**Chapter 12: Arc Cut**
Forging is a quiet thing. You'd expect fire and hammering to be the loudest parts—but it's the silence between strikes that echoes longest. That was the first thing I noticed when Vakill teleported in.
The ground shimmered where he appeared, reality folding like silk. I sat alone beside a small fire in the foothills of the Razek Ridges, trying to heat some broth. It was pointless—the air was too thin, the wind too sharp. I didn't even flinch as the air cracked beside me.
"You look like hell," Vakill said, dropping his pack with a thud.
"You missed the part where hell froze over," I muttered.
He glanced at the makeshift lean-to behind me where Beteraxe was charging its Hypershield Mode, humming faintly in the night. "I brought what you asked. And more. We've got forging to do—and theories to settle. Eastborn's not going to wait for us."
Vakill's armor clanked softly as he unpacked a dozen vials of aurichalcum dust, a precision forge-stamp, slabs of enchanted mythril-steel, and one crucial component: Lucien's anatomical core map, encoded from the remnants of his preserved ribcage. I laid Reflamax on the forge slab—too big, too slow. It had served as a brute-force executioner's blade, but I needed something smarter now.
"It's time Reflamax was reborn," I said.
---
We worked in relentless shifts across thirty-four hours. The mountains above us howled with wind and time. Using precision alignment tools and my pulse frequency as a guide, we reforged Reflamax into a new form: **Reflamax II**—slimmer, faster, its plasma-core synced to my neuro-electric rhythm. It could shift its center of mass mid-strike. It learned how I moved.
While the blade rested, we turned our attention to **Beteraxe**, my primary weapon. The compact tungsten-alloy forearm device wasn't just a guard—it was a modular weapon system. It had five adaptable combat modes: **Shield**, **Shortsword (main attack mode)**, **Saber**, **Rapier**, and **Hypershield**.
Vakill added an upgrade to integrate **Shitstorm7**, a devastating arm-mounted gun installed on the armor's forearm. It delivered concussive, armor-penetrating bursts designed for close-quarters disruption and ranged suppression alike. Controlled by pulse-tensioned finger triggers and guided by biometric ID locks, it was the last thing any enemy would see.
The power drain was immense. Even with my Starcore-enhanced physiology, full Overclock Mode on the armor could only be maintained for three hours. Energy-Saving Mode, however, allowed prolonged operation—weeks, if needed—because the drain was slower than the Starcore's regenerative throughput.
Normal humans couldn't use the armor for long. The **capacitor system**, powered by pain conversion and stored biological energy, would fail. Even Lucien couldn't sustain the Overclock more than a day.
But I wasn't Lucien. I **was** Lucien—his body, reforged and driven by something else.
---
"Kazakov's swordplay," I began, "isn't just speed. It's anatomical warfare."
Vakill nodded. "Flash Cut. I've seen the aftermath. Cuts that shouldn't be possible. Like he predicts matter's next position."
"Because he doesn't just cut through space," I said. "He cuts through time. Flash Cut uses **Body Recognition Techniques**—not just muscle memory, but cellular memory. It's a curse from the Veyrax bloodline."
Vakill paused. "You mean... the royal curse?"
"Yes. Lucien's descendants mutated. The Starcore embedded in Lucien's chest created a genetic anomaly. Their bodies mimicked its regenerative capacity, developing **manual anatomical manipulation**. They can remember their perfect internal state—then rebuild it."
"Healing through memory," Vakill whispered.
"They regenerate 5–20 times faster than humans by default. But **Veyrax II** formalized the method. Then **Kazakov** perfected it—he concentrated power with **pinpoint burst regeneration**. He'd store pain in a biological 'capacitor.' Like a battery."
"And if that capacitor empties?"
"Then he's done. No abilities until he receives blood from a genetically matched relative to reset the frequency. But if he has even 10% left, his body refuels itself—slowly."
Vakill's eyes flicked toward the forge. "And you?"
"I don't have a capacitor. I don't need one."
---
I use Lucien's body.
The **original Starcore** is embedded in my chest. Not a mimic. Not a mutation. A physical, stellar singularity bound by artificial stabilization. It fuels me endlessly. My regenerative capacity is **infinite**. No bloodline tether. No pain-to-power limit. No downtime.
That's why I could match Kazakov.
---
Lucien's tomb. Eastborn ruins. Our duel split sky and stone.
His Flash Cuts were impossibly fast—lines of vacuum slicing oxygen itself. But I had studied him. Lost to him. And I built a counter: **Arc Cut**.
Arc Cut isn't linear. It doesn't oppose. It pivots.
When Kazakov strikes, he aligns his energy to one plane of matter. Arc Cut reads that trajectory, then uses **curved torsion**, gravitational pull, and anatomical vibration frequencies to **wrap** the motion—like a ribbon spinning around a bullet—and redirects the strike into harmless misalignment.
It's more than a dodge. It's a redirection engine.
My blade curved into a crescent, synced with Reflamax II's resonance core. I stepped sideways, let the inertia pass, and sliced across his exposed flank mid-motion.
He staggered. Then smiled.
"You don't stop me. You dance with inevitability."
"And turn inevitability inside out," I said.
---
Kazakov disappeared into the winds.
Vakill and I headed west. He wore his usual half-cape over reinforced alloy plates. I walked inside my new suit: **adaptive high-gravity armor**, built from mythril fibers and celestial silk. The armor wasn't just light; it was alive.
Linked to my neural net via embedded **biosensors**, the armor read my regenerative pulses from the Starcore and adjusted internal pressures. It regulated blood flow, shifted weight, and minimized muscular strain. It synced with **Body Recognition** itself, like a second skin with intent.
This wasn't just protection—it was augmentation.
As we crossed the Howling Pass, we paused by a broken tower. Night fell, and I watched the stars spin too fast.
I ran a combat sim. Arc Cut versus Flash Cut.
Overlayed angles. Predicted mass-density displacements. A plan began to take shape—**Arc Deflection**. A layered expansion of Arc Cut that turned Kazakov's pinpoint strikes into his own weakness.
Vakill returned with cooked ration cubes and sat beside me. "You ever think you're becoming more machine than man?"
I looked at my hands. "No. I think I'm becoming what Lucien was meant to be."
---
Chapter 12, Part 3: Failed Memory
The forge cooled. The lab dimmed. I sat alone in the suspension rig, electrodes buried in spine and skull, neural bands syncing directly to the Starcore embedded in my chest.
I'd fought Kazakov and survived. Matched Flash Cut with Arc Cut. Outbuilt Eastborn with Element Shift.
But if I was going to win the war, I had to master the one thing Kazakov had perfected: Body Recognition.
---
The Veyrax bloodline called it a curse. I called it a cheat code written in flesh.
Descendants of Lucien didn't just heal—they remembered what wholeness felt like. Every cell was a historian. Every bone a blueprint.
When they were injured, they simply recalled the shape of their perfect self. The body rewound, rebuilt, remade.
But I wasn't a descendant.
I was something else.
---
Three hours into my training, I hadn't regrown a scratch.
Every time I concentrated, my neural link to the Starcore jittered—like a skipped heartbeat in a foreign body. I bled slower than a human, healed faster than one. But instant regeneration? Burst rebirth? The kind Kazakov used to regrow limbs in seconds?
Nothing.
Vakill watched the readouts. "You're forcing it. That technique—it's not native to you."
"I'm using Lucien's body," I growled.
"But you're not Lucien. And you're not his descendant. That's the difference."
---
I slammed my fist into the wall. The alloy groaned.
"The Veyrax descendants," Vakill said quietly, "their bodies mimic the Starcore. Their biology evolved around it—like the core was always meant to be there. But your Starcore? It's not part of your blood. It's implanted. Artificial. Your flesh doesn't understand it."
"My mind does."
"But this technique isn't in your mind. It's in your cells. In your ancestry. You're piloting a god's engine from the outside."
---
That night, I tried again.
I opened old wounds. A knife across the thigh. A dislocated thumb. Microneedle lacerations across the ribs.
Nothing.
No burst. No flash-heal. Only the slow, reliable hum of the Starcore's passive regeneration—effective, but not instantaneous. Not enough to win.
---
I recorded one note before collapsing into the regen-pod:
The body remembers. Mine never knew. That's the difference between power and inheritance.
---
I gave up.
Not on the war. Not on survival.
But on Body Recognition.
The healing technique of Veyrax's bloodline wasn't mine to master. No matter how deep I reached into the Starcore, no matter how many sync lines I injected into my nervous system, the results were the same: failure.
Lucien's body wasn't rejecting me—but it didn't accept me either.
The core was an engine. But I wasn't its architect. I was its thief.
So I stopped trying to be something I wasn't.
And I leaned into what I was.
---
Material Hardening.
The moment I turned away from regenerative mimicry, I felt a shift—not in my body, but in my instinct. I couldn't heal like Kazakov. But I could harden like no one else.
He used it in quick bursts—blades of muscle-tension, skin like steel for one blink. But my control over the Starcore's magnetic lattice was deeper. Not cellular memory, but atomic direction.
I could shape the density of my body on command. Bend the periodic essence of flesh into weapon.
Bone to tungsten. Skin to ceramic. Muscle to pressurized fibersteel. I didn't need a sword—I was one.
---
It started with my fists.
At first, I could only manage a quick flick—one knuckle dense enough to break a brick, then soft again to avoid recoil. But after three days of intense control training, I could switch between soft and hard in under 0.2 seconds. Whole limbs became armored. My chest could withstand a rail spike.
Then I combined it with movement.
I sharpened my kneecaps into piercing points mid-leap. Elbows turned into blunt-force battering rams. I hardened my back during rolls so I could bounce off walls like a cannonball.
The body became a blade. The enemy became pulp.
---
Vakill ran the diagnostics.
"You're pushing your limits."
"Good."
"No, I mean... this isn't something even Kazakov can do. This isn't just hardening. This is weaponizing anatomy."
"I don't need to heal what never breaks."
Vakill grinned. "You're becoming monstrous."
"I'm becoming efficient."
---
And then I took it one step further.
I learned to concentrate all my hardening into micro-points—just the tips of two fingers. On contact, they carried the mass and hardness of a sledgehammer compressed into a dime-sized strike.
I could break necks with a poke. Fracture skulls with a flick.
Where healing was passive, this was tactical.
Where regeneration took time, this was immediate.
---
The Starcore pulsed in my chest—not in rebellion, but in acceptance.
This wasn't Lucien's method. This was mine.
---
We were two days from Lowmarch when the sky cracked.
It wasn't thunder. Not wind. Something worse.
Vakill froze mid-step, his foot hanging above a patch of ice. "Kael... you feel that?"
I felt it. The Starcore in my chest shuddered—not in fear, but in warning.
"They're here," I said.
---
Eastborn's Warhounds came first. Not soldiers. Not even machines. They were liminal constructs—part flesh, part code. Their shapes flickered between shadow and solid matter, like glitches in reality. Wrapped in magnetized bone, they used echolocation that shredded neural rhythm.
Vakill activated his left gauntlet—mirror ward deployed.
I didn't bother. I stepped forward, hardened my shins to titanium-fold, and kicked straight through the first Warhound's jaw. The head spun off into mist. Another lunged. My elbow struck its temple, timed with a microsecond density spike.
The beast folded like a punctured drum.
---
But that was just the opening.
The ambush began proper when the mountain ridge collapsed.
It wasn't a landslide. It was precision demolition—an Eastborn tactic. They didn't attack directly. They remade the battlefield into a weapon.
A glyph tower detonated near the cliff's edge, sending a shockwave that fractured the path we stood on. Vakill dropped, stabbed his blade into the stone to hold himself. I didn't fall.
I launched forward.
The Starcore surged. My calves hardened into spring-forged columns, and I cleared the collapsing ridge, landing in the crater where the Eastborn commander waited.
He was already drawing.
---
Flashsteel blade. Cloaked armor. Mind-sync helmet.
But I saw the rhythm in his movement.
Too fast. Too elegant. Too Kazakov.
This wasn't just any Eastborn operative.
This was a Clone Variant—spliced with Kazakov's neural combat patterns, trained in ghost motion, equipped with predictive AI rigging. But it wasn't perfect. It couldn't adapt mid-sequence. It didn't think. It only executed.
I gave it something it couldn't process:
Nonlinear force.
I stepped into its first slash, twisted my ribcage, and hardened my forearm mid-block. The sword struck bone and bent. While it staggered, I grabbed the clone's chestplate, overcharged my palm with kinetic weight, and imploded its heart cavity with one punch.
The armor collapsed into itself.
No scream. No blood. Just steam.
---
Vakill dropped beside me a second later. "They're testing you."
"They're wasting their time."
"No, Kael. They're watching."
---
High above, through the black clouds, a shape hovered.
No wings. No exhaust. Just presence.
A specter in silence.
Kazakov.
Not attacking. Just observing.
I raised my hand in mock salute.
He didn't return it.
He simply turned—and vanished into the storm.
---