The Architect's laboratory in the East Wing of Station Zero had become a sanctuary of mad science.
The walls, usually covered in scribbles, were now obscured by massive lead shielding plates. Cables the thickness of a man's thigh snaked across the floor, connecting the station's geothermal reactor to a central isolation chamber.
In the center of the chamber lay the Titan-Alloy Sarcophagus.
The lid was open. Inside, the Abyssal Knight armor lay dormant, a hollow shell of obsidian metal that seemed to drink the light from the overhead lamps.
Varian stood next to it, stripped to his waist. His body was a map of scars—burns from the fire, slash marks from the arena, and the intricate, tribal tattoo of Onyx wrapped around his left arm.
"Explain the loop one more time," Varian said, looking at the tray next to the coffin.
On the tray sat the Heart of the Hydra. It was no longer a messy, dripping organ. The Architect had encased it in a containment sphere of clear glass and brass piping. It pulsed rhythmically—thump-thump—glowing with a vibrant, neon-green vitality.
"It is simple thermodynamics," The Architect said, adjusting his magnifying goggles. He picked up the Heart with trembling reverence.
"The Abyssal Knight is a Void-Symbiote. It is an energetic vacuum. It grants god-like power by consuming the host's Life Force (Bio-Energy). If you put it on now, even with your Soldier-Rank soul, it would drain you dry in three minutes. You would be a raisin in a tin can."
The Architect pointed to the Hydra Heart.
"This is an infinite bio-reactor. The Hydra's cells regenerate faster than they can be destroyed. By grafting this Heart into the armor's chest cavity, we create a Vitality Loop."
He drew a circle in the air with a chalk-covered finger.
"The Heart feeds you raw life energy. The Armor feeds on you. As long as the input matches the output... you don't die. You become a conduit."
"A conduit," Varian repeated. "I'm just the wire between the battery and the bulb."
"Correct. But the wire must be strong, or it melts." The Architect looked Varian in the eye. "If your will falters, if you lose focus... the loop breaks. The armor will eat the Heart, then it will eat you."
Varian took a deep breath.
He looked at his team gathered behind the blast glass of the observation deck.
Gorgon stood with his arms crossed, the red Crimson Paladin armor dormant on his body. He nodded solemnly. He knew the weight of an Emperor. Lady Venom looked pale, her tail twitching nervously. Rix was pressing his nose against the glass, fogging it up. Elian and Echo held hands, their faces grave.
"I'm ready," Varian said.
He stepped into the sarcophagus.
The interior of the armor wasn't metal. It felt like cold, dry leather. It smelled of ancient dust and ozone.
Varian lay back.
"Installing the Core," The Architect announced.
The old man lowered the Hydra Heart into the chest cavity of the armor.
CLICK-HISS.
Magnetic clamps engaged. Needles from the armor pierced the Heart.
Green light flooded the coffin.
"Engaging bonding sequence. Onyx, integrate."
Varian tapped his left arm. "Wake up, buddy. Time to make a new friend."
The black tattoo of Onyx slithered off Varian's skin. It expanded, coating Varian's body in a thin layer of liquid chrome-slime. It acted as an interface—a second skin between Varian's flesh and the Abyssal Armor.
Then, the armor closed.
The breastplate clamped down. The greaves locked. The helmet slid over Varian's face.
darkness.
Then... cold.
Absolute, freezing cold. It wasn't temperature; it was the absence of existence. It felt like falling into a black hole.
Varian screamed, but he had no mouth.
[System Alert.][Foreign Symbiote Detected: The Abyssal Knight.][Rank: Emperor (Dormant).][Connection Attempt... Refused.][The Symbiote demands a Soul Trial.]
Varian's consciousness was ripped from his body.
Varian opened his eyes.
He wasn't in the station. He was standing on a plain of gray ash, stretching infinitely in every direction. The sky was a swirling vortex of purple clouds, crackling with black lightning.
In the distance, a mountain of swords rose into the sky—thousands of blades, rusted and broken, piled into a throne.
And sitting on the throne was The General.
It was the same figure Varian had seen in the memory vision. A massive warrior clad in the Abyssal Armor. But the helmet was off.
The face beneath was scarred, weathered, and old. His eyes were holes of pure void.
"Another one," The General's voice boomed, shaking the ground. "Another scavenger trying to wear the crown."
Varian stood up, dusting the ash from his pants. In this world, he wasn't wearing armor. He was wearing his rags from the Blood Farm. He looked small. Weak.
"I am Varian," he said, walking toward the throne. "I am the Sovereign."
The General laughed. A sound like a rockslide.
"Sovereign? You are a boy. I can smell the milk on your breath. I can smell the fear in your marrow."
The General stood up. He was ten feet tall here. He drew a sword made of shadow from the air.
"I served Arthur Vance," The General roared. "The true Sovereign. He was a visionary. He fought the Angels. He fought the Gods. And even he failed."
The General pointed the sword at Varian.
"Why should I serve you? You, who hides in sewers? You, who fights with tricks and poisons? You are not a warrior. You are a parasite."
Varian stopped walking.
He looked at his hands. He looked at the rags.
"You're right," Varian said quietly.
The General paused. He expected defiance. He expected a shout.
"I am a parasite," Varian admitted. He looked up, his eyes burning with a cold, golden fire. "I was born livestock. I survived by eating garbage. I survived by stealing power from things stronger than me."
Varian took a step forward. The ash around his feet turned to gold.
"Vance was a hero," Varian said. "He fought the Angels head-on. He stood in the light. He had honor."
Varian sneered.
"And look where it got him. Dead. His city burned. His legacy locked in a hole for three hundred years."
The General bristled. "Do not speak of him with disrespect!"
"It's not disrespect. It's fact," Varian shouted, his voice amplifying. "Honor is a luxury for the victorious. The dead have no use for it."
Varian raised his hand. The Sun-Piercer materialized in his grip—not the physical spear, but the idea of it. The manifestation of his will.
"I don't want to be a hero, General. I want to be the cure. And sometimes... the cure is a poison."
He pointed the spear at the giant.
"You failed because you were a shield. You stood there and took the hits until you broke."
Varian's form began to shift. The Onyx Symbiote covered him. The Crimson Paladin's influence (via his bond with Gorgon) flared red. The Hydra's green light pulsed in his chest.
"I am not a shield," Varian growled. "I am an infection. I will infiltrate the Church. I will eat the Union from the inside. I will consume their tech, their magic, their gods. And when I am done... there will be nothing left but Us."
The General stared at him. The void in his eyes swirled.
"An infection..." The General mused. "A Parasite Monarch."
The giant lowered his sword.
"Vance wanted to save the world," The General whispered. "Perhaps... the world doesn't need saving. Perhaps it needs to be conquered."
The General stepped down from the mountain of swords. He shrank, becoming human-sized. He walked up to Varian.
He didn't bow. He extended his gauntleted hand.
"The Void is hungry, Varian," The General said. "If we bond... you will feel the emptiness of a thousand years. It will try to drive you mad."
"I've been hungry my whole life," Varian said. "I can handle it."
He clasped the General's hand.
BOOM.
The gray plain shattered. The purple sky collapsed.
[Soul Trial: Passed.][Synchronizing...]
In the laboratory, the alarms were screaming.
"Energy spike!" Iron-Jaw yelled. "The reactor is red-lining! He's drawing too much power!"
"The loop is unstable!" The Architect cackled, dancing around the monitors. "The Hydra Heart is beating at 300 BPM! It's going to burst!"
Inside the chamber, the sarcophagus was glowing with a blinding green and black light.
THUMP-THUMP. THUMP-THUMP.
The sound of the heartbeat echoed through the station like a war drum.
"Varian!" Elian cried, pressing against the glass.
Suddenly, the lead shielding of the sarcophagus cracked.
CRACK.
A fissure appeared. Darkness—pure, physical darkness—leaked out like smoke.
Then, the lid exploded.
It didn't fly off. It disintegrated into dust.
A figure floated up from the ruin.
Varian.
But he was no longer just a boy in a suit.
He was clad in the Abyssal Armor. It fitted him perfectly now, sleek and organic, looking like a second skin of obsidian muscle. The helmet was angular, terrifying, with a V-shaped visor that glowed with a faint, purple light.
In the center of his chest, embedded in the black armor, the Hydra Heart pulsed—a neon-green reactor core protected by a cage of black ribs.
A cape of living shadow drifted from his shoulders, trailing on the floor like liquid smoke.
He hovered a foot off the ground.
[Evolution Complete.][Host Rank: Soul Soldier (Peak).][Symbiote Bond: The Abyssal Knight (Active).][Attributes: Void Manipulation / Flight / Damage Absorption.]
Varian tilted his head. He looked at his hands.
He clenched his fist. The shadows in the room rushed toward him, condensing into a blade of pure darkness extending from his wrist.
He landed softly. The floor tiles didn't crack; they didn't even make a sound. He was weightless.
The Architect ran into the room, Geiger counter clicking madly.
"Stable!" The Architect cheered. "The loop is stable! The Heart feeds the Armor! The Armor protects the Host! It's a perpetual motion machine of violence!"
Varian deactivated the helmet. The black metal retracted like liquid, revealing his face.
He looked different. His eyes were no longer brown. They were violet, with a ring of gold—the mark of the Solar/Void fusion. He looked older, colder.
"How does it feel?" Gorgon asked, stepping into the room.
Varian took a deep breath.
"It feels," Varian whispered, his voice resonating with a metallic echo, "like I can tear the sky down."
He looked at his team.
"We are done hiding."
Before the celebration could begin, the main comms screen in the station flickered to life.
It wasn't a call from Mama Ferro. It was an emergency broadcast. A global frequency override.
Static cleared to reveal the face of a man.
He wore the pristine white and gold robes of the High Pontiff of the Church of Purity. He sat on a throne of light in the Upper Shells.
"Citizens of Ouroboros," the Pontiff's voice was smooth, fatherly, and terrifying.
"For three hundred years, we have kept the darkness at bay. We have purged the unclean. We have protected the Pure."
The image changed. It showed grainy footage of the Iron Coliseum exploding. It showed the Crimson Titan rampaging. It showed Varian wielding the Sun-Piercer.
"But the rot has festered deep. A false prophet has risen in the bowels of the earth. A 'Parasite Monarch' who seeks to unleash the ancient demons upon us."
Varian watched, his face impassive.
"Therefore," the Pontiff continued. "The Council of Purity has declared a Grand Crusade."
The screen split. It showed massive bay doors opening in the Upper Shells.
Thousands of Angels—the biomechanical horrors Varian had seen in the vision—were launching. Their wings of solar-steel caught the light.
"We will not just burn Sector 4," the Pontiff declared. "We will drill into the Core. We will hunt every mutant, every hybrid, and every sympathizer."
"Total Extermination Protocol is active."
The screen flickered again. A second face appeared.
Dr. Valerius. He looked battered, standing on the bridge of a Union Warship.
"The Bio-Alchemy Union does not recognize the Church's authority," Valerius spat. "But we agree on one thing. The Parasite Monarch must be secured. The Union declares war on the Deep Core. Any territory harboring the fugitive Varian will be glassed."
The broadcast ended.
Station Zero was silent.
The world above—the Church and the Union—had stopped fighting each other. They had united against a common enemy.
They had united against Varian.
Rix whimpered. "Everyone coming. Angels. Robots. Everyone."
Iron-Jaw looked at the screen, his mechanical eye dimming. "That's it. It's over. We can't fight the world."
Varian walked to the console. He smashed his armored fist into the screen, shattering the image of the Pontiff.
"It's not over," Varian said.
He turned to his Legion. The fear in the room was palpable. They were Dregs. Scavengers. They weren't ready for a World War.
Varian amplified his voice with the Void.
"They are coming," Varian announced. "Let them come."
He pointed to the ceiling.
"They think we are rats trapped in a hole. They think they can flush us out."
The shadows around him swirled, forming wings.
"But they forgot one thing."
Varian's eyes burned with violet fire.
"Rats carry the plague."
He looked at The Architect.
"How long to weaponize the boring-train?"
"Two days," The Architect replied instantly. "If we strip the safety protocols."
"Do it."
He looked at Gorgon.
"Get the Vanguard ready. We aren't waiting for them to drill down to us."
Varian summoned the Sun-Piercer to his hand. The spear ignited, casting long shadows across the station.
"We're going to break the ceiling. We're going to invade the Industrial Belt. And we're going to turn their own factories into our fortress."
"The War for Ouroboros has begun."