"Nine seconds."
Kaelen's voice was a low growl, vibrating through the chest bones of everyone in the room.
The dead Thunder-Tiger lay at his feet, its neck twisted at an unnatural angle.
The remaining three Beast Kings—the Fire-Armored Bear, the Venomous Naga, and the Shadow Stalker—hesitated. Animals have instincts. They knew that the thing standing in front of them was no longer a human boy. It was an apex predator.
"Attack him!" The Doctor screamed, slamming his fist on the control panel. "Override their fear! Stimulate the pain centers!"
The collars on the beasts sparked violently.
ROAR!
Pain drove them mad. They charged simultaneously from three directions.
The Shadow Stalker vanished, reappearing behind Kaelen to slash his spine.
The Fire-Armored Bear charged from the front, a tank of muscle and flame.
The Venomous Naga slithered on the ceiling, spitting a stream of green acid.
It was a perfect kill-box. There was no escape.
Kaelen didn't try to escape.
"Eight seconds."
Kaelen didn't turn around. His Dragon Tail—a phantom construct of black Qi—materialized from his lower back. It whipped out with the speed of sound.
CRACK!
It slammed into the invisible Shadow Stalker mid-air. The beast didn't even have time to scream. It was swatted like a fly against the steel wall, exploding into a mess of fur and shadow.
"Seven seconds."
Kaelen stepped forward, directly toward the charging Bear.
The Bear roared, swiping its massive paw coated in magma.
Kaelen didn't dodge. He punched.
It was a simple straight punch. But his arm was covered in Abyssal Scales.
Dragon Art: Mountain Collapse.
BOOM!
Fist met paw.
The Bear's arm shattered. The force traveled up its shoulder, destroying its ribcage, and blasted out of its back. The massive beast was launched across the room, crashing into the Doctor's control desk.
"Six seconds."
The acid from the Naga was falling toward his head.
Kaelen looked up. He opened his mouth.
He didn't scream. He inhaled.
Void Cauldron: Devour.
The stream of deadly acid didn't burn him. It was sucked into his mouth, swallowed, and instantly converted into raw energy.
He looked at the Naga on the ceiling. The snake froze, realizing its strongest weapon was just... food.
Kaelen leaped.
He grabbed the Naga by its tail and whipped it down.
SLAM!
He smashed the snake onto the floor so hard the metal plating buckled.
"Five seconds."
Silence.
In five seconds, four Beast Kings—creatures that could destroy a city block—were dead.
Kaelen stood in the center of the carnage. His white hair floated in the residual energy. He turned his vertical, golden pupils toward the Doctor.
"You have five seconds left," Kaelen whispered. "Run."
The Doctor was trembling. He backed away, stumbling over the corpse of the Bear. His arrogant, scientific composure was shattered.
"Impossible..." The Doctor gasped, his mechanical eye whirring frantically, trying to analyze Kaelen's power level. "Error. Error. Power exceeds measurable limits. Genetic structure unknown. You... you are a perfect specimen!"
Fear turned into a twisted, obsessive greed.
"I need you!" The Doctor laughed maniacally, reaching into his pocket. "If I dissect you, I can create a god!"
He pulled out a syringe filled with a bubbling, black liquid.
The Void Serum (Prototype).
"I didn't want to use this yet," the Doctor hissed, plunging the needle into his own neck. "It has a 90% mortality rate. But for science...!"
SQUELCH.
The Doctor fell to his knees, convulsing.
His skin began to rip. Black tentacles erupted from his back. His mechanical eye fused with his flesh, turning into a glowing red laser. His muscles expanded, tearing his white coat apart.
He grew to ten feet tall—a monstrosity of flesh, metal, and dark alchemy.
"BEHOLD!" The Doctor's voice was now a distorted boom. "The pinnacle of evolution!"
He swiped his hand. A wave of black energy, sharper than a blade, flew at Kaelen.
Kaelen raised his hand. He caught the energy wave and crushed it.
"Evolution?" Kaelen looked at the monster with pity. "You just turned yourself into a tumor."
Kaelen vanished.
He reappeared on the Doctor's shoulders.
The Doctor roared, trying to grab him with his tentacles.
Kaelen grabbed the Doctor's mechanical eye.
"You looked at my mother with this eye," Kaelen whispered.
RIIIP!
He tore the mechanical eye out of the socket.
"ARGHHHHH!" The Doctor screamed, thrashing wildly.
Kaelen jumped off, landing in front of the monster. He grabbed one of the black tentacles lunging at him.
"You touched her with these hands."
Kaelen pulled.
SNAP.
He ripped the tentacle off.
It wasn't a fight. It was a dismantling. It was surgery without anesthesia.
The Doctor, now blind in one eye and missing a limb, scrambled back, terrified. He realized he wasn't fighting a cultivator. He was fighting a calamity.
"Wait! Wait!" The Doctor pleaded, shrinking back against the glass tank. "Don't kill me! I can help you! I know the cure! Your mother... she needs maintenance! If you kill me, she dies!"
Kaelen stopped. His sword hovered inches from the Doctor's neck.
"Maintenance?" Kaelen asked coldly.
"Yes! Yes!" The Doctor pointed frantically at the control panel. "Her life force is tied to the machine! Only I know the codes to release her safely! If you break the tank, the shock will stop her heart!"
It was a lie. Kaelen's Dragon Eyes could see the flow of energy. The machine wasn't sustaining her; it was draining her.
But the Doctor thought Kaelen was just a brute. He smiled internally. 'Got him. As soon as he hesitates, I will activate the self-destruct...'
The Doctor's hand inched toward a red button on the floor.
Suddenly.
BOOOOOOM!
The entire facility shook violently. The lights flickered and died, replaced by emergency red strobes.
Rai had done it. The generator room was gone.
"Power failure," a robotic voice announced. "Systems offline. Locking mechanisms released."
The Doctor's face went pale. "No..."
With the power gone, the clamps holding the massive glass tank released.
CRACK.
A hairline fracture appeared on the glass.
CRASH!
The tank shattered. Thousands of gallons of green fluid poured out, flooding the room.
And with the fluid, Subject 105 fell.
"NO!" The Doctor screamed. "My research!"
Kaelen didn't care about the Doctor anymore. He moved faster than he had ever moved in his life.
He slid across the wet floor, ignoring the glass shards slicing his knees.
Just before his mother's frail body hit the cold, metal ground with the jagged glass, Kaelen caught her.
He held her bridal style. She was so light. She felt like a bird made of hollow bones. Her skin was ice cold.
Kaelen's Dragon transformation faded instantly. The horns retracted, the scales vanished. He was just a boy again.
"Mom?" Kaelen whispered, his voice cracking. "Mom... I'm here."
He channeled his warm, golden Qi into her body, wrapping her in a cocoon of light, protecting her from the cold and the wetness.
Her eyelids fluttered.
Slowly, painfully, she opened her eyes. They were the same deep blue as Kaelen's, but dim and foggy.
She looked at the white-haired boy holding her. She blinked, confused.
"Arion?" she whispered, naming her husband. "You came back?"
"No, Mom," Kaelen cried, a tear falling onto her cheek. "It's Kaelen."
"Kaelen?"
Her eyes focused. She reached up with a trembling, scarred hand and touched his face.
"My... baby?"
"Yes. It's me."
"You... got big," she smiled weakly. "Did you... eat your vegetables?"
Kaelen laughed through his tears. "Yes. Uncle Hwan made me eat them."
"Hwan... good old Hwan..." Her hand dropped. She was exhausted. "I'm tired, baby. I want to sleep."
"Sleep, Mom. I've got you."
Kaelen stood up, holding her tight against his chest.
He turned around. The Doctor was trying to crawl away into a secret escape tunnel.
"Bo," Kaelen called out.
Bo poked his head out from behind the door. He was pale but alive.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Take my mother to the boat. Guard her with your life."
"What about you?" Bo asked, running over and carefully taking Lyra from Kaelen's arms.
Kaelen turned to face the crawling Doctor.
"I have one last surgery to perform."
Bo nodded. He knew that look. He ran with Lyra toward the exit.
Kaelen walked over to the Doctor. He stepped on the Doctor's remaining leg.
Crunch.
"You said you wanted to study my anatomy," Kaelen said, lifting the Black Sword.
The Doctor looked up, weeping. "Mercy! I am a genius! The Eclipse needs me!"
"The Eclipse is next," Kaelen said.
He swung the sword.
It wasn't a clean cut. He didn't aim for the neck. He aimed for the Dantian—the source of the Doctor's cultivation and life force.
Pierce.
He destroyed the Doctor's power, leaving him a crippled, bleeding mortal in a collapsing underwater base.
"I won't kill you," Kaelen whispered to the screaming man. "I will let the sea decide. If you can swim to the surface with no legs and no power... then you earn your life."
Kaelen turned and walked away.
Behind him, the water from the cracked dome began to flood in. The ocean was reclaiming its territory.
Kaelen sprinted through the collapsing hallways. He reached the dock just as Bo was starting the engine.
He jumped onto the boat.
"Go! Punch it!"
The boat shot out of the Whirlpool base just as the entire structure imploded behind them, swallowed by the black abyss.
They emerged onto the surface, under the grey sky.
Kaelen looked at his mother sleeping peacefully on Bo's coat.
He had won. But he knew this was just the first battle. The Eclipse had lost a laboratory, but they would hunt him now.
"Boss," Bo said quietly, steering the boat. "Where to?"
Kaelen looked North.
"To the Dragon Bone Island," Kaelen said. "I need to wake her up. And for that... I need the Resurrection Flower."
The rescue was over. The quest for healing had begun.