The sky darkened, not with cloud, but with presence.
A silhouette topped the ridge gigantic, monstrous, moving but making less than a whisper. The beast moved as some nightmare conceived by something that had never been alive. Its legs curved in too many places. Chitinous plates clattered with every jerking step, bone-white and ribbed with black veins which throbbed with inner heat.
Riven ducked behind the broken lip of a smashed alien obelisk, all his muscles coiled tight, his breathing a tranquil island in the wind's endless murmur. His HUD sparked to life, illuminated one eye with a light blue glow.
[TARGET FOUND: VORHAX PREDATOR]
[THREAT INDEX: D]
[MASS: 480kg | SPEED: 34m/s burst | AGGRESSION: EXTREME]
[RECOMMENDED ACTION: AMBUSH KILL]
[REWARD: GENETIC ABSORPTION – COMBAT CORE TRAITS UNLOCKED]
The analysis of the system came swiftly, clinically, but could not transmit the malice of the thing.
The Vorhax scented the air with open maw ringed in concentric circles of jagged tongues. Its 'eyes' if it had eyes seemed to be pits in its armor that pulsed ceaselessly with cold, unnatural blue. Its movement was feral, but not hungry. More. territorial.
It did not realize it was danger.
Not yet.
That would be its last mistake.
The wind shifted.
The monster flinched an ear, or a sense node, twisting towards him.
Now.
Riven moved.
Not in hesitation, or thought, but in measured control. His new body glided like a knife pulled from a sheath. Silent strides. Biomechanical muscles rippling under carbon-hinged limbs. He grasped a splintered shard of obsidian alloy torn from a destroyed alien spire and reversed grip like a ritual dagger.
Three strides.
Two.
One.
He hurled himself.
Air exploded around him as he spanned the distance, driving upward. The shard slammed into the Vorhax's throat, tearing between plates of living armor with a wet, metal crunch. Alien ichor sprayed his face burning cold and acrid like ammonia.
The beast screamed.
Its arm a twisted scythe of muscle and bone shot out and hit him across the chest. The world turned sideways. Riven was airborne for a moment before he slid into the ground, gliding across grit and broken bones.
Pain flared.
[WARNING: DAMAGE DETECTED RIB FRACTURES x3 | LUNG COMPRESSION]
[ENGAGING PAIN DAMPENERS 42% EFFECTIVE]
Riven remained on his feet. His breathing was erratic. Something cracked in his chest.
The Vorhax attacked.
It slid with intention too fast for something so big. Every step broke rock beneath, sending up clouds of ash and glassy sand.
Time slowed down.
His vision overlaid with lines, vectors, predictive arcs. Expect. React. Kill.
He ducked left, letting the beast's whapping arm swing inches from his head. Its breath was corrosive. Its bellow shattered what was left of the stillness.
He rolled under its bulk, reversed his hold on the shard, and thrust it once more this time up through the soft ventral membrane beneath its mandibles.
Air was filled with the hiss of boiling metal.
The Vorhax convulsed, legs thrashing, then stiffened.
Collapsed.
Dead.
Silence once more.
Only the reverberation of his own heartbeat remained—and even that sounded like someone else's.
[KILL CONFIRMED.]
[ABSORPTION PROTOCOL INITIATING…]
[WARNING: MUTAGENIC TRANSFORMATION IMMINENT]
Riven fell to his knees.
The blood on his hands churned literally. The Vorhax DNA was not quiet it fought, even in death. It moved within his veins like tiny serpents, biting, tearing, rewriting.
He screamed.
But it wasn't agony. Not really.
It was becoming.
His muscles tore, regrew, reformed. His bones cracked into new geometries. Joints inverted, strengthened. Neural activity spiked he saw flashes of movement before they happened. His skin itched as microscopic claws sprouted on his fingers and slid back in.
[GENETIC TRAITS ACQUIRED:]
[Vorhax Reflex Enhancement (Level 1)]
[Predator Claws – Retractable]
[Thermal Optics – Short Range]
[SYSTEM UPGRADE AVAILABLE]
Choose Evolution Path:
Bio-Combat (Close Quarters / Organic Weaponry / Mutation)
Neuro-Tech (Psionics / System Hacking / Drone Control)
Void Adaptation (Stealth / Environmental Morphing / Vacuum Resistance)
Riven stood, unsteady at first. Balance normalized automatically. Ground no longer uncertain it told him through his feet. Vibrations in the stone, he could sense. Electrical charge in the wind, smell.
He gazed at his reflection in a curved slice of alien metal.
His eyes glowed faintly redheat vision layers flickering. His arms rippled with living cables of muscle. His silhouette was still humanoidnbut no longer fully his.
He flexed his hand. Claws extended with a gentle snikt. Sharp. Lightweight. Perfectly designed.
He smiled. A real one.
"I'm starting to get it now."
The air shifted. Not wind something deeper.
High above, a dull thud boomed in the sky, and then a whirring hum that did not belong on this world. He gazed up.
There. A shimmer of light moving unnaturally across the violet skies.
A metal globe, smooth and mirror-like, descended in a slow arc. Its propulsion system breathed with ionized pulses. Blue glyphs so subtle as to be nearly invisible danced across its surface.
A drone.
[NOTICE: DETECTED LONG-RANGE SIGNAL]
[SOURCE: PLANET EARTH – PROTOCOL 9 SCOUT DRONE]
[AFFILIATION: CERBERUS INITIATIVE – BLACKSITE 7]
[MISSION: RECLAMATION / OBSERVATION / TERMINATION OF SUBJECT R-017]
His heart if it still qualified as such tightened.
So Earth hadn't abandoned him after all.
He stepped out from under cover. The drone readjusted targeting reticles moving toward him, scanners swiveling.
He refused to blink.
Let them look.
Let them behold what they'd cast aside.
He waved his hand. The claw extended.
A testament to the world in any tongue: Come and complete what you've started.
[NEURAL INTERFACE LINK ESTABLISHED]
[TRYING SYSTEM PENETRATION…]
[SOLARIS COUNTERMEASURE ACTIVATED.]
[EARTH DRONE OVERRIDE: FAILURE.]
[RECURSION: AGGRESSION ESCALATION LIKELY.]
Fine.
Let it escalate.
The ruins around him called out giant buildings centuries old, humming softly with power well hidden. Secrets in the stone. Glyphs his newly enhanced mind all but remembered. Languages carved by beings whose empires crumbled before Earth's crust cooled.
And he would uncover them.
But first
He looked down at the Vorhax corpse.
It was already decayed. Dissolving into black ichor and steam, its cells destroyed by his devouring. He knelt, stroking one claw through the viscous blood.
"More," he panted.
He was still too slow.
Still too weak.
And now that Earth had eyes in the sky, the clock began ticking.
This was no longer survival.
It was evolution.
War was coming.
And he would meet it not as a man.
But as a sovereign.