"As I said before," he spoke, his voice dropping into that calm, flat register he used when he was entirely certain of an outcome. "I'll be conducting this experiment. You will assist me."
Morgan inclined his head, stepping back into the shadows of the machinery.
Surprisingly, the old sting of taking the secondary role didn't come. Standing beside a Grandmaster at work was a privilege Forgers ruined their lives trying to secure. There was far more to steal by watching Boulder's hands than by letting pride ruin the opportunity.
With a slight jerk of his chin, Boulder signaled toward the outer door.
The subject was wheeled in: a stocky, healthy man, heavily sedated and bolted down to a reinforced steel gurney. Thick leather straps bound his wrists, chest, and ankles, cinched down so tightly the leather bit into his skin.
The attendants hoisted him onto the circular platform, bowed without making eye contact with either master, and slipped out. The heavy latch of the door clicked shut.
Boulder looked down at the unconscious man, his eyes narrowing slightly, then glanced at Morgan.
"Begin the stabilization."
Morgan reached for the control console.
A low, bone-deep vibration shook the flagstones as the runes beneath the platform flared to life. One by one, the lines of the formation bled blue light, while slender metallic tendrils slid from the seams of the metal bed, sinking beneath the man's flesh with a faint, sickening shlik.
The subject's jaw clamped shut, his muscles locking in a violent, instinctive seizure. Before the tremors could warp the energy channels, Morgan flooded the circuit with a gentle golden radiance. The man's stiffened limbs went slack.
Boulder gave a single, curt nod.
"Good. Hold that flow steady."
Morgan adjusted the primary artifact, his fingers moving with agonizing care. He didn't rush the stabilization like he used to. Every micro-fluctuation in the energy field was hunted down and smoothed out the second it twitched, until the man's pulse settled into a slow, heavy thud.
Only then did Boulder step into the light.
A pair of thin, matte-black gloves slid over his hands like a second skin. Without a word, he pressed both palms directly against the man's bare chest.
Morgan held his breath, leaning forward. Boulder wasn't forcing power into the flesh. He was listening. He was feeling the invisible topography of the man's life force.
Seconds stretched into a tense, suffocating silence.
"The meridians are fighting back," Boulder murmured.
Morgan didn't wait for an order. He instantly shifted the platform's flow, bleeding off the crushing pressure around the subject's internal pathways. A sharp hiss of steam escaped the venting valves. Under Boulder's palms, the man's chest relaxed.
"Good."
Boulder's fingers blurred into an intricate sequence of hand seals.
The metallic tendrils reacted instantly. Instead of feeding energy, they began to draw thin, dark ribbons of blood out of the subject and weave them through the glowing channels of the platform. When the blood flowed back into the man's veins, the very air around his skin tasted metallic, charged with a completely rewritten aura.
Morgan's eyes ached from refusing to blink. He had respected Boulder for his title. Now, watching the fluid, terrifying precision of his adjustments, he understood the myth. The Grandmaster wasn't just following an ancient blueprint. He was predicting the flesh's failures three steps before they happened.
"Now."
The sharp command snapped Morgan out of his trance.
"Guide the foreign energy into his pathways."
Morgan pressed his palm against the man's clammy forehead, letting his own bluish energy trickle into the skull.
This time, Boulder froze. He became a statue, his dark gloves still pinned to the subject's chest, simply observing.
The blue current wound through the man's meridians with an unnatural, terrifying stability.
One breath.
Two.
Morgan's pulse hammered against his ribs. This was the exact threshold where the body always rebelled. This was where the screaming usually started.
But the meridians held. No sudden ruptures sprayed blood across the silver platform. No violent, thrashing rejection tore the leather straps.
"Increase the flow," Boulder commanded.
Morgan opened the floodgates.
The blue glow turned blinding, pouring into the subject's core. The man's muscles swelled, bulging grotesquely against the leather restraints as dark veins marbled across his neck and arms. Beads of sweat erupted from his pores, sizzling against the hot metal of the bed.
Yet the body didn't break.
A full minute crawled by. Then two.
Morgan looked up at Boulder, his own face slick with sweat. The Grandmaster looked like he was reading a ledger.
"As expected," Boulder murmured softly. "The vessel is full."
A raw, angry crimson light began to pulse beneath the man's skin.
Morgan's hand twitched toward the kill switch, his stomach dropping. Every failed experiment had ended exactly like this, with that fatal crimson glow.
"Wait," Boulder snapped, his voice cutting through the panic. "Not yet."
His fingers flashed through a final, violent sequence of hand seals. The golden light beneath the platform flared with a blinding, white-hot intensity.
Slowly, the angry crimson glow began to fade. It thinned, turned pale, and then withered away entirely.
Morgan stared, his hands shaking slightly on the console.
The subject's breathing leveled out. The violent tension melted from his muscles. With a soft, ragged sigh, the man simply drifted into a natural, quiet sleep.
The lab went completely silent.
There was no sudden, sickening pop of a ruptured heart. No twisted, mutated limbs tearing through the skin. Just the steady, ordinary sound of a living man breathing.
Boulder slowly retracted his hands, examining the subject's face one last time. A small, rare smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"We've done it."
Morgan lunged forward, his fingers checking the man's neck.
"He's alive. He actually survived."
"He did," Boulder agreed.
Morgan ran his hands over the subject's body, inspecting every inch from head to toe. No protruding bone, no warped flesh, no ruptured channels. To an outsider, he looked like a laborer taking a midday nap.
But Boulder was already shaking his head, the brief warmth leaving his face.
"Not entirely."
Morgan looked up, his brow furrowing.
"What do you mean?"
"The process was a success, but the vessel is crippled." Boulder tapped two fingers against the man's sternum. "The tether is gone."
"Explain."
"An awakened soul naturally breathes with the world," Boulder said, looking down at the sleeping man with a mixture of pity and fascination. "This one can no longer hear it. He has the vessel, and he can wield the power we forced into him, but every drop of energy he uses is gone forever unless it is replaced manually."
The realization hit Morgan like a physical blow.
Energy crystals. Pure artifacts. Rare elixirs.
Without a constant, obscenely expensive supply of external resources, this man would be reduced to a commoner the moment he exhausted his strength.
Boulder pulled his hand back, wiping it on his robe.
"The flesh endured. The awakening held. Only his connection to the heavens was severed." He looked across the platform at Morgan. "In my eyes, that is a monumental victory."
Morgan couldn't find his voice.
Countless years of hiding in the dark. Dozens of nameless corpses dragged out in the middle of the night. Failure stacked upon failure until his hands permanently smelled of ozone and rot.
And now, a breathing body.
A slow, fierce grin broke across Morgan's face. He turned to the door, barking an order to the waiting guards outside.
"Get him to the secure ward immediately!"
"Monitor his vitals every hour. If his temperature shifts by half a degree, I want to know before he breathes again."
"Yes, Lord Morgan."
The attendants rushed in, their faces pale with shock as they wheeled the breathing man out of the room.
When the heavy doors thudded shut, the silence returned, heavier this time.
Boulder looked at the empty, bloodstained circular platform, then turned his dark eyes toward Morgan.
"So," the Grandmaster said quietly, "is this the one you've been hiding?"
Morgan slowly shook his head, the smile fading into something much darker, much older.
"No."
Boulder raised an eyebrow.
Morgan walked toward the massive, reinforced vault doors at the back of the chamber, resting his palms against the cold iron.
"I believe," Morgan whispered, the gears inside the door beginning to grind as he threw his weight against them, "it's finally time I showed you why I built this nightmare in the first place."
Without waiting for a response, he stepped into the pitch-black corridor beyond.
Boulder hesitated for a single heartbeat, then followed him into the dark.