Doctor Scoff's eyes narrowed behind his silver-framed lenses as he gazed across the battlefield. The Republic's ragged forces crept into view, barely distinguishable through the smoke and ruin.
He frowned, his lips curling.
"They're like ants… swarming filth," he muttered. "Wipe them out. I'm done watching this."
Without another word, he turned his back on the field.
The nearest officer gave a signal.
Moments later, the Empire's artillery roared to life. Pulsar cannons fired from the hilltops, splitting the horizon with beams of white-hot energy. Screams echoed in the distance as the Republic soldiers, despite their numbers, were torn apart like paper.
Scoff didn't look back. "Get the children aboard," he ordered coldly. "Each to their place. And clean them first—I don't want blood on my floors."
The soldiers obeyed instantly. They moved with clinical efficiency, loading the newborns—wrapped in blankets, stained with dirt and blood—onto the hovering airship. Each infant was sealed inside a narrow, glass-walled pod. Monitors blinked to life, scanning vitals, detecting abnormalities, cataloguing them like livestock.
The airship, marked with the crest of the Imperial Science Division, lifted into the sky.
Then it vanished into the clouds.
It moved with terrifying speed—960 kilometers per hour, a ghost across the landscape. Beneath them, the ruins of Morvain village disappeared, as did the screams, the fire, the war.
Within hours, they approached the southern edge of the Great Border.
It loomed like a wound in the world.
A titanic rift of energy stretched across the land, where the sky flickered unnaturally and the earth bent in strange angles. It was the line between two realms—one ruled by circuits and steel, the other by spellcraft and fangs. No one passed through the border freely. Not anymore.
Nestled near the edge of this shimmering scar was a fortress of steel and glass.
The Imperial Genetic Warfare Laboratory.
Massive in scale, it resembled a monstrous hive. Towers spiked into the sky, humming with blue light. Gears churned. Drones hovered like wasps. Inside, thousands of researchers moved through metal corridors, running simulations, dissecting failures, harvesting results.
Here, the Empire was creating a new kind of soldier.
One not born—but engineered.
Though the genetic enhancement program was still in its testing phase, it had already produced results. Soldiers emerged from it stronger—four times stronger than a baseline human. Faster reflexes. Enhanced stamina. Heightened perception.
The price had been high. The first trials were riddled with death, mutation, and psychological collapse. But progress didn't mourn casualties.
It archived them.
As the children were wheeled into the facility, white-coated scientists began tagging and classifying them. One by one, each was assigned a unique designation.
The white-haired boy, cold and silent as ever, didn't cry. He didn't even blink.
A scientist paused when his data flashed onto the screen.
"Unusual readings," she muttered. "Cerebral activity… elevated. Oxygen absorption—off the charts. He's barely a day old…"
She hesitated, then typed in the designation:
AB-774.
"Place him in Chamber 12," she said. "High-priority subject."
As the boy was sealed inside a cradle-like pod filled with soft synthetic gel and monitoring wires, the label blinked red over his head:
SUBJECT AB-774 – STATUS: MONITORING
GENETIC COMPATIBILITY: UNKNOWN
ANOMALY LEVEL: HIGH
RECOMMENDATION: OBSERVE CLOSELY
Behind the reinforced glass, Scoff watched, hands clasped behind his back.
"That one's different," he said quietly.
Then he smiled.