The sky wasn't supposed to look like that.
It shimmered with fractured light, streaks of violet and emerald bleeding across the clouds like torn fabric soaked in radioactive ink. Above, floating landmasses drifted lazily through the air, suspended by forces that defied logic and gravity. The wind carried a strange scent—part ozone, part rot, part something else entirely.
I lay flat on my back, breathing slowly. Every inhale sent a wave of pain through my ribs. My skin stung. My left leg felt wrong, as if the bones inside had been reassembled by someone who had only skimmed a manual on human anatomy.
But I was alive.
Alive, in a world that looked nothing like the one I'd known.
Ash and cracked earth surrounded me, black and dry like the crust of a scorched planet. In the distance, sharp mountains jutted from the earth like broken teeth, and somewhere beyond them, flashes of light hinted at battles or storms—or both.
I pushed myself up on my elbows, groaning as my muscles screamed in protest. My vision blurred for a moment, then adjusted. My neural systems were still syncing.
A faint chime echoed in my skull.
[Biological Status: Stabilized]
[Neural Memory Core: 43% Recovered]
Only 43% have been recovered.
There was still too much fragmented. Still too much missing.
I clenched my jaw. I needed more than memory. I needed tools, Shelter, Food and a plan.
But first, I had to understand where—and when—I was.
The slope ahead of me looked manageable. I dragged myself to my feet and limped toward it. Every step was a gamble. The earth felt unstable, like it might collapse under me at any moment. But I had to keep moving.
The top of the ridge gave me the first real view of this new world.
What I saw confirmed my worst suspicions.
Ruins stretched for miles. Craters pockmarked the land, some still glowing faintly. The skeletal remains of towers jutted from the ground like spears driven into the flesh of a dying beast. Metal carcasses—once vehicles, maybe aircraft—lay in mangled heaps. Strange trees grew in patches, their branches twisting upward like hands reaching for something they could never grasp.
And then there were the bones.
Not all were human.
I spotted elongated skulls, extra limbs, chitinous plates. Creatures that didn't belong to the Old World. Creatures that had no place in any world.
The Evolution Event had gone further than I thought.
I crouched behind a broken slab of concrete, scanning the horizon. No signs of movement. No drones. No satellites. No familiar structures. Either the world had fallen completely… or I'd been out far longer than intended.
I accessed the embedded HUD in my right eye and pinged for satellites.
Nothing responded.
Dead air.
I checked the date.
[Timestamp Corrupted. Estimating...]
[> 137 Years Since Initial Cataclysm]
One hundred thirty-seven years?
That wasn't possible.
The stasis chamber was supposed to hold me for a decade, two at most. Even accounting for backup power reserves and security protocols, there was no way—
Unless the system had failed. Unless something—or someone—had altered the timer.
I didn't have time for questions. Not now. I needed answers I could touch, not ones buried in broken code.
I scanned the terrain and spotted something in the distance: a faint glint of metal, partially buried in a ravine.
Shelter? Wreckage?
Either way, better than freezing to death on an open ridge.
I started walking.
*****
The closer I got, the more obvious it became—this was an old transport unit. Civilian grade, judging by the rusted chassis and lack of weapon ports. Its hull was split open like a crushed tin can, but parts of it remained intact.
I slipped through the gap and into the darkness.
The air inside was stale. Dust hung in the shafts of light piercing through the hull. Rows of collapsed seats lined the sides. Burn marks decorated the floor. Something had gone wrong here.
Very wrong.
A few rows down, I found what I needed: a ration pack, half-buried under a collapsed panel. It was expired—at least by a century—but the preservation gel looked intact. I tore it open and took a cautious bite. It tasted like plastic and dirt, but I didn't care.
Calories were calories.
I kept searching. A utility knife with a cracked grip. A water purifier—low-grade, civilian model, but still functional. A pair of reinforced gloves. Basic scavenger gear.
And one more thing.
A small manual, half-burned but still legible. The title on the cover made my blood run cold.
"Adaptive Evolution Protocol – Civilian Tier."
I sat down on a broken seat and flipped it open.
*****
PAGE ONE: NOTICE TO UNREGISTERED EVOLVERS
"Warning: All unregistered evolvers are subject to immediate detainment. Unauthorized usage of evolution-class implants is classified as a Level 3 offense and punishable by termination under the Clean Growth Directive."
So it was still in place.
Even after the collapse, the factions still tried to control evolution. Still tried to gatekeep power. Still feared what they couldn't control.
Fools.
I wasn't a civilian. I wasn't bound by their restrictions. I was Dr. Kael Riven. Architect of the Neural Evolution Seed. Pioneer of the Hybrid Protocol.
And now, apparently, the last living prototype.
I pulled back the sleeve of my jacket. Beneath the skin of my forearm, a small port gleamed faintly. A failsafe. Designed by me. Installed by me.
The injector was still there.
Still intact.
I exhaled slowly.
There was no turning back now.
I pressed the release.
*****
[PERSONAL EVOLUTION SEED – ACTIVATED]
The injector hissed, and a surge of heat shot through my veins. My body seized. Every muscle locked, then convulsed. My heart stuttered. My brain screamed as dormant neural pathways lit up like fireworks in a storm.
I collapsed, twitching violently.
Everything around me blurred and burned and bent. The air felt like liquid. The sound of my own heartbeat drowned out thought.
And then—Silence. Darkness. Stillness.
*****
When I opened my eyes, the world was different.
Sharper. Clearer.
I could hear the wind outside, each grain of ash tumbling against the metal hull. I could smell the faint copper trace of dried blood several meters away. I could feel the subtle vibrations of the broken structure around me, like I had become part of it.
My vision flickered, then stabilized.
[EVOLUTION COMPLETE]
[CLASS: HYBRID – TECHNO-ORGANIC]
[PRIMARY TRAIT: SELF-REPAIRING NEURAL CORE – ONLINE]
[SECONDARY TRAIT: ADAPTIVE ANALYSIS – LEVEL 1 UNLOCKED]
I sat up slowly.
My arms no longer trembled. My leg—once half-dead—flexed with new strength. The burns on my skin had closed over with fine, metallic threads woven beneath the flesh.
Not armor.
Integration.
My body had become something else.
Something more.
I reached down and picked up the utility knife. The moment my fingers touched it, a HUD appeared, overlaying information directly into my sight.
[Object Identified: Civilian Survival Blade]
[Alloy Composition: 76% Ferrite, 12% Tungsten, 9% Carbon]
[Structural Weakness: Grip Stabilizer Fracture Detected]
I smiled.
This was only Level 1?
Then the world had no idea what was coming.
I stood, steadier than before, and looked out through the hole in the transport hull.
The sky was still broken.
But now, so was the old me.
And what had taken his place…?
Well.
That was something this world had never seen before.
*****
The ground felt different beneath my feet.
More alive.
As I stepped outside the broken transport, I could sense vibrations in the earth, subtle and distant—like tremors echoing from deep below. Something moved far off, something massive, burrowing perhaps. The world pulsed with silent tension, a low thrum of conflict buried in the bones of the land.
I adjusted the grip on my knife. It felt like an extension of my hand now. Light. Balanced. My neural core synced instantly, mapping its range and reaction time without conscious effort.
I'd become something… dangerous.
But I wasn't alone.
The new world was watching.
A few kilometers north, I spotted movement. Something darting between rocks—quadrupedal, fast. Predatory. I couldn't afford to tangle with unknown threats yet. I turned east instead, heading for higher ground.
The air thickened as I walked. Energy clung to the atmosphere like fog—raw, unstable, and impossible to ignore. This wasn't natural radiation. It was Evolution Residue. The byproduct of thousands of forced adaptations bleeding into the environment.
The very earth was mutating.
My internal systems buzzed with input:
[Unstable Zone Detected]
[Environmental Hazard Tier: 2]
[Adaptive Resistance Engaged – Neural Core Syncing with Local Signal]
I knelt near a shattered pillar of stone veined with glowing violet crystal. My fingers brushed it—warm, pulsing. Alive.
It wasn't stone.
It was a calcified Evolution Node.
Kael's memories surged forward in a rush—experiments, theories, failures. The concept was once hypothetical: natural accumulations of raw adaptation energy, fused into the land by countless triggered evolutions.
Now, here it was. Real.
I took a risk.
Pressing my palm against the surface, I let the Adaptive Analysis trait engage.
The pain was immediate.
Flashes of information screamed through my nervous system—stats, pressure values, elemental signatures, genetic timestamps. I clenched my teeth and forced myself to hold on.
The system translated:
[Evolution Node Sampled: Signal Genotype – "Skelith-Class"]
[Compatible Traits Detected: Dermal Reinforcement / Kinetic Reflection / Bone Weave (Dormant)]
I grinned.
I was standing on a treasure trove.
But the risk was massive. Absorbing traits from a raw node without refinement could overload my system.
Still... I was built differently.
I triggered a controlled intake.
The Evolution Node cracked like ice. Light surged into my palm, up my arm, into my spine.
I screamed.
Then I blacked out.