The first crimson droplet sizzled against Luso's mechanical forearm.
She crouched beneath the wrecked armored vehicle, her night-vision lens flashing red warnings. Three adult Corroders moved through the ruins ahead, their backward-jointed limbs clicking against concrete.
"Targets at fifty meters," Luso whispered into her comm. Her fingers brushed the segmented chainblade at her waist—its serrated edges humming with barely-contained energy.
Static crackled before Qilo's calm voice responded: *"Retreat advised. Cellular assimilation at 37%."*
Luso licked cracked lips. The old wound on her left shoulder burned—the scar now a lattice of pulsating purple veins beneath her skin.
"Not yet."
The lead Corroder froze. Its faceless head swiveled, the flesh splitting vertically to reveal a cross-shaped maw.
**SCREEE—**
The shriek shattered nearby glass. Luso's augmented right eye auto-tracked the creature's lunge, her body moving before conscious thought.
*First Rule of the Wastes: Hesitation is death.*
Her chainblade whiplashed upward, severing the Corroder's arm mid-leap. Black ichor sprayed—but the dismembered limb *twisted* in air, bone spikes regenerating into new blades.
"Qilo! These are *evolved* variants—"
The comm exploded with static. Luso rolled as the other two Corroders flanked her, their movements eerily synchronized. One's ribcage split open, revealing tendrils that lashed toward her face.
*Too close.*
She let the writhing filaments graze her cheek.
**FIRE ERUPTED IN HER VEINS.**
The Corroder's shriek turned panicked as its own tendrils blackened—vital fluids reversing flow *into* Luso's pores. Her vision overlaid with crimson diagnostics:
[Muscle density +18%]
[Corrosive resistance upgraded]
[Assimilation: 39%]
"T-thief!" The Corroder's voice was disturbingly human as its body desiccated. "You *steal*—"
Luso wrenched the chainblade sideways. "Like you didn't steal *their* lives?" She kicked the shriveling corpse toward the half-eaten civilian corpses nearby.
The remaining Corroders attacked in tandem. Luso barely dodged a bone-spear through her thigh—
**CRACK.**
A sniper round obliterated one creature's skull. Luso knew that ballistic signature anywhere.
*Military-issue.*
She turned to see five armored figures rappelling from a gunship. The leader's visor retracted, revealing a face from her past: *Lin Xia—* her former academy rival, now wearing a Major's insignia.
"Luso Zhe." Lin's rifle stayed trained on her. "By order of the New Beijing Council, you're hereby designated *Catastrophe-Class Threat.*"
Luso laughed, wiping black blood from her lips. "Took you long enough."
The gunship's floodlights illuminated the ruins—and the small, trembling figure behind Lin. A child in a tattered white dress, her neck clamped with a glowing collar.
*Experiment subject.*
Lin followed Luso's gaze. "This doesn't concern you, *Devourer.*"
Luso's chainblade reconfigured into a double-edged glaive. Her right eye's HUD flashed:
[Assimilation threshold: 42%]
[WARNING: Morphological instability detected]
"Funny," she said, rolling her newly-blackened shoulders. "*Everything* here concerns me."
The child's collar beeped—initiating countdown.