"Before meeting the Myrrbound, he was a dead fish in a shell—cold inside, merciless to his enemies. An unforgiving monster. Selfish."
—Principles of Myrrbound, Grand Priest Brahlima, 22,410 A.E. (After Exodus)
Rantharaz, 10,341 A.E. (After Exodus)
Abandoned.
That was Vyzen's first thought as he stepped onto the planet.
A forgotten rock choking on its own decay—perfect for a rat like Hellion Dorredus to crawl into and die.
Molten skyscrapers jutted like broken teeth against the starless void. It rained as always on Rantharaz, Acidic. Mixing with noxious fumes that reeked of things long dead. No one knew what caused the gases. No one cared. The streets below were filled with filth, bubbling with waste. With every step, Vyzen's boots punched into the muck, filth splattering up his calves.
He would've loved to use a flo-byke if it wouldn't have given his location away the minute he sat on it.
Four days. That's how long he'd chased Hellion.
He wasn't losing him now—not when he was this close.
The mansion was easy to find. A crumbling husk of its former glory, ringed with security drones. Golden light from Fluroscent lamps lit up the entire mansion, truly a luxury, in these parts of galaxy.
Vyzen crouched behind the boundary wall.
He focused, preparing himself to endure.
He sighed, feeling the rain over his bare skin, he rarely gets the chance to be without his helm. The processes inside his body initiated.
Inside him, everything broke.
Bones shifted violently, like steel rods bending under pressure. Muscles tore, reknit, tore again. Flesh rippled, convulsed, blistered with heat. Vyzen didn't scream—he just clenched his jaw and tasted iron.
The pain was a monster chewing through him from the inside out. He'd done this a thousand times. It never got easier.
Then his blood awakened. It rushed a new life in his veins.
A silent roar echoed through his nervous system. Synapses lit up, Neurotransmitters linked themselves to his spinal cord. His body restructured into something alien, merciless. Vertebrae reformed itself, straightening. His skin hardened, gleaming like obsidian dipped in fresh blood. Crimson light shimmered across his body, catching the blue glow of Ranthoraz's enormous moon.
A fleshy mass slithered up his neck and sealed over his face, forming a helm.
A V-shaped visor of dark shadow-glass snapped into place. Two slits opened near the cheeks—breathing ports, disguised like gills. An icy breath escaped from the slits forming mist. His visor flickered cyan.
Augmentation Complete
Vitals: working condition
Combat Mode: affirmative
Vyzen rose. The pain was over, and he didn't have time to lap up the leisure.
He dropped his cloak. The belt around his waist clinked—ammo, blades, syringes, and bombs. Essentials. One of the patrol drones buzzed in. Vyzen didn't hesitate. His Xeloyatra flared, and a single plasma bolt ripped through it. The drone melted, crashing in a pile of slag and sparks.
Vyzen knelt, his muscles flexed.
Then he charged.
The front gate exploded when his body slammed into it, metal flying like shrapnel. As he neared the doors, his right arm unraveled—flesh peeling into threads, weaving back into a jagged blade. He hacked through the doors in one brutal swing and entered.
The mansion groaned like a corpse too stubborn to collapse. Decay was everywhere.
His visor scanned the surroundings.
14 Bionens—7 on the ground, 7 above.
6 unarmed VIPs in the rear.
Target: Dorredus. Locked.
Vyzen didn't breathe. He hunted.
The first Bionen lunged. Vyzen ducked and rammed his blade through its torso. The creature didn't even have time to scream. He twisted, and the upper body split open like a rotten fruit, blue blood splashing across the wall.
Another came at him. Vyzen grabbed its head—crushed it. Skull fragments and cerebral matter burst between his fingers. He kicked the corpse aside like trash.
Ground rifles hissed from all directions. Vyzen danced through them.
The third melted mid-strike.
The fourth lost both arms, then a leg, before Vyzen spun his head around, twisting it out of his torso as blood gushed.
Vyzen grabbed a rifle and drove it through another's metal cranium.
A sixth Bionen shot him in the back. Vyzen paused.
Then turned.
The last thing that Bionen saw was his own spine being pulled out—before Vyzen jammed it through another's eye.
The upper guards started panicking.
"Running?" Vyzen said, his voice a low rasp inside the helm. "And here I thought Bionens don't fear death."
He knelt. Muscles bunched like steel cables. Then—boom. A single lunge shot him thirteen feet in the air. He landed among them like death incarnate.
He butchered everything that came his way.
One got his chest ripped open with bare hands.
Another's head was slammed into the wall until it caved in.
The two tried to crawl away. Vyzen grabbed both and crushed their skulls together like fruit in a press.
When it was done, the upper floor was painted in gore. An incomprehensible mixture of metal and flesh. His obsidian-red armor now shimmered with arterial blue.
No hesitation. He moved for the VIPs. One thought came to him: if this Hellion Dorredus betrayed the Arbiterium government and was part of the resistance, then how did he get access to the Bionens, which were made by the same Arbiterium? He shoved the thought into the back of his mind and continued the pursuit.
On the terrace.
They were scrambling into a ship when he arrived—dragging the decapitated head of a Bionen with him, holding it between his crimson fingers like a trophy. His breath vented through the helm in a slow, icy hiss. His metallic voice echoed through the helmet.
"Dorredus... hand him over."
They froze.
One turned to run.
"Don't," Vyzen said, tapping on his Xeloyatra.
"H-H-How? The Bionens?" a slimy black, short creature, a Ranthar stammered. His small eyes opened wide.
"Mass-produced arbiterium garbage, nothing more," Vyzen scoffed, tossing the head and then crushing it with his foot.
"Time's precious. Hand him over, live."
They hesitated.
For a bit too long.
His fist exploded through a Ranthar's chest, yanking out a string of slimy, twitching organs. The creature shrieked, gurgled, and was silenced with a blade to the throat. Crude blood oozed out of its aorta.
"Decide," Vyzen growled. "Or I will be the one deciding."
"Let them go," came a voice, shivering but bold.
"You want to kill me? Here I am." He said, gulping.
A gold face, slim physique. An Aurelion. But this one was a little different, Vyzen thought. He knew fear, but still decided to be brave.
"Gladly. But I prefer alive." Vyzen declared. If he had been as cocky as Vyzen thought, he would have been a corpse.
With an exhale,
Vyzen took out his spare Xeloyatra and started obliterating the remaining Ranthars.
"NO, wait, wait," he shouted at the top of his lungs.
He saw how their slimy skins fell off, their black blood boiled over. They melted before they could register any pain. They used to be his friends, the ones who hid him, but now? – a pile of bodies.
" You said you won't kill them," Hellion muttered in a trembling voice, "you monster."
"Disgusting creatures," Vyzen commented, finishing off the last one with his own hands, giving no notice of what Hellion said.
Hellion's stomach turned at what he witnessed. He was petrified. He mustered up whatever strength he had in his legs and stood to run.
Vyzen's visor tilted, savouring the pathetic look of his prey.
He sighed
And he kicked Dorredus's leg—hard.
The bone cracked, and blood gushed out. The scream that followed was like a dying animal.
Vyzen stared at the golden ichor spilling from the break.
" Blood's gold, too?" He wiped some onto his palm and inspected it. "Try running again, I dare you."
Without wasting time, he threw Dorredus over his shoulder like meat and leapt—landing from the terrace with a seismic crash.
Back on his ship, he tossed the Aurelion into a seat hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Binding wires wrapped tightly, digging into his golden skin. Hellion in pain didn't notice much of the ship, but only that it had an abnormally big wingspan and it was a surfer-type spacecraft. And it was completely pitch black, so dark that it blended in with the starless night sky of Rantharaz.
"Move, and your blood will taint the ship."
Hellion didn't answer. Just whimpered, pain etched into every line of his face.
Vyzen walked away. Then returned with a metallic injector.
PLATELET GENESIS, it read.
He stabbed it into Dorredus's thigh with brutal force. Another gutteral scream followed
"You don't get to die yet," Vyzen said.
He leaned back, watching the golden blood ooze.
"Not until I decide."