Edoran's fingers clenched around the collar at his throat. It wasn't just metal. It was pressure, crawling under his skin, whispering demands.
"Move forward," the voice inside it commanded.
His body obeyed.
Not because he wanted to.
But because defiance meant pain.
A sharp jolt shot up his spine, stealing his breath. He staggered forward, one step at a time. Anger simmered in his chest.
This isn't freedom, he thought bitterly. This is programming with polish.
He reached the end of the corridor. Massive double doors opened automatically, revealing a glowing, high-class meeting room.
Crystal chandeliers. Velvet carpeting. Champagne flutes balanced in the hands of men who wore polished suits like armor.
Voices filled the room, laughter, chatter, business lingo dressed in casual charm. But when Edoran stepped in, everything stopped.
Every head turned.
Every eye locked on him.
He froze in the spotlight.
"Ah yes," Harold Faulkner announced, striding forward, voice smug. "This is the homunculus I mentioned. His core potential rivals the Warmonger."
A wave of polite claps followed. Admiration. Curiosity. Thinly veiled fear. It was a room of people who didn't see him as human, just a powerful object wrapped in flesh.
Edoran's shoulders tensed. He smiled stiffly.
'It is like I'm a mascot. Or a monster on display. Not a person. Never a person.'
He tried not to let it show. He tucked his rage behind a practiced, hollow look.
A woman near the front clapped loudly, too loudly. Aria Faulkner. Her presence turned the room. She was elegance incarnate: silver hair, sharp heels, and a stare that felt like a scalpel.
"Now then," she said, voice crystal-clear. "Let's move to the main event!"
Harold stepped forward with theatrical flair.
"I, Harold Jason, am proud to launch Star Wraith Industries, a company built to revolutionize the management of savages. In partnership with Nova Star, we'll forge a future where humanity no longer fears extinction."
The crowd erupted into thunderous applause.
A cake shaped like a lab was cut, and music started playing, cheerful and grotesquely out of place.
Edoran backed into a corner, trying to vanish. But eyes followed him. Even behind the wine and dancing, he could feel them. Weighing. Measuring.
Aria approached. Her steps were soft, but her words hit like steel.
"Harold is a good boy," she said sweetly. "If you ever harm him... I will make your end something even the devils envy."
Her smile didn't reach her eyes.
Edoran took a step back.
He glanced at Harold, laughing as he danced with a woman in a white dress. Oblivious.
Edoran forced himself to eat a piece of cake. Tried to wash down the dread sitting in his stomach.
He could feel his body healing, core output stabilizing. But something felt off. Like he was being pushed toward the edge of a cliff he couldn't see.
Eventually, the party ended.
Harold ordered a maid to prepare a room. "We leave for Verdantia at dawn. Star Wraith's real HQ is there," he said with barely concealed glee.
That night, Edoran slept deeply. Too deeply. A dreamless, artificial peace. When he awoke, the city had already faded behind them.
Verdantia was something out of a fever dream. Towering green skyscrapers tangled with ivy. Holograms blinked over garden rooftops. Nature and tech danced in seamless, gleaming unity.
It should've been beautiful.
But Edoran only felt small.
As they drove past the headquarters of Nova Star, so tall it seemed to cut the clouds, he barely registered it.
They stopped at a plain gray building.
Harold grinned. "Not flashy. But efficient."
Inside, the building felt sterile. Lifeless.
They descended by elevator to the basement. Cold metal. Bright lights. The scent of chemicals clinging to everything.
Rows of monitors lined the walls. Cages sat in the corner, and inside them, savages twitched and growled.
"You're not ready to face one in the wild," Harold said, his tone shifting. "Your cores need to be synced. If you don't kill a savage soon, your internal flow will collapse."
He motioned toward the cages.
"Jake, you go first."
Jake gave a casual shrug. "Sure thing."
He stepped up to a cage. He drew his saber as it hissed with energy.
Harold pressed a button. The cage opened.
The Chimeraborn emerged.
It was grotesque. Part-wolf, part-insect, part-nightmare. Its limbs were jagged and uneven. Sinew glistened under patchy fur.
It hissed. Then lunged.
The collar on its neck zapped it mid-leap.
Jake struck in one clean motion.
The saber carved through muscle and bone. The creature screamed—and collapsed.
A ripple of core energy flowed into Jake, illuminating his veins. He grinned.
Edoran's turn.
He stepped forward without hesitation, locking eyes with the next creature. His collar pulsed. He ignored it.
The lights flickered.
Then everything went black.
The hum of the facility died. A deep rumble rolled beneath their feet.
Emergency lights snapped on, casting jagged shadows across the walls.
"Something's wrong," Harold muttered.
He turned toward the cages.
One had been sliced open. Cleanly. Too cleanly.
Empty.
Jake drew his saber. "Stay sharp."
From behind them came a soft thump.
They turned.
A small pink bunny sat on the floor.
It blinked.
Its eyes were red. Glowing like fresh blood.
Harold's face drained of color. "Don't move. That's a Gorehop. Tier-2. Provoke it, and you're meat ribbons."
The Gorehop blinked again.
Then hopped.
Toward Edoran.
The collar buzzed violently. Warning.
The floor trembled again. Sirens blared from above.
"ATTENTION! ATTENTION! TIER-3 SAVAGE, BLAZING WHALE HAS BREACHED VERDANTIA'S PERIMETER."
"REMAIN INDOORS. DO NOT MAKE EYE CONTACT."
Harold swore loudly. "A Tier-3?! That's impossible! They should've detected it days ago!"
Another screech echoed.
The Gorehop stood still for a heartbeat.
Then, its mouth unhinged.
Four black tendrils burst forth, each lined with knife-like teeth.
It lashed out, ripping apart a nearby cage. The savage inside didn't even have time to scream.
The Gorehop ate it alive, tendrils shoving bloody chunks into its gaping maw.
"Jake!" Harold shouted. "Activate your core now!"
Jake hesitated. 'I can't save both of them… and stop that thing…'
"NOW!!!" Harold screamed.
He clenched his jaw, and transformed.
Jake's scream tore through the room.
His spine arched backward, every joint popping out of place as his body rejected its original shape.
Muscle didn't just grow, it ruptured, expanding in bursts that split the skin like overripe fruit. Blood sprayed in violent pulses before new flesh knitted over the gaps.
His fingers cracked, then snapped forward, bones splintering and rearranging into jagged claws.
A second set of arms burst from beneath his ribs with a sickening tearing sound, slick with a sticky fluid and steaming in the cold air.
The skin across his face bubbled and sloughed off like wax, revealing a jaw that unhinged wider than any human should have, canines like obsidian daggers sliding into place.
He convulsed.
Fur shot from his pores in uneven tufts, matted and dark, clinging to twitching muscle. His legs bent inward, then outward, reshaping into something lupine, predatory, wrong.
His eyes, once a dull human brown, flared gold, glowing like searchlights in the dim chaos of the room.
He dropped to all six limbs, claws gouging the floor.
Steam poured off him.
A low growl built in his throat, rising into a howl that rattled the monitors and made the remaining savages cower in their cages. Jake was gone.
What remained was the Dog Wraith.
Seven feet of rage and instinct, breathing like a locomotive, every muscle coiled tight and hungry. His mouth foamed with acid-laced saliva.
Jake roared and punched the Gorehop across the room.
"GO!" he barked, scooping Harold under one arm and grabbing Edoran with the other.
They bolted for the exit.
The Gorehop shrieked, more fury than pain.
It pounced.
Jake caught two tendrils mid-air but blood exploded from his back as the other two sliced into him.
Harold grabbed a heavy cannon from the rack and fired.
The Gorehop twisted, avoiding the shot.
Edoran's heart pounded as blood spattered across his cheek.
Jake growled. Then yanked, ripping a tendril clean off.
The Gorehop howled. The walls shook with its howl.
Another cannon shot missed. A third tendril lashed out, slamming the cannon across the floor.
It skidded and stopped at Edoran's feet.
(Use it. Obliterate the enemy. Fulfill your function.)
The collar whispered, not in commands, but in temptation.
Edoran didn't think. His hands moved on instinct.
He hoisted the cannon. Aimed. Fired.
The blast vaporized the Gorehop's face.
The room fell silent, save for Jake's shallow breathing.
He collapsed.
Harold ran to him. "Stay with me. Stay with me!"
Edoran stood frozen. The cannon clattered to the floor.
He stared at the gore-streaked floor. At the blood on his arms.
"I'll get help!" he shouted, stumbling toward the door.
"No!" Harold snapped. "It's chaos outside. If you get caught-"
"I'm not letting him die!" Edoran shouted.
Harold opened his mouth but saw the fire in Edoran's eyes.
He closed it again. Then nodded.
"Be careful," he said. "Don't look into the whale's eyes. And if the collar speaks, don't listen too closely."
Edoran ran.
And behind him, the collar pulsed. Warm.
(You are learning, Edoran. Learning what it means to survive.)