Raziel always hated the quiet.
The Exodus Vessel was never truly silent — not even after the lockdown, not even after the lower layers were abandoned to darkness. A machine this vast always breathed: metal ribs flexing, arteries humming with power, the steady pulse of Orion energy deep beneath the hull. But tonight, as Raziel descended toward Layer Five, even the machine seemed to hold its breath.
His boots clamped onto the lift's grated floor. Black armor wrapped him like a second skin — plated, angular, carved in sharp silhouettes that made him look more demon than man. Veins of faint gold pulsed beneath the chestpiece, converging on the gem-like heart embedded in his right breast. His Orion Core, beating softly with borrowed starlight.
Thrum.Thrum.Thrum.
It matched his real heart until he couldn't tell where one ended and the other began.
"Try not to die right away, brother."
The comm in his helm crackled. Cassius. Of course.
"I'm not the one who needs reminding," Raziel replied quietly.
Cassius laughed bright, reckless, carrying that infuriating spark of arrogance Raziel had never been able to extinguish. "Please. I'm practically unkillable. You're the one who broods until something eats you."
"Something tries," Raziel corrected, adjusting his grip on Eidolon, his Arclade. The blade rested sheathed along his forearm, a compressed length of living steel. "But it never succeeds."
"That's the spirit. Anyway, I'll beat you to the first Core fragment. Try not to disappoint Father."
The channel clicked off.
Raziel exhaled.
Thirteen sons. Only one heir.And the King had sent them alone, into a layer no human had entered in years.
The lift shuddered to a halt.
A hiss of decompression.A flicker of emergency lights.The smell hit him first metallic rot, stale coolant, and the sweet, nauseating tang of decayed flesh.
Layer Five.
A world-sized tomb.
Raziel stepped into the dark.
The corridor stretched ahead like a throat carved from rusted steel. Roots of blackened wiring hung from the ceiling, dripping occasional sparks. Organic growths — pale, sinewy, half-fused with machinery clung to the walls like tumors. He moved slowly, flame-yellow eyes scanning.
Carnoids had passed through here.
Recently.
Eidolon reacted before he did.The blade uncoiled with a soft metallic hiss, extending into a long segmented edge. The living circuits along its spine awakened, glowing faint gold as they fed on the Core's energy.
The floor vibrated beneath his feet.
Raziel froze.
A sound echoed through the hallway a wet scraping of metal on bone, followed by the unmistakable clicking of rearranging joints.
A Carnoid.
Alone.
Which didn't make it safer.The lone ones were always the worst.
Raziel watched the shadows. Breath slow. Muscles tight, but controlled. His Core pulsed, hungry, sensing the presence of compatible biomass.
Then he saw it.
The creature unfolded from the ceiling like a nightmare peeling off the wall. Two meters tall, its body a twisted fusion of a once-human host and the machinery it had devoured. Its spine was exposed steel braided with pulsing nerves. Its face had been replaced by a weaponized, mask-like exoskeleton, jawless and gaping, while a cluster of needle-thin tendrils writhed from its throat.
It screeched a sound like tearing metal and drowning lungs.
Raziel's pulse didn't quicken.
He'd fought them before.He'd nearly died before.
But experience didn't make them less terrifying.It simply meant he knew how fast they killed.
The Carnoid lunged.
Raziel moved.
Eidolon cracked through the air, segments whipping outward like a serpent of light and metal. The blade carved deep into the creature's shoulder but the Carnoid didn't fall. It didn't scream.
It simply twisted its own joints backward and kept coming.
Raziel ducked beneath its claws. Sparks exploded as talons tore a chunk from the wall. He pivoted, driving his boot into its chest, launching it backward. The creature hit the far bulkhead with a crash.
Then it began knitting its torn flesh and steel back together.
Fast.
"Damn it," Raziel muttered.
He felt the Core inside his chest ignite, responding to the rising danger, craving the energy sealed inside the abomination. But drawing too deeply from the Core carried its own risk invite too much power, and it would eat him from the inside just as it devoured its enemies.
The Carnoid sprinted forward.Raziel narrowed his eyes.
His Core flared.
Gold light erupted around Eidolon's segments and he struck.
The blade snapped outward in a wide arc, slicing through the creature's neck in a single brutal motion.
The head landed somewhere in the dark, metal ringing.
The body staggered.Twitching.Convulsing.
Finally, it fell.
Raziel exhaled slow, steady.
Then the corpse began to move again.
"…Of course," he whispered.
He stepped onto it, driving Eidolon through the Core cluster embedded in its spine. Only then did the twitching stop.
Silence.
He bent down, carving the parasite's inner node free a snarled knot of living circuitry, cooling flesh, and stolen energy. Its pulsing light flickered weakly. A Core fragment.
His first of this mission.
He held it in his gauntleted hand. Warm. Tempting.
Absorbing it would make him stronger sharper, faster, more attuned to the Orion Pulse but every son knew the danger. Consume too many at once, and the parasite within their DNA stirred, whispering its own hunger.
Raziel pocketed it instead.
Later.When he had time to focus.When the threat was… manageable.
A voice echoed faintly through the hall.
"…Raziel?"
Not Cassius.
A survivor.
Raziel straightened and for the first time since entering Layer Five, dread slid coldly through him.
If someone was alive down here, then something far worse than a lone Carnoid had survived with them.
He tightened his grip on Eidolon.
And moved toward the voice.