Caine advanced cautiously through the Kronos Corps facility, the blood smeared across the floors, walls, and windows growing progressively fresher with each step. Eventually, he arrived at a common room where the door hung ajar, twisted and mangled like a sardine can. From within, the nauseating sound of bones being crushed beneath powerful jaws reverberated ominously through the air.
Peering carefully through the jagged doorway, he caught sight of a black-armored soldier who had long since been overtaken by undeath. The creature was hunched over the remains of a victim who had failed to escape in time, the body so grotesquely disfigured that the infection hadn't even begun to take hold.
Caine instinctively stepped back, his thoughts racing to avoid an encounter with the formidable zombie. However, the sharp crack of glass breaking beneath his foot betrayed him, his breath catching as the hallway filled with the overwhelming, metallic scent of fresh blood. The undead soldier froze, its glowing red eyes locking onto the fractured doorway, fully alert to Caine's presence.
The zombie arched backward and let out an unearthly howl before launching itself at the doorway, using its body as a battering ram to smash through and hurl itself into the hallway.
BANG!
The zombie soldier's helmet collided with Caine's ribs with such force that the sound of his bones fracturing resembled muffled gunfire more than shattering bone. The impact sent Caine flying into the opposite wall, the zombie halting abruptly.
BOOM!
Caine crashed through the wall into an unused room, struggling to his feet as blood dripped from his arms onto the floor. He looked up at the massive zombie and let out a dry chuckle before reaching for a loose pipe blasted free from the wall. Standing his ground, he braced himself, ready for the monster to lunge again.
Caine's grip tightened on the bent steel pipe, his knuckles pale beneath layers of grime and blood. Each breath sent a throb of pain through his ribs, the dull ache sharpening with every sudden move. The soldier, if it could still be called that, emerged through the shattered wall with a guttural growl, the servos in its damaged armor emitting a high-pitched whine. Its black plating was dented and smeared with gore, the insignia torn nearly to shreds, yet the combat protocols seemed disturbingly intact.
The creature's head jerked unnaturally, like a marionette with broken strings. It raised a rifle, though the barrel was twisted and useless, and wielded it instead as a makeshift club.
Caine narrowly avoided the first swing, the weapon grazing his shoulder and tearing his shirt, leaving a stinging scrape. Without hesitation, he countered, driving the steel pipe into the creature's helmeted face. The impact reverberated like a gong, sending a jolt up his arms. The soldier barely reacted.
"You've got to be kidding me," Caine muttered under his breath.
The infected trooper caught the pipe mid-swing, ripping it from Caine's hands with inhuman strength. It struck him across the jaw with its other hand, sending him sprawling onto the debris-strewn floor as his vision exploded into blinding flashes.
For a brief moment, time seemed to slow. The soldier towered above him, its head jerking side to side in a disturbing, animalistic rhythm. Blood and saliva oozed through the shattered filters of its helmet, hissing softly as they dripped onto the ground.
Then it attacked.
Caine rolled away just in time, the zombie's armored fist slamming into the concrete floor where his head had been. The impact left a deep crack in the surface. Scrambling for a weapon, he snatched up a shard of broken glass from the wreckage and stabbed at the creature's neck. The glass splintered immediately, leaving only a faint scratch on the thick armor beneath.
The soldier bellowed in rage, grabbing Caine by the throat and lifting him effortlessly into the air. He struggled frantically, kicking and clawing as his lungs burned for oxygen.
The soldier's grip tightened around Caine's throat, steel fingers pressing mercilessly into his windpipe. His feet dangled inches above the ground as his vision narrowed, bursts of red and white exploding behind his eyes. The wet grind of servos echoed in the creature's armor, and the nauseating stench of blood, oil, and rot seeped from the seams of its helmet. His lungs burned for air, his heartbeat thundered like drumfire in his ears.
Caine's hands clawed at the soldier's gauntlet, desperate for a hold, for a chance. His pulse faltered, he could feel the icy, familiar tug of death creeping closer. But no. Not this time. Not like this.
His gaze dropped to the bent pipe lying nearby, smeared with filth and blood, the same pipe the creature had wrenched from him moments before. With every ounce of strength left in him, Caine swung his leg forward, driving his boot into the pipe and sending it skidding upward. It rebounded off the wall, clattering loudly as it landed within reach.
The soldier's helmet jerked toward the noise, distracted for an instant, just long enough. Caine's hand darted out, seizing the jagged edge of the pipe. The sharp metal bit into his palm, but he ignored the pain. Driven by raw instinct, he plunged his thumb beneath the soldier's visor and yanked upward with a fierce, guttural roar.
The visor snapped open with a metallic screech, revealing the monstrosity beneath, a grotesque blend of decayed flesh clinging to bone and exposed circuitry. One eye was a milky, lifeless orb, while the other glowed crimson, pulsing erratically like a warning signal. Its breaths came in ragged, wheezing gasps, reeking of decay and machine oil.
Caine reacted instantly, gripping the steel pipe with both hands and driving it forward with all his strength.
SQUELCH.
The pipe plunged into the glowing eye socket with a nauseating crunch, its tip bursting out the back of the soldier's helmet in a spray of black ichor and thick, viscous fluid. The creature convulsed violently, its limbs flailing in unnatural spasms as sparks erupted from its damaged armor. Its grip faltered, and Caine collapsed to the floor, his lungs burning as he coughed and gasped for air.
The soldier staggered backward, clawing desperately at the pipe embedded in its skull. The red glow in its remaining eye flickered weakly, like a dying flame. For a moment, it seemed as though it might press forward, but then it crumpled, crashing to the ground in a heap of twitching metal and decomposing flesh.
Caine lay motionless for what felt like an eternity, his chest rising and falling in labored, painful breaths. His hands shook uncontrollably, still clutching the bloodied pipe. He stared at the creature's body as it spasmed one final time before falling completely still.
Caine staggered back, his chest heaving as though the air itself were laced with razors and smoke. The lifeless body at his feet jerked once, twice, before falling still, the eerie crimson glow in its eye fading into darkness. A jagged piece of metal protruded from its skull, coated in thickening blood and fragments of some metallic substance.
For a moment, he simply stood there, his breath ragged, enveloped by the oppressive silence of the devastated laboratory. Then, cutting through the stillness, came the voice, precise, mechanical, and chillingly emotionless.
[Assimilation Sequence Available] Would you like to proceed? Y/N
Caine blinked, his vision blurring momentarily as the faint outline of a HUD flickered into view, strings of indecipherable code illuminating the edges of his perception. He didn't understand what was happening or why the voice resonated with both strangeness and familiarity, but an instinct buried deep within him urged compliance.
"...Do it," he rasped, his voice barely audible.
[Assimilation: Initiated]
The atmosphere seemed to thicken, pressing against him. A strange sensation prickled over his skin as a silvery sheen began to emerge on his forearms. At first, it resembled sweat, tiny metallic droplets rising from his pores, glinting under the sporadic flicker of fluorescent lights. The sensation wasn't warm or cold; it was animate.
Streams of nanites flowed from him like liquid metal, undulating with intent. The shimmering substance crept toward the fallen soldier, moving as if drawn by an unseen force. The silver tendrils spread across the body's armor, slipping into cracks, seams, and bullet-riddled gaps. As the nanites worked, the corpse's flesh hissed and sizzled, consumed by the relentless swarm.
Caine watched in silent terror as the nanites consumed the body from within, stripping away flesh and leaving behind only a hollow shell of scorched armor and skeletal fragments. When the process concluded, the remains lay still, reduced to a charred husk with a shattered visor, lifeless and void.
[Assimilation Complete] Biomass Conversion: 87% Efficiency. System Synchronization Updating...
Caine staggered, clutching the nearest wall for support. He felt it, the surge, like liquid fire coursing through his veins, an electric charge igniting every nerve. His muscles tightened, expanded, and transformed. The tremors in his limbs ceased. His heartbeat slowed, steady and rhythmic, a powerful piston driving his body to new heights.
Before his eyes, a translucent interface materialized, streams of data scrolling upward:
[STATUS UPDATED]
Name: Caine Williams Level: 1 Race: Human (Nanite-Modified) Condition: Stable Energy Core: Dormant
Attributes: Strength (STR): 18 ▲ (+5) Dexterity (DEX): 16 ▲ (+3) Constitution (CON): 16 ▲ (+4) Intelligence (INT): 12 ▲ (+1) Wisdom (WIS): 13 ▲ (+1) Charisma (CHA): 12 ▲ (+1)
The interface pulsed once, like a heartbeat, before fading from sight.
Caine gazed at his trembling hands, the veins beneath his skin faintly illuminated with a silvery glow, as though liquid light coursed just beneath the surface. His breathing steadied, his senses sharpened. He could detect the faint hum of dormant machinery several rooms away, the metallic tang of iron in the air, and the sharp scent of ozone from the nanite reaction.
"What the hell…" he murmured, flexing his fingers. The surge of strength within him felt alien, both terrifying and intoxicating.
Then, deep within his mind, the voice returned.
[Assimilation threshold achieved. New subroutine activated.]
Caine's lips parted in muted disbelief. Whatever had been done to him in this lab, it had become more than survival. The nanites had altered him, rebuilt him.
His gaze shifted to the hollowed armor lying on the floor.
"This is what you've made me," he whispered, his voice steady now. "Let's see how far it can go."
The silence in the room felt heavy—like the air itself was holding its breath.Caine stared down at the corpse one last time, its armor blackened and hollow, the skull inside little more than ash and wires. He could still feel the heat of the nanites pulsing through his veins, the metallic hum in his chest syncing perfectly with his heartbeat. Every inhale carried the sharp tang of ozone. Every exhale shimmered faintly in the flickering light.
He was alive—but changed.
The world around him seemed sharper now. The faint hum of the building's backup generators throbbed somewhere beneath the floors, rhythmic and distant. He could hear the subtle whir of broken lights above, the faint, wet drag of movement down the hall—something crawling. Something still living.
He lifted the bent steel pipe, its surface slick with dried blood, and rolled his shoulder experimentally. No pain. No weakness. His ribs, shattered moments ago, had already knitted themselves back together under the nanites' influence. He flexed his hands. The skin there glimmered faintly with liquid silver before fading back to normal flesh.
[Nanite Activity: Optimal. Efficiency—94%.]
The voice resonated within his mind again, sterile and detached, but Caine could feel it listening. Watching. Adapting.
He took a single step forward, the sound echoing down the desolate corridor. The metallic tang of blood grew stronger the deeper he went. He passed through rooms that had been turned into slaughterhouses—flickering monitors, shattered glass, and walls sprayed with arterial artwork.
Bodies lay sprawled across the floor. Some still wore lab coats, others the black combat armor of Kronos security. Some twitched faintly as he passed, spasming in the early stages of infection.
Caine didn't hesitate.
Each time one stirred, he struck. A pipe through the skull, a boot across the throat, a precise twist of the wrist that snapped a neck before a scream could form. He didn't feel disgust anymore. The hesitation was gone. The fear, gone. There was only the movement—the purpose.
And with every kill, the voice responded.
[Assimilation Sequence Available. Proceed?]"Yes."
The nanites obeyed instantly, slithering from his pores like liquid mercury. They swarmed over the fallen bodies, consuming flesh, circuitry, and infection alike. The air filled with the hiss of corrosion, the faint scent of burning rot.
Each time, the familiar surge followed—energy pouring into him, numbers and symbols flashing behind his eyes. He didn't know what they all meant, but he felt the difference. His steps grew lighter, his grip stronger, his reflexes sharper.
He had become a predator among corpses.
Caine moved through the facility like a ghost of vengeance.Down every hallway, across shattered laboratories, through half-lit maintenance shafts—his senses expanded with every minute.
In one corridor, three zombified soldiers stumbled out of a side room, their armor pitted with acid burns. Caine barely slowed. He ducked beneath the first's swing, caught its arm, and drove his knee upward, splintering bone and armor alike. The second soldier lunged from behind—he pivoted, letting the movement carry him, slamming the first soldier's corpse into the second with bone-crunching force. The third tried to fire a sidearm, but the weapon clicked uselessly; the barrel was clogged with blood.
Caine was already on it.He drove his fingers into its neck, ripping through flesh and fiber optics alike, and tore free a length of spinal cord glowing faintly blue. The soldier collapsed instantly.
[Assimilation Complete. Biomass Conversion—91%. Strength +1 | Dexterity +1 | Constitution +1.]
His breath fogged faintly in the cold air. His eyes glimmered in the reflection of a shattered viewport—red-tinted, feral, unrecognizable.
He came across a lab that had been sealed by heavy blast doors. The reinforced barrier was dented inward, the metal warped as if something had tried to claw its way out. He placed his palm against it, and his nanites responded without a command. Silver tendrils seeped through the cracks, liquefying the locking mechanism from the inside.
The door hissed, then fell away in molten pieces.
Inside, three scientists were cornered behind an overturned workstation, whispering frantically to one another. Their eyes went wide when they saw him.
"Wait—please! You're alive! You're not one of them!" one of them cried out, clutching at a data tablet like a shield.Caine didn't answer. He stepped closer. The nanites under his skin pulsed faintly with light.
"You can't just—" the man started, but the words died as the sound of movement came from behind Caine.
A technician—infected, half his face missing—lurched from a side vent, letting out a wet hiss. It hurled itself at the survivors.
Caine didn't think. He moved.
In a blur, he crossed the room, seized the creature mid-leap, and smashed its head against the reinforced glass with a thunderous crack. The impact shattered the skull entirely, splattering black fluid across the wall. The scientists screamed.
Caine turned to them, his chest rising and falling slowly. His voice, when it came, was cold and low."Run."
They didn't wait for him to say it again.
As they fled, Caine turned back to the corpse. His hand hovered over it, the nanites already writhing beneath his skin, hungry.
[Assimilation Sequence Available.]"Proceed."
The silver swarm erupted, devouring the flesh until only a clean skeleton remained.
[Assimilation Complete. Neural Pattern Fragment Acquired: "Reflex Loop Optimization."][Passive Ability Learned: Reactive Motion.]
A faint hum spread through his limbs. He felt faster. Lighter. The world around him seemed to move slower.
He moved on.
By the time Caine reached the upper levels, the corridors had transformed into killing fields. Dozens of corpses lay scattered behind him—soldiers, technicians, and abominations of both flesh and steel. The nanites pulsed faintly around his boots, crawling through cracks in the tile, feeding on whatever organic matter remained.
The voice in his mind was less mechanical now, its tone evolving with every Assimilation—each syllable carrying a faint echo of something human.
[Energy Reserves at 78%. Efficiency stabilizing. Subject adaptation: accelerating.]
Caine could feel it—his connection to the System wasn't one-way anymore. The nanites were learning from him just as he learned from them.
He passed through a shattered bulkhead into a corridor lined with emergency lights. The crimson glow painted everything in shades of blood and shadow. Ahead, the large double doors of the facility's main lobby loomed.
He remembered that room—the polished floors, the cold reception desk, the Kronos insignia stretching across the far wall. It was where it had all begun. Where he had been dragged in—chained, bleeding, dying—before they had turned him into… this.
Now, the once-pristine lobby was a warzone.
The walls were cratered with bullet holes. The ceiling had collapsed in one corner, spilling glass and rebar across the floor. Dozens of infected soldiers lingered there, some crawling on all fours, others pacing like feral dogs. Their eyes flickered red in the gloom, one by one turning toward him as he stepped into the light.
Caine tightened his grip on the pipe.
Caine stepped cautiously into the corridor, the flickering lights overhead casting long, jittery shadows across the blood-smeared walls. The once-immaculate Kronos Corps facility now resembled a grotesque charnel house. Evidence of chaos and violence was everywhere, bullet-ridden walls, bloody streaks dragged across the floor as though victims had been hauled away against their will.
The discordant hum of malfunctioning fluorescents mixed with the groans of warped steel, creating an eerie, oppressive soundtrack to the carnage.
He advanced with precision, every step deliberate. His eyes scanned each doorway, his body tense and ready. Every sound sharpened in his mind: faint rustlings behind distant walls, labored breathing, and the metallic scrape of boots on tile.
They were closing in.
The attack came from behind, a former technician, its face grotesquely melted by infection. In an instant, Caine spun around, seizing it by the throat mid-lunge and slamming its head against the wall. Bone shattered, flesh gave way, and the body collapsed at his feet.
"Too slow," he muttered coldly, dropping the broken corpse.
[Assimilation Available]
"Do it."
The nanites surged forth, black and fluid like living smoke, enveloping the body and consuming it within seconds. A soft digital chime followed:
[Assimilation Complete]
+1 Strength, +1 Agility, +1 Constitution
He felt it, every assimilation did more than enhance his physical power. The nanites meticulously refined him, optimizing his physiology to perfection. His reflexes grew sharper, his balance flawless.
He moved forward.
Room by room, the massacre continued.
A zombified scientist lunged from a shattered observation window; Caine swung the pipe in a precise arc, shattering both skull and glass in a single motion. In a corridor near the cryogenics wing, two infected soldiers cornered him, he tore a side panel from the wall, using it as a makeshift shield to crush them against the bulkhead. A sharp knee strike followed by a downward swing left their helmets splintered.
Every kill fueled him, increasing his energy, enhancing his growth, sharpening his focus.
[Assimilation Complete]
+2 Strength, +2 Agility, +2 Constitution]
Blood trickled down his arm, but the nanites sealed the wound instantly. Pain receded into a distant hum. His perception began to shift, sounds slowed, movements smoothed. He could anticipate the flicker of muscle contractions before his enemies struck.
By the time he reached the main atrium, the devastation behind him bore an eerie precision, calculated, methodical. He had become a predator.
The wide double doors of the Kronos Corps lobby loomed ahead, battered and scarred. Beyond them, faint sunlight filtered through the grimy reinforced windows, scattering across the room. The once-pristine white floor tiles were smeared with stains of brown and black; broken chairs, shattered equipment, and shards of glass lay strewn across the area. The massive Kronos emblem on the far wall was split down the center, a symbolic representation of the facility's fall, its pride gutted alongside its people.
Caine moved cautiously, surveying the vast, desolate space. His pipe, now coated with a mix of blood and nanite residue, hung limply in his grip. In the corner of his vision, his HUD flickered faintly, displaying dim readouts from his internal nanite system that scrolled across his mind like a shadowed overlay.
[Current Status]
Assimilations: 9
System Level: 1
Energy Reserves: 64%
Nanite Sync Rate: 89%
His body felt unnervingly perfect, balanced, lethal, whole in a way that sent a shiver of unease through him. Every action seemed effortless, driven by a strange fusion of instinct and the quiet guidance of the machine inside him.
Then he spotted it, a streak. Long, wide, unmistakably fresh. It stretched from the far corner of the lobby toward the shattered security doors, where the entrance had once stood. Something massive had been dragged… or had dragged itself.
Crouching by the mark, Caine pressed his fingers to the dark smear. It was warm. Still wet.
His jaw tensed. "So… something's still alive down here."
The low growl that followed resonated through the cavernous space. Deep, guttural, metallic. It reverberated from the open chambers beyond the ruined lobby.
Caine rose deliberately, gripping the bloodied pipe tighter. His reflection in a broken window caught his eye, a figure lean and grim, smeared with filth and blood. His faintly glowing amber eyes glinted in the dim light, while black, vein-like lines traced jagged paths across his skin, marking where the nanites had amassed like molten metal coursing beneath the surface.
He no longer looked entirely human. Not anymore.
And perhaps that was for the best. Humanity had done him no favors.
[Objective Updated]
Exit Facility. Investigate Source of Movement.
Caine tightened his grip on the weapon and advanced, boots squelching in the blood-soaked floor. Behind him, the faint chime of system data resonated again as the nanites completed their work, stabilizing his enhancements.
[Updated Stats]
Strength (STR): 21
Dexterity (DEX): 18
Constitution (CON): 19
Intelligence (INT): 12
Wisdom (WIS): 13
Charisma (CHA): 12
He cracked his neck, rolling his shoulders as the heavy door ahead groaned under its immense weight. The acrid stench of burnt ozone mixed with the sickly odor of decayed flesh, intensifying with each step he took.
Whatever was waiting beyond wasn't one of the slow ones.
And this time, Caine wasn't the prey.