The tournament raged on, but the whispers grew louder.
"There's no way he's clean."
"No one hits that hard without something in their blood."
"He's hiding tech. He has to be."
At Xyprus Academy, where augmented combatants reigned supreme, Damien's rise was more than unusual—it was impossible.
No fusion. No AI. No neural links. Just fists.
He wasn't supposed to make it this far. But there he stood, semifinalist, wearing the same worn wraps, his knuckles like iron and footwork forged in street scraps, not simulations.
To silence the rumors, the Academy enforced a second round of real-time blood testing, this time monitored by third-party regulators and sponsors alike. Every vial of blood was scanned, sequenced, and triple-verified.
Damien's results returned the same:
Negative for foreign serums. No augment implants. No illegal enhancements.
The crowd went silent. The critics choked.
It was no fluke.
That afternoon, in front of a crowd of thousands and a galaxy of watching systems, Damien walked into the ring against a platinum-sponsored finalist with AI reflex optimization and the latest Gen-7 muscle weave serum. His opponent blinked—Damien was already in front of him.
The punch was clean, brutal, final.
Two seconds. KO.
"Gen-7 muscle weave. Neural AI countering. Reaction time less than 0.01 seconds."
"Didn't matter."
"He blinked."
"That's all it took."
"They still don't get it. Power's not in the enhancements. It's in knowing exactly where to place the blade—and when."
"I don't need to be faster than thought. I just need you to think."
The arena erupted.
He raised his hand not to boast, but because the fight was over and that's what fighters did. He didn't smile. Didn't speak. Just walked out of the ring like it was a training session. Like it wasn't history.
"What was that?"
"Did you see him move?"
"He didn't even wind up."
"That wasn't a fight. That was a warning."
"Is that the Thorne kid? That's Damien Thorne?"
"...No fusion?" "Prehistoric."
"No. Primeval."
"That wasn't normal. That was old."
"That was real."
But not everyone was celebrating.
In the high balcony of the viewing tower, two Null Sanctum operatives exchanged panicked glances.
"That power isn't learned. It's remembered.""The prototype didn't die." "He bred."
And below, oblivious to the storm building above and around him, Damien sat alone in the locker room—taping his wrists again.
The world hadn't seen anything yet.