The lab lay in silence.
Smoke coiled in the air like restless spirits. Broken glass shimmered under the flickering lights. Amid the wreckage, Cassius knelt beside the body of what once was Soren.
His hands trembled, resting on his thighs. His breath shallow. His thoughts spiraling.
Cassius(speaking to himself) : "He saved me. He trusted me. And I couldn't save him."
He stared at Soren's face—partly human, partly something else. But still… familiar.
Cassius(speaking to himself) : "Why this relic? Why me? Every answer brings a death. Every power… a cost."
Behind him, no one dared speak.
Varcen stepped forward slowly, placing his sword back into its sheath.
Varcen(with heavy voice): "The boy...he saved Genesis today. He held onto himself longer than any of us could have."
Elric took a step closer, placing a firm hand on Cassius's shoulder.
Elric : "Cassius, we have to move. More guards might be on their way."
Korvek, silent and grim, stood at a distance, eyes low.
Korvek: "We linger too long. That door won't hold."
Jorvan, removing his weathered cap, ran a hand through his thinning hair.
Jorvan: "We can't leave the way we came. They'll have it locked down."
Ronan, arms folded, finally broke his silence.
Ronan: "There's a passage... right side of the lab. Never used it myself, but… might open to the old lower canal route."
Elric turned quickly.
Elric: "Doesn't matter. We take the chance. Staying here isn't an option."
Varcen and Korvek nodded in silent agreement. Jorvan and Ronan moved toward the lab's far corner, weaving past shattered instruments and smoldering debris.
Elric crouched, tightening the wraps on his arm.
He looked back at Cassius—still motionless, still kneeling. He opened his mouth to speak, then stopped.
Cassius slowly turned his head. And Elric froze.
His eyes—those eyes—were no longer drenched in sorrow. They burned. A fierce, focused storm.
Elric whispered to himself:
Elric(thinking) : "I've seen him swing a sword. I've seen him stand. But I've never seen those eyes before."
Cassius reached toward the cold slab where Soren lay. His fingers brushed the skin of Soren's arm. Then he stood.
One last glance.
Cassius: "Thank you."
He murmured under his breath.
From behind, Varcen's voice echoed through the lab.
Varcen(loud): "Time's running thin. We move now!"
Cassius turned, his cloak dragging ash in its wake.
He said nothing more.
Elric walked beside him as they vanished down the dim corridor—leaving behind a fallen friend, and walking toward whatever the relic had in store next.
---
The passage was narrow and damp, walls slick with moisture that dripped in rhythmic ticks from the low ceiling. Ronan led the way, lantern in hand, its flickering light casting jagged shadows over the uneven floor. Behind him moved Jorvan, silent and grim. Cassius walked quietly, head lowered, his fists clenched at his sides. Elric stayed close, eyes darting between Cassius and the shifting darkness ahead. Korvek trailed behind them, watchful as always, and Varcen covered the rear, one hand hovering near the hilt of his blade.
No one spoke for a long time.
The air was heavier the deeper they went—thick with the scent of rust, mildew, and something faintly metallic. The silence felt wrong, not peaceful but pregnant with some forgotten memory still whispering in the cracks of the walls.
Korvek finally broke the silence, his voice low.
Korvek: "How far do we have to go down this cursed thing?"
Ronan: "I... I told you, I don't know. I just saw this passage during waste disposal duty. I never came this far."
Varcen (dryly): "Then we keep going. As far from the labs as we can get."
Elric narrowed his eyes as he scanned the stone walls.
Elric: "Stay alert. Whatever they were doing down here... might not be done with us yet."
They walked on, hour blending into hour, until the tight corridor opened like a wound into a massive chamber.
Their steps slowed. Even Ronan stopped.
It was enormous. The walls stretched high into a shadowed dome, tangled with thick vines and thorny growths that had clawed their way in from some breach above. Patches of moss clung to the ancient tiles. Shattered lights hung uselessly from the ceiling. A broken terminal blinked once and died. Air vents wheezed like dying lungs.
And then—they saw it.
Etched across the wall above a wide, sealed doorway, half-covered in vines, was a large numeral:
9
It was scorched into the wall in faded industrial paint, half-devoured by age but unmistakable. A faint hum emanated from somewhere deep inside.
Time seemed to freeze.
Korvek looked around, a grim frown crossing his face.
Korvek: "What... does that number mean?"
Varcen: "Chamber number. That's obvious. But where are one through eight?"
Jorvan: "I saw another chamber further back... but no numbers on it."
Ronan's brow furrowed. He stepped closer to the vines.
Ronan: "They only numbered the important ones. Or the dangerous ones..."
He didn't sound confident.
Korvek's voice dropped to a mutter as he eyed a pile of collapsed crates nearby, black stains spread across the ground like dried oil.
Korvek: "Dangerous how? What were they doing here—raising more monsters? More of those half-dead freaks?"
Elric unsheathed his blade a few inches, just enough for it to glint.
Elric: "Doesn't matter what they did. We're not here to figure out the past."
A gust of stale air passed through the chamber. Somewhere in the distance, something metal clattered—followed by silence.
Cassius didn't speak.
He stood still, eyes fixed on the number 9, his chest rising and falling in slow, deliberate breaths. His gaze drifted over the wreckage, the old terminals, the sealed chamber door choked in vines. He didn't say a word, but Elric noticed the faintest twitch in his brow, like a storm was building inside.
Elric(softly, to himself): "You're thinking too much again..."
Cassius didn't speak. He stood near the broken entrance, one hand resting on his belt, the other gripping the side of the wall, gaze locked on the dark interior. Something inside him pulled—something heavy, burning.
He stepped forward.
Elric(turning towards Cassius): "Cassius?"
Cassius didn't answer. He moved toward the half-broken metal door, vines twisted like fingers around its edge. With a slow, deliberate motion, he drew his short blade and began cutting through them.
Varcen(loud voice): "Are you out of your mind?"
Behind him, Korvek grinned like a madman.
Korvek: "Heh. I knew you'd want to go in. Curiosity is a wild thing."
Ronan(nervous): "We should not go in there."
Elric(stepping forward, urgent tone): "Cassius, listen, I understand what you're feeling. But we can't let Soren's death go in vain by dying ourselves. You want revenge, I get that, but now's not—"
Cassius(voice low but firm): "It's not about revenge, I need to know who's behind all of this. What they're doing. Why. I need answers."
Without waiting for a reply, he shoved the sliding door aside with a metal screech. The rusted mechanism gave out entirely, and the door collapsed with a BOOM, stirring a gust of air from within that rushed out like a breath long held.
The group flinched.
Beyond the threshold, darkness greeted them like a slumbering beast.
Inside, the chamber was enormous—far larger than the one Soren had been held in. Shattered cryopods lay like graves. Some were collapsed inward, others cracked open with burn marks inside, and a few still held mutated husks, long dead and decaying.
Thick cables hung like entrails from the ceiling. Machines once sophisticated now sat lifeless, rusted and smoking from old scorch marks. Pages of research notes, some burned, littered the floor like ash after a war.
The air was metallic, stale, and rotten.
Cassius stepped in, eyes moving over the carnage of time. His boots crunched glass and bone.
Jorvan(shocked): "Gods…"
Jorvan whispered, eyes wide.
Jorvan: "What the hell happened in here?"
Korvek: "A fire?"
Korvek guessed, kneeling by a blackened console.
On the far wall, glowing faintly beneath grime, were etched diagrams—some of which matched what they had seen in the lab that held Soren. Anatomy drawings. Chemical notations. A humanoid shape split open, red veins branching out like roots.
Cassius crouched near a scorched table where charred papers lay stacked. One page, surprisingly intact, fluttered up.
He picked it up and read aloud.
"Date: XX of Year XX. Location: 9th Chamber, Left Wing.
Project: Genesis
This experiment is passed as per HIS request.
Phase 1: Initiation of anaesthesia
Phase 2: Subject under anaesthesia
Phase 3: Begin transfusing Matter 2
Phase 4: Observe transfusion
CONFIDENTIAL"
Cassius's hand trembled slightly.
Cassius(clenching his fists): "They've been doing this… all these years? Did the King know? How could he allow this?"
Elric: "The Merchant King? That snake would sell his own kin if it bought him power."
Ronan stepped beside a shattered desk, brushing off soot.
Ronan: "This place… it's old. Real old. The fire... the collapse—it's been years. Maybe decades."
Jorvan's face paled.
Jorvan: "That's right. This wasn't sanctioned. These are illegal. Veldrith fell into filth after the Merchant King took over. The Old King trusted him too much. But one day…(pausing)…one day the King changed. Like he'd seen a ghost."
A heavy silence fell.
Varcen: "…and the Merchant had him killed."
Elric: "It's possible."
Elric added grimly.
Jorvan shook his head.
Jorvan: "No. He wasn't killed. He escaped. I helped him flee through the back castle walls. But after that… I lost contact with the men I sent with him. I don't know what happened next."
Cassius looked down at the note again, reading the words 'Project: Genesis' over and over.
Cassius: "Maybe your men were attacked by the Merchant's guards," he said.
"Or maybe… someone didn't want him to leave."
Then—footsteps.
Rapid, armored.
Ronan looked toward the broken door, eyes wide.
Ronan: "Guards. We need to move. Now!"
Elric: "MOVE!"
Elric barked, drawing his blade.
As the sound of approaching soldiers grew louder, the group broke into a run, diving into the shadows of the broken chamber and deeper into the unknown tunnels beyond.
---
The iron floor thudded beneath their boots as Cassius and the group sprinted deeper into the tunnels, their path barely lit by flickering overhead lights. Behind them, shouts echoed.
"Follow them! Don't lose their tail!" one of the guards yelled.
Steel clashed against steel as weapons were drawn, the sound reverberating off the stone walls. Cassius's breath was ragged, sweat dripping from his brow. His hands curled tightly, the relic still faintly humming in his palm as if guiding him.
Varcen (panting): "They're gaining. Keep going!"
They darted through the corridor, the tunnel splitting into countless arms. Some led into ruined labs—silent, broken, filled with the stale scent of rust and forgotten nightmares. They didn't stop to look.
Jorvan stumbled but Ronan caught him.
Jorvan (gasping): "This place never ends!"
Ronan: "We'll find a way out. We have to."
The group turned a sharp corner and paused—dead ahead loomed another chamber door, partially hidden behind thorny vines and mold-covered walls. It was smaller than the one before, but far more intact. Across the cracked stone above the entrance, a faint engraving could be seen:
Chamber 2
Varcen (looking back): "I don't see them... maybe we lost the guards."
Meanwhile, back in the previous corridor, the pursuing guards halted near a split in the tunnels.
Guard 1: "Where the hell did they go?"
Guard 2: "There's nothing but broken junk in these labs..."
Guard 3 (scoffing): "Let them run. This is the Left Wing. Dead ends and monsters. They won't last long."
The guards turned and disappeared into the shadows, leaving the winding tunnel in silence.
Back at Chamber 2, the group stood still—hearts still pounding, lungs burning.
Elric (inspecting the walls): "This chamber's smaller than the last one..."
Jorvan: "Yeah... but where are chambers one to eight?"
Ronan (gazing into the dark): "This tunnel is far bigger than anything I imagined. It's like... a hidden settlement."
Korvek (grinning): "We entering this one too? I like surprises."
Varcen: "What's the plan, Cassius?"
Cassius took a slow step forward, eyes on the thick vines cloaking the entrance.
Cassius (serious): "The paper we found in Chamber 9 mentioned the Left Wing. This might be part of a larger system—maybe even older than anything we've seen."
He reached out and placed his hand on the metal, then paused. A flicker of blue light surged across his palm—the relic shimmered softly, pulsing once, then dimmed.
Cassius (wide-eyed): "The relic... it's glowing again. There's something inside."
A cold breeze leaked through the cracks in the chamber door. It wasn't wind—it was something else. A presence.
One by one, they stepped through the threshold.
Inside, darkness welcomed them like a sleeping beast. The chamber was in ruin—cracked tiles, broken terminals, ancient cables dangling like vines. Yet unlike the others, there were no signs of fire. Only time had touched this place.
And then...
Chains rattled.
A low creak echoed from the far end of the room.
A silhouette emerged from the dark—a man, hunched, his back bent with age. His long grey beard draped to his chest, hair matted, face worn like an old sculpture weathered by centuries. Shackles bound both his arms to the wall behind him, rusted cuffs biting into flesh.
He slowly raised his head.
Two glowing eyes pierced through the gloom, radiating power... and recognition.
???(distorted, hoarse): "He has come..."
Cassius froze. The air thickened. Every member of the group stood still, breathing halted.
And then—
Black.