The room was a suffocating tomb.
It wasn't just old dust clinging to every rough-hewn concrete slab of the floor and ceiling; it was something heavier, a fine, stale particulate that tasted like pulverized copper and ozone.
The air was a thick, resistant soup that didn't move, didn't shift, and made every single breath feel like pulling a wet towel over your face.
This wasn't just poor ventilation; this was the residue of recent, violent energy manipulation, and everyone in this room knew it.
The crushing density of the atmosphere was centered entirely on one person, the one who didn't seem to notice the drag.
He walked with a casual, almost bored swagger through the gloom.
His name was Benny, and he was, to put it simply, a bastard—a powerful one, but a bastard nonetheless.
He was wearing a perfectly tailored black combat suit, untouched by the grit, carrying nothing but a look of profound, exhausted irritation.
He reached the center of the clearing, tossing his long, dark hair back with an unnecessary, dramatic flop of his wrist.
He was clearing his view, but there wasn't much to see except a pile of crumpled humanity lying on the grim, crimson-stained floor.
The pile was Kyle.
Benny stopped, looking down at the unmoving body like a man inspecting a particularly persistent stain.
He started humming under his breath, a low, tuneless baritone that cut through the chemical silence.
"If I were a devil, I won't be evil," he sang, his voice just loud enough to be heard. "And if I was weak, I wouldn't speak."
He stopped humming, the casual sound dropping away like a discarded shield, replaced by an unsettling focus.
His eyes, naturally a pale gray, began to twitch violently, the irises rapidly filling and bleeding out with a liquid, oily black substance.
This wasn't a show; this was his command interface booting up.
The energy in the room, previously dispersed, now snapped to attention, responding to the silent order.
In the micro-seconds that followed, the thick air began to give up its moisture.
Tiny, cold vapors—the ghost of the last attack—started condensing, not into mist, but into palpable, heavy beads that gathered on the walls, the ceiling, and the dust-coated floor.
It was hyper-condensation, an instantaneous gathering of water, and within a blink, a pool of water, five feet wide and shining like polished obsidian, had materialized right next to Kyle's unconscious form.
With a flinch of his wrist, a motion as slight as brushing a fly away, Benny commanded the water.
The pool didn't splash; it surged. It rose up like a solid black ribbon, instantly forming into a tight, deadly wave of water.
Before Kyle's body could even process the movement, the water solidified mid-arc, transforming into thousands of jagged, needle-sharp ice spikes.
The wave slammed Kyle's ragdoll body against the back concrete wall.
THUMP!!!!!!!
The impact was sickening—a deep, heavy sound that was more like a drumbeat than a crash.
The reinforced floor, already cracked from previous sessions, trembled and shivered, sending vibrations up Benny's sleek boots.
Kyle's head lolled, a thin trickle of new, dark blood joining the existing stains on the stone.
Benny sighed, the sound exaggerated, like a dad who had to come downstairs to tell his kids to quiet down for the tenth time
."You know what, Kyle," he said, addressing the motionless man below with a tone reserved for a particularly frustrating piece of code.
"Your damn mouth is the cause of this whole goddamn 'therapy' session.
You just can't shut up, can you, you stupid jerk?"He kicked a piece of detached concrete that had landed near his foot, sending it skittering into the dark.
"And yeah, you're lucky as hell that no poison works on you. Seriously,My job would be so much easier. I could just slip you a glass of something nasty and be done with it. But no. We have to do this song and dance, the whole damn routine."
Benny stepped closer, his voice dropping to a low, venomous growl.
"Do you know how many times I've done this? This is like the infinite time I've had to beat you, bully you, chase you into every corner of this facility.
It's not a thing I want to do, dumbass. I don't wake up thinking, 'Gee, I sure wanna abuse my stupid brother today.'"
He paced a half-circle around the pool of water, his hands clenching and unclenching.
"No, it's you. It's you. It's you, you pathetic, fucking maggot! You just refuse to break! You refuse to give up! You refuse to sign those goddamn papers and let us use you! That's why we have to do this 'therapy' every few days—just to see if we can grind your soul down to dust!"
As he spoke, he channeled his power again, but this time, he focused it downward.
Water from the floor and the air collected beneath his boots, creating a pair of slick hydro-jets.
With a low hiss, he propelled himself forward, skimming across the damp concrete like a speedboat on water.
He shot towards Kyle, simultaneously snapping his hands up.
The remaining pool of condensed water rocketed up into a dense, columnar mass.
With a final, furious gesture, Benny shaped it, solidifying it into the exact replica of an oversized, brutal broadsword.
It was pure, clear water, heavy and razor-edged.
Benny was only two feet from Kyle when he pulled the ultimate trick. He froze the weapon.
The water went from liquid to super-solid ice in a fraction of a second, making the broadsword infinitely denser and sharper than steel.
He slammed the ice sword forward. It didn't strike the wall; it pierced Kyle's chest.
The solid, crystalline blade went clean through the man's sternum, punching through flesh and bone, and continued deep into the stone wall behind him with a wet, grinding sound.
Benny held the grip for a moment, savoring the shuddering tension in the hilt. Then, with a satisfied snarl, he released his concentration.
The ice, deprived of his power, fractured instantly. It exploded into millions of microscopic, shimmering shards that vaporized into thin air.
Nothing remained but a large, ugly hole in the stone and an even larger, messier hole in Kyle's chest.
Benny swung his hand down, shaking off the few droplets of Kyle's blood that had splattered onto his suit—a gesture of fastidious disgust.
He waited for the satisfying flop, the final surrender.Instead, he heard a sound. It was weak, choked, and absolutely soaked in mockery.
A laugh.It was a hacking, rattling sound, mixed with the wet, gurgling cough of blood.
Kyle's head lifted just slightly off the wall."Hahaha… you old fool," Kyle wheezed, spitting a mouthful of crimson foam onto the floor.
His eyes, though unfocused and glazed with pain, were locked on his own arm, or rather, the faint, shimmering screen only he could see, a strange digital overlay that only his body's unique systems could project.
"Ha… hahahahah! I'm already dead, Benny!" he gasped, the words bubbling out.
"I've been dead for all the crap you and your family have done to me! This… this is just… Tuesday!"His eyes focused, catching on the text displayed on the shimmering, internal screen:
[SYSTEM ALERT: CRITICAL STRUCTURAL DAMAGE DETECTED]
[PROTOCOL : AUTO-REGENERATION WILL NOW COMMENCE]
A rush of cold, intense power erupted from the massive cavity in his chest.
It felt like being submerged in liquid nitrogen and then having that cold wash away every ounce of his pain, replacing it with raw, humming energy.
The ragged gap in his chest—the hole that should have killed him instantly—began to reshape, the torn skin and shattered ribs stitching themselves back together with horrific speed.
Muscle fibers knitted, blood vessels reformed, and the skin pulled taut, closing the cavernous wound in a matter of seconds until only a damp, raw scar remained.
He gasped, not in pain, but in the shock of recovery.Benny's confident grin, which had begun to form during Kyle's coughing fit, froze and twisted into a mask of pure, bitter hatred.
"Oh, I like your regeneration ability," Benny hissed, taking a slow step back, his hands trembling with rage.
"Because it makes beating you feel like actual, meaningful therapy for me. It means the frustration never ends.
"He spat on the floor. "But I fucking hate it. I hate that it forces me to be the villain every damn day. Just to beat you up, to bully you, to get a reaction. That regeneration of yours… it makes me sick, Kyle! It makes me feel like a useless puppet, doing the same stupid dance over and over!"
He took another step, his eyes flashing black again. "Won't you at least accept the damn conditions and sign the papers? Or just… die? Pick one! I hate you, you hear me? For making me sick… you fucking ma—"
He never finished the insult.His body went rigid. The internal dialogue that had been raging in his mind—the petty, venomous hatred—was instantly overwritten by something colder, heavier, and infinitely more primal.
Benny's black, focused eyes blew wide open in naked, unadulterated fear.
The floor didn't tremble this time. The whole structure of the abandoned facility simply groaned, a deep, resonant sound like two tectonic plates shifting against one another.
The dense air in the room, which Benny had been controlling moments ago, seemed to be forcibly inhaled, becoming impossibly light, then impossibly heavy again, cycling in rhythmic, terrifying pulses.
Kyle, who was still recovering from his forced regeneration, was also greeted by a series of emergency alerts on his internal system screen, the text flashing violently in an unfamiliar, ancient script:
[EXTERNAL INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
[WARNING: NEW DRAGON FREE SOUL DETECTED]
[ALERT! THE SOUL OF A STRONG DRAGON IS HERE!]
[SYSTEM FAILURE IMMINENT: SOUL FORCE ATTEMPTING TO ENTER YOUR BODY DUE TO LOW BIO-BARRIER INTEGRITY!]
[ERR]
[ERR]
[ACCESS GRANTED. HOST BODY INTEGRATION COMMENCING.]