeshma!?" His glare burns through me. "Who… no. What are you?"
The beast roars at him, saving me the trouble of an answer.
Bheema snarls. "Begone, ugly!" He slams a Terra Fist into the monster's side, then seals it within a stone dome. His grin is manic. "Match isn't over, worm."
The Necradron shrieks, its Psychic Roar vibrating the air. Bheema staggers, blood running from his ears.
But the beast isn't looking at him anymore. It's looking at me. And it knows.
Something worse than itself is standing right here.
My body doesn't wait. It obeys the command in my blood.
I tear through the Terra Shield like it's wet paper and smash my hand across the Necradron's skull.
Its scream isn't rage this time. It's fear.
Black fumes pour from its wounds, funneling into me. Into their rightful master.
And in that moment, I understand.
The fumes are mine. They have always been mine. The soldiers haven't been torn apart by monsters. They have fallen to me. To my hunger.
The Necradron goes limp.
Power floods my body, sharper than thought, heavier than blood.
I don't hesitate. I rip the beast's corpse apart, hurling chunks of its flesh into the already-crippled C.O.S.M.O.S. headquarters. The meteor strike has left it hanging by threads. My hand delivers the final cut.
The building folds in on itself, a roar of rubble and screams. Those inside—dead, alive, begging—don't matter.
Through the haze, I see them. Eyes. Hundreds. Watching me.
And I leap. Again. Again. Higher. My lungs burn. My body soars, weightless.
Until I see it.
A building gleaming like some holy monument. Beautiful. Sacred. Radiant.
If you aren't me.
Then dizziness swallows me whole. The air thins. Gravity returns with vengeance.
I fall. Fast. Hard. A meteor stripped of flame.
The impact splits asphalt, carving a crater into the road.
Flat on my back, staring into the sky, a thought slips through my teeth like a curse. Freedom never lasts, does it?
Darkness smothers me.
When I wake, sunlight brushes against my face. My eyes open to the same cramped, suffocating box I call home.
But the terror isn't the walls.
It's the mark seared into my vision.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Black Lotus acknowledges your existence.
Welcome, slave of the petals.