Kyle stood in the blood-soaked chamber, his mind turning over the persistent feeling that something remained undiscovered. His eyes swept across the carnage once more—the Queen's corpse, the destroyed Guards, the countless drone remains painting the walls in abstract patterns of death.
'Why make things hard?'
The thought emerged with sudden clarity. He had an ability that could manifest anything he conceived. Why limit himself to weapons and shields?
Kyle's consciousness reached inward, visualizing with perfect precision. 'I need information. I need to know what's hidden here.'
Reality responded.
Something shifted within his mind—not painful, but profound. His perception expanded, sharpened, evolved beyond normal sensory input. Information flooded into his consciousness in cascading waves, organized and comprehensible despite its volume.
A notification appeared.
-----
**| MANIFESTATION CREATED: OMNISCIENT PERCEPTION |**
**| GRADE: MYTHICAL |**
**| CLASSIFICATION: Mind-Type Ability |**
**| DURATION: 11 MINUTES |**
**| DESCRIPTION: User gains access to enhanced cognitive processing and information analysis. Can perceive hidden truths, deduce past events from environmental data, and extrapolate probable scenarios from incomplete information. |**
-----
The world became transparent to Kyle's enhanced perception.
He instantly understood. Deeper in this place, far beyond the Queen's chamber, something existed. An egg. But not just any egg—this one shouldn't be here. It was wrong. Fundamentally displaced.
Kyle focused his newfound perception on the anomaly, peeling back layers of information like pages in a book.
'A failed evolution,' his mind supplied, data organizing itself automatically. 'Zombie. Spider. Human. Devil. A hybrid that never should have existed, created through circumstances that defy natural law.'
More information flooded in. A being had given birth to this abomination—a creature of terrible power, twisted by corruption and desperation. But that being was dead now, killed by someone else.
A woman. Very strong. White hair, pure as fresh snow.
That was all. The information ended there, incomplete but sufficient.
Kyle's enhanced perception faded as the manifestation's duration expired, returning him to normal cognitive processing. He stood silent for a moment, absorbing what he'd learned.
'Should I go deeper?'
The question was rhetorical. He'd already made his decision before consciously forming the thought. With a casual shrug, Kyle began moving toward the back of the chamber, following the path his Omniscient Perception had revealed.
'I thought this was truly the end of the cave. Seems I was wrong.'
The chamber's rear wall appeared solid at first glance, but Kyle's enhanced perception had shown him the truth—a narrow passage concealed by natural rock formations and deliberate camouflage. He squeezed through, his shield sigil dimming to allow passage, then re-expanding once he cleared the opening.
The path descended.
-----
In the operations center, the atmosphere remained charged with discussion about Kyle's unprecedented performance. Commander Voss had relit his cigar, pacing before the main display with restless energy.
"His combat efficiency is beyond anything we've—"
The female instructor's words died mid-sentence.
Every screen simultaneously flared red.
**ALERT. ALERT. ALERT.**
"What the—" The scarred instructor lunged for his console.
The technicians' fingers flew across keyboards, pulling up data streams that painted an increasingly horrifying picture.
"We have an outbreak!" one technician shouted, voice cracking. "Sector Seven! Massive signature spike!"
"How massive?" Commander Voss demanded, his cigar falling forgotten to the floor.
"Off the charts, sir! Multiple life signs appearing simultaneously—hundreds, no, *thousands*! They're spreading rapidly!"
The female instructor's face went pale as she pulled up the visual feed. "Oh no. Oh god, no."
On screen, chaos reigned.
"Call off the test!" Commander Voss roared. "Now! Emergency evacuation protocols—activate them immediately!"
The technicians scrambled, their previous robotic efficiency replaced by frantic urgency. Fingers hammered keys. Commands were issued. Systems activated.
The scarred instructor moved beside Voss, his expression grim. "I'm going with you."
"No." Voss's voice was iron. "Contact headquarters. We need—"
"With all due respect, Commander, you can't handle this alone."
Voss's jaw tightened. "I said no. I'll handle it."
'If we contact headquarters, they'll think I can't manage my own operation,' Voss thought, his mind racing. 'Especially because of *her*. If she finds out there was an incident I couldn't contain…'
He left the thought unfinished, pushing it away.
"Sir, the emergency broadcast—" a technician called out, then stopped. "Sir, it's not connecting!"
"What do you mean it's not connecting?" the female instructor demanded.
"The signal's being disrupted! We can't reach the students' emergency devices!"
Voss's expression darkened to something terrible. Without another word, he turned and strode toward the exit, his hand already reaching for the weapon at his hip.
"Commander!" the scarred instructor called after him.
But Voss was already gone, the door hissing shut behind him.
The operations center descended into controlled chaos as technicians desperately tried to reestablish communication while monitoring the spreading catastrophe on their screens.
-----
In Sector Seven, Alicia Dion stared at the monstrosity she had unleashed.
The Dead Strangler's corpse lay before her, but death had not ended the threat. From the thousands of pores covering its body, creatures emerged—huge, grotesque things that should not exist. They were massive, each one the size of a large dog, with bodies that defied description. Writhing tentacles mixed with insectoid limbs. Mouths within mouths. Eyes in places eyes should never be.
And they had wings.
Dozens of them. Hundreds. Thousands. They launched into the air with horrible screeching sounds, attacking everything they saw with mindless savagery. Trees dissolved where their bodies brushed against bark. Stone sizzled and melted beneath their touch. The very air seemed to corrupt around them, turning gray and toxic.
They were pollutants incarnate, dissolving and destroying anything and everything they encountered.
And there were so many. Too many.
The sky darkened with their numbers, a living cloud of corruption that spread outward in an expanding circle of devastation.
Alicia's sword fell from nerveless fingers, clattering against stone. Her legs gave out beneath her, and she collapsed to her knees. Blood still ran from her wounds, but she no longer felt the pain.
Despair consumed her.
"It's my fault," she whispered, her voice hollow. Tears began falling, cutting clean tracks through the blood and dirt on her face. "It's my fault you died."
Her brother's face flashed through her mind—smiling, kind, always protective. He'd died because she'd been too weak. Too slow. Unable to save him when it mattered most.
"Now it's my fault I'll die here too," she continued, her voice breaking. More tears fell, hot and bitter. "All because I released this monstrosity."
She'd pushed herself beyond her limits to kill the Dead Strangler, believing it was the threat. Believing that defeating it would prove her strength. Would prove she'd grown beyond the weakness that had cost her brother his life.
But she'd been wrong.
The Dead Strangler had been a container. A vessel. And by killing it, she'd released something far worse.
The creatures circled overhead, their screeching growing louder, more frenzied. Several began descending toward her, drawn by her living presence like sharks to blood.
Alicia closed her eyes, tears still falling.
'I'm sorry, brother. I couldn't save you then. And I can't even survive now to honor your memory.'
The creatures descended.
And Alicia Dion, ranked second in the trial, simply knelt in the ruins of her battlefield, waiting for death to claim her at last.
-----
Deep beneath the earth, Kyle continued his descent into darkness, unaware of the catastrophe unfolding above.
His shield sigil illuminated ancient stone walls, revealing carvings he couldn't quite decipher. The air grew colder with each step, carrying a smell that transcended mere corruption—this was something older, deeper, more fundamentally wrong.
'Just what am I about to find?' Kyle thought, his hand resting on his blade's hilt.
The passage opened ahead, revealing another chamber.
And within it, something waited.
Something that should never have been born.