The next morning, Nathaniel clocked in for work and moved through the main hall with his usual calm stride. The air carried the faint hum of machinery and distant chatter from other divisions. After collecting his room assignment at reception, he followed the corridor to the designated chamber.
Inside, George and Ria were locked in another debate, their voices bouncing off the metallic walls. Something about comic heroes and power scaling. The kind of argument that never had a winner. Oliver's seat was still empty. Across the room, Alucard examined a tray of blood vials under the sterile light. The liquid in some of them shimmered with colors that looked anything but human.
The door clicked open behind Nathaniel. Shiro entered quietly, her presence soft but grounded. He greeted her with a quick sign. She replied in kind, and they shared a short exchange about the HotPause CEO scandal that had erupted at the concert a few days ago. Her hands moved with gentle precision, each gesture reflecting her restrained amusement.
A sudden ripple of shadow swept across the floor, stretching toward the center of the room. From it, two figures emerged. Oliver stepped out first, brushing off faint traces of darkness from his jacket. Erementaru followed, his expression calm and unreadable, eyes scanning the team with silent authority.
The tension in the room shifted. George and Ria went quiet. Alucard capped the last vial and set it aside. Nathaniel straightened slightly, the low hum of anticipation stirring in the air.
Minutes later, the team stood fully suited. The dark gray of their standard Knight Association gear caught the low light of the prep bay. Each member locked in their personal augment modules and weapon attachments, the soft clicks and hums of activation filling the room. Holographic status lines rippled across their visors, syncing with the association network.
George adjusted his gauntlets and tested a brief pulse of static. Ria checked the calibrations on her light-projector units. Oliver's armor shimmered faintly as his shadow-field stabilized. Shiro moved quietly among them, tightening straps and checking equipment with silent precision. Nathaniel rolled his shoulders, the kinetic storage plates along his suit flaring a soft red then cyan as they powered on.
Alucard stood apart from the rest, fastening his long coat over the blood-hardened plating that reinforced his suit. The faint scent of iron followed him.
The group boarded one of the Association's standard white armored trucks. Its surface reflected the cold ceiling lights as they climbed inside. The interior was lined with adaptive paneling, polished and seamless, alive with faint blue circuits that responded to motion. They sat in silence, the hum of the engine and the muted rhythm of their own breathing filling the space.
Nathaniel traced a hand along the panel beside him, watching the embedded energy veins shift beneath the surface. The design was immaculate, a perfect blend of armor and living machinery. For a moment, he found himself marveling at the level of engineering that kept them alive in places no human was meant to stand.
The truck reached the terminal gates. A green indicator blinked above the cockpit. The vehicle rose slightly as its lift-drive engaged, thrusters igniting with a deep mechanical growl.
The transport tilted forward, gathered momentum, and tore into the foggy horizon.
Their mission had begun.
Within minutes, the vehicle came to a halt at the outskirts of the coastal biome. The air brakes released with a sharp hiss, followed by the heavy clank of the rear doors unlocking.
A rush of sea breeze rolled inside, carrying the salt of the ocean and the faint chill of mist. The team stepped out one by one, boots pressing into the damp sand. Before them loomed the anomaly itself—a spinning mass of soft blue energy, suspended above the water like a living storm. The waves collided against its invisible boundary, pushed back each time the energy pulsed outward.
Around the perimeter, military personnel moved in disciplined patterns. Barricades, sensor towers, and containment rigs lined the beach. The hum of generators mixed with the cry of distant gulls, creating an uneasy harmony between nature and machine.
Two figures approached from the secured zone. One wore the standard tactical uniform of the perimeter guard, his weapon slung at his side. The other, a clerk in a dark vest and visor, carried a data tablet.
"Squad Four, I presume," the clerk said, voice muffled slightly by the mask filter. He brought up the holographic display and handed it toward Erementaru. "Here's the most recent telemetry. The biome has been active for three days. Its stability index is holding steady at seventy-six percent. No significant expansion since dawn."
Erementaru gave a slight nod, scanning the projected data. The rotating readings reflected across his visor in faint orange hues.
"Third day of manifestation," he repeated quietly. "That gives us a narrow window before structural decay begins. Keep the perimeter sealed. We handle the inside."
The clerk nodded quickly and stepped back. The ocean wind howled against the energy field, scattering droplets of saltwater across the sand.
Nathaniel watched the pulsing barrier, its rhythm almost organic, like a giant heartbeat syncing with the waves.
Erementaru stepped toward the barrier. The field reacted to his presence, rippling outward in waves of luminous energy. The glow intensified, turning the air bright and hot. The wind picked up around them, scattering sand across the truck and whipping at their clothes. Nathaniel's hair shifted in the gust as the energy surged higher.
He took a steady breath. His pupils flared cyan. The hum of kinetic charge built in his body, a silent rhythm pulsing beneath his skin.
"Move in," Erementaru ordered.
Nathaniel darted forward first. The moment he crossed the barrier, the world warped. The soft blue light swallowed him whole before spitting him out on the other side.
The inside of the biome was chaos. Jagged rock formations jutted out of black sand, shaped like fractured basalt deltas. The sky twisted above them in muted shades of blue and gray, and the air smelled of iron and salt.
Nathaniel's boots slammed against the ground as he broke into a sprint. His gauntlet glowed with stored kinetic energy, veins of light crawling up his arm. Ahead, one of the creatures emerged from the mist—its shell a grotesque fusion of a king crab and lobster, its body glistening like wet steel.
He met it head-on. The impact cracked the air. His gauntlet punched through the creature's torso, sending a shockwave that flung its body into three others nearby. The crustaceans screeched as their limbs shattered against the rock.
"Contact confirmed," Nathaniel called out.
George's laughter echoed from behind him. "Time to make it crispy."
Bolts of blue lightning tore across the field. Seven creatures convulsed mid-motion, their shells blackening under the electric surge before collapsing into the sand.
Ria followed next, her palms blazing with refracted light. She spun and fired, multiple beams converging into a single blinding strike. The blast cut through the mist, ripping through several more of the monsters before fading into the fog.
The battlefield burned with colour—pale red with hints of violet—each pulse colliding against the roaring surf in the distance.
Erementaru's voice came through their comms, calm and grounded. "Maintain formation. Remember, specimen capture takes priority. Do not reduce everything to ash."
"I'll handle capture," Oliver said through the comms, his voice almost playful under the noise of battle. His form flickered in and out of existence, vanishing into shadow and reappearing across the field. Each time he reemerged, another carcass disappeared with him, drawn into the dark veil that followed wherever he moved. The shadows rippled and folded, carrying the intact bodies to whatever hidden space he commanded.
Shiro stepped forward next. Her silent focus was absolute. She raised her anodachi-sized battle axe, its surface shimmering faintly under the biome's pale sky. The weapon, lightened by her gravity augment, hummed as she shifted the field around it. A sudden pulse ran through the ground, and several crustaceans collapsed as their bodies grew unbearably heavy.
She moved in a blur. The axe began to vibrate, creating a supersonic resonance that screamed through the air. Each swing carved clean arcs through armored shells, splitting them apart with precision. The shockwaves from her attacks distorted the sand beneath her feet, the area glowing faintly with refracted energy.
Alucard fought on the far side of the ridge, his movements heavy and deliberate. The vials he had studied earlier now made sense. Their contents had not been for analysis. He had consumed them long before departure. The monster blood coursed through his veins, amplifying the crimson energy that swirled around him.
Instead of his greatsword, his arms were encased in dense layers of hardened blood. The liquid twisted into shapes that resembled living cannons, steaming and pulsating with every motion. He extended one arm, and a concentrated beam of uratsu energy erupted, vaporizing several creatures at once. Fragments of shell and flesh scattered across the sand.
When one of the larger crustaceans lunged toward him, Alucard caught it with a snarl, biting into one of its limbs. The sound was wet and visceral. He tore through it like an animal feeding, devouring the organic matter for strength.
Nathaniel froze for a moment, watching him. Something about the act felt disturbingly familiar.
Consumption.
The word echoed in his head. His pulse slowed. His vision sharpened. His eyes began to glow faint white, and his breath grew heavier.
He looked down at his hand. His skin rippled as something inside him stirred. Thin trails of dark silver liquid seeped through the gaps in his gauntlet, flowing like mercury. The substance crawled along his palm before dripping onto a nearby carcass.
The crab's shell began to glow faintly, its veins lighting up as the liquid spread through it. Then, just as quickly, the glow faded. The silver matter withdrew, sliding back through the mesh of Nathaniel's gauntlet as if feeding on what it had touched.
He stood still, the sound of battle roaring around him, his mind caught between awareness and instinct.
He tasted it.Ura. Pure and unfiltered.
The energy spread through his body like wildfire. His heartbeat slowed, each pulse deliberate, controlled, lethal. His hands began to glow, faint trails of cyan tracing through his veins. Uratsu bled from his skin in thin streams, coating his forearms and pooling at his feet.
The liquid hardened. First into resin, then into crystalline formations that spread outward like living glass. The ground beneath the advancing creatures shifted as the growing field of crystal trapped them in place.
Their shells scraped against the surface, but the resin was stronger. The more they struggled, the tighter it constricted.
Nathaniel's fingers curled around the grips of the twin blades at his sides—Ginah's gift, forged for precision, balance, and ferocity. The weapons flared in the reflected light of the uratsu crystal, mirroring the pulse of his own energy.
He steadied his stance. The kinetic charge built in his legs, a silent hum rising from the ground as he stored the force.
Then he moved.
"Kinetic Maw."
He shot forward, slicing through the immobilized crustaceans in a blur of motion. Each strike released a sharp burst of pressure, tearing through shells and limbs with surgical precision. The crystal field shattered under the force, spraying shards of blue and silver across the terrain.
When he stopped, he was already on the other side of the carnage. His blades dripped with ichor and streaks of pale blue hemocyanin. The remains of the creatures twitched briefly before collapsing into the sand.
Nathaniel exhaled slowly. The glow in his eyes dimmed to a soft cyan, the charge within his muscles fading into calm. For a moment, the battlefield was still, lit only by the distant echoes of the crashing ocean waves.
they sighed as they moved deeper int the biome, they had to find its host
Erementaru stepped forward, scanning the field. "That's enough," he said, his voice even. "We move."
The others regrouped, their breathing steadying as the adrenaline faded. Shiro wiped the edge of her weapon clean and sheathed it across her back. George stretched his neck, small arcs of electricity dancing along his arms before fading. Ria adjusted her visor and looked toward the shifting fog ahead.
They began their advance. The deeper they moved, the thicker the air became, heavy with moisture and static energy. Strange coral formations rose from the ground, some still pulsing faint blue from absorbed ura.
Nathaniel glanced around, the faint hum of his kinetic field returning in quiet waves. Something about the place felt aware of them, as if the entire biome was a single living organism watching their every step.
"We need to locate the host," Erementaru said through the comms. "The core lifeform keeps this structure stable. Destroy or neutralize it, and the biome collapses."
The group continued forward, their silhouettes cutting through the fog as the rhythmic crash of the ocean grew distant behind them. Ahead, the light dimmed to a deeper blue, and the ground began to tremble beneath their feet.
Something was waiting.
They reached a cove leading into a cave, its mouth breathing damp air that carried the scent of salt and stone. Inside, a clearing opened in the dark, jagged rock.
George stayed outside. He was electric-based, and seawater was the last thing he wanted near his range. Alucard moved forward beside Nathaniel while Oliver positioned himself behind Shiro and Ria, both his hands faintly glowing, ready to pull them out at the slightest danger.
Alucard's mask shifted as blood spread across its surface. The liquid reformed, turning into scaled patterns and thin fins that rippled like a serpent's hide. The ground trembled beneath them.
The cave erupted. A shockwave tore through the clearing. Steam burst from the cracked earth as a force struck with the power of a storm.
In the blur that followed, Shiro and Ria vanished, snatched away by Oliver's teleport just before the impact hit. Nathaniel staggered as pain shot through his chest. His vision blurred, ringing filling his ears.
When his sight cleared, he found himself staring into compound eyes that glowed with a lazy, red crack of light. The creature's armored body still steamed from its sudden emergence, shell shimmering with refracted hues.
Nathaniel's blood dripped onto the stone as he steadied himself. His pupils flared white. The interface flickered to life across his vision.
Hybrid Evolution: Peacock Mantis Shrimp × Pistol Shrimp.
It vanished before anyone could react.
A thunderclap of pressure followed as it collided with Alucard, the impact flinging him through several stone pillars. Each one exploded into fragments as his body struck and tore through them. He hit the ground hard, the cavern shaking from the force.
His body twitched. The veins across his neck pulsed crimson. His eyes sharpened into slits. The mask covering his face began to split and recede, its limiter failing to contain the surge within him.
Blood coursed across his arms, thick and alive, wrapping around him like armor as his breathing deepened into low, guttural growls.
Advanced Haemomancy AcquiredTraits: Partial Shock Absorption. Accelerated Regeneration.
He plunged into the water, red spreading in thin threads around him. The creature was already there, claws glowing with superheated friction.
A cavitation bubble detonated against his chest. The explosion of compressed energy sent a geyser through the cavern, the water rising and twisting in violent spirals.
Alucard roared through the impact, blood turning to mist around his body as the waves crashed against the stone.
Alucard roared and retaliated, blood coiling up his arm like serpents before hardening into a cannon. The blast erupted point-blank, a jet of compressed Uratsu and boiling vitae that struck the hybrid square in the chest. The hit forced it back, steam and ichor splattering across the cavern walls.
He followed through—snatching up a slab of broken metal and hurling it like a spear. The impact rang out sharp, only for the creature's armor to shudder, its segmented plates rippling and knitting back together with insectoid precision.
Nathaniel moved before it could recover.
Flames spilled from his mouth, his muscles glowing with cyan threads as Hellcharge merged with Kinetic Muscle. From a crouched position, he launched forward—air cracking as he crossed the distance in a blur of subsonic speed.
He twisted mid-flight, slamming an aerial Manji Kick into its abdomen just as Alucard surged in from behind with a brutal double lariat. The two blows connected like synchronized detonations.
Nathaniel's teeth were bared, the heat radiating off him like wildfire. The impact echoed, cracks webbing across the creature's carapace. He pressed his palms to it—resin spilling from his fingers, flooding those fractures in gleaming silver.
Weak points formed.
Then came silence.
The hybrid struck the ground with seismic force, the cavern trembling as dust and seawater exploded outward.
The ground quaked beneath the fallen hybrid. Steam poured from its body, the scent of salt and burnt shell thick in the air. Its limbs twitched, each movement sharp and deliberate.
Then came the sound — a deep, resonant crack — as the crustacean's armor began to split. Segments shifted and bulged outward. The carapace glowed from within, pulsing with bioluminescent veins of red and blue light.
It started to molt.
Plates of its old shell fell away in steaming chunks, revealing the creature beneath — larger, heavier, and more defined. Its body had become bulkier, muscles swelling under the newly hardened exoskeleton. Two mantis-like raptorial arms unfolded, each lined with crystalline ridges capable of focusing cavitation shock.
The colors along its surface shimmered in waves — an iridescent blur of emerald, violet, and molten gold. Its compound eyes rotated independently, refracting light like fractured jewels as they locked onto Nathaniel and Alucard.
A low clicking rolled through the cave, rhythmic and measured, echoing like a countdown. The air pressure shifted, and the sea beyond the cove rippled in response.
Its claws retracted, then snapped forward — the shockwave from the strike vaporizing the mist in front of it.
Erementaru's voice crackled through the comms. "That's not just a biome host anymore. It's adapting to your energy signatures. Stay sharp."
Nathaniel's muscles tensed, cyan light returning to his eyes. Alucard grinned behind his blood-slick mask, teeth bared.
The evolved hybrid straightened, towering over them, its shell gleaming like molten armor beneath the blue light of the biome's core.
And then it moved.
Fast.
Its strike carved the air apart, the blow landing with a concussive blast that sent a pressure wave screaming past Nathaniel. Dust and saltwater sprayed into the air as he twisted aside, his bloodied face splitting into a smirk.
He drove his gauntlets forward, superheated plates stabbing through the joint of the creature's limb. The air hissed as molten resin met shell. The joint expanded from the sudden heat, slowing its movement long enough for him to wrench free and recoil backward.
The limb began regenerating instantly, new plates forming in metallic layers, but the opening was enough. Nathaniel and Alucard both fell back as the air pressure shifted again — gravity thickening around them until the world itself felt heavy.
Shirou had joined the fight.
Her presence crushed the battlefield, tripling the local gravity field. Stones cracked under the weight, and the cave's structure groaned in protest. The hybrid's movements slowed, its claws digging into the sand for balance.
"Move!" Oliver's voice cut through the comms.
The shadows beneath their feet came alive, pulling them in. In a blink, they reappeared outside the collapsing cove — drenched, gasping, and barely intact as a blast of force tore through where they had stood.
Alucard straightened, smirking behind his mask. His gaze drifted to the wet sand beneath his boots. The brown grains shimmered faintly under the low light."Iron," he muttered. "And more."
Above them, Nathaniel's gauntlet struck the cavern roof, sending cracks through the stone. Sparks flared in his periphery as George leapt into the air, arcs of lightning snaking across his body.
"Resin platform up!" Nathaniel shouted.
A crystalline surface shimmered into existence beneath George, holding firm just as the ceiling split open — revealing the monster below, coiled and ready.
George extended both hands, his body flaring with light. Electricity gathered around him in violent spirals before crashing downward.
The bolt hit the conductive sand and iron-rich sediment, turning the cave into a blinding web of lightning.
Ria stepped forward, her arms pulsing with crimson light. Energy gathered at her palms before she unleashed it in rapid succession — searing beams that tore through the creature's torso, head, and legs. Each impact flashed like a miniature sunburst, splitting open its armor layer by layer.
Nathaniel dropped from above, flames trailing from his descent. His gauntlets ignited the moment he hit the ground, heat waves distorting the air around him. He grabbed the creature's head with both hands.
A jet of flame erupted from his palms. The blast was violent — molten, focused — incinerating the hybrid's head and antennae in an instant. The body convulsed before collapsing, steam and ash rising from the scorched exoskeleton.
The cavern went still.
Nathaniel stood over the remains, his chest heaving, the glow of Hellcharge still faint in his veins. Droplets of his blood dripped from his fingers, spattering across the creature's body. The liquid shimmered, reacting — the faint hum of liberated Ura resonating as the biome's core flickered into view, then dissolved into pure light.
He knelt, touching the blood now glowing softly against his skin. It pulsed once before being absorbed back into his body, leaving behind faint streaks of cyan across his arms.
A line of text rippled through his interface.
New Augment Acquired: peacock Mantis Sight – Enhanced Visual Perception. Compound Spectrum Awareness.
Nathaniel exhaled, eyes flaring briefly with layered color as the new perception settled in. The world bent and brightened — every detail sharpened, every motion alive with spectral clarity.
At first, it was intoxicating.
Then the pain hit.
His pupils contracted violently, and a sharp pulse ran through his skull. The colours fractured into chaotic halos, the cave spinning in a whirl of distorted light. He staggered, gripping his temple as a low groan escaped him.
It felt like his brain was being rewired in real time.
Shapes twisted into outlines he shouldn't be able to perceive — radiation trails, energy signatures, the faint shimmer of residual Ura bleeding from the fallen hybrid's remains. His sight was no longer bound to the visible spectrum; it shifted between wavelengths as though reality itself was flickering through filters.
He blinked hard, gasping, trying to stabilize the flood of data. The glow in his eyes staying a solod white as they did
It took him a moment to realize what was happening.
New cones were forming behind the old ones, each attuned to specific bands of light, each able to selectively activate or deactivate depending on the wavelength he focused on.
He clenched his jaw, breathing through the migraine. The world gradually steadied, settling into something his mind could tolerate — still hyper-vivid, still alive with impossible detail, but no longer tearing at the edges of his sanity.
Ria's voice cut through the static. "Nathaniel? You good?"
He looked at her — and for the first time, saw the faint currents of heat and energy flowing through her veins like streams of liquid light.
He smiled faintly, despite the pain."Yeah… my vision's swimming," he muttered, pressing a hand against his temple. "I must have a concussion."
Ria frowned, stepping closer, her glow dimming as she studied him. "You hit the ground pretty hard back there. You sure it's not something else?"
Nathaniel blinked a few times, trying to refocus. The world rippled, colors folding in on themselves before settling again. Even through the dizziness, faint traces of energy still danced in his sight — ultraviolet threads tracing the contours of the cave walls, infrared halos clinging to the others' bodies like ghosts of heat.
He forced a breath, forcing the sensations to dull. "It'll pass," he said, voice low, though part of him knew it wouldn't.
His gaze drifted back to the remains of the hybrid, the faint blue aura still evaporating from the charred shell. For just a second, the spectral overlay sharpened, revealing something pulsing beneath the surface — a fragment of the biome's essence fading into him.
Then it was gone.
He steadied himself, shoulders rolling, eyes still faintly glowing under the dim light."Let's get topside," he said finally. "Before the place collapses."