Alarm blared through the dormitory, a shrill, mechanical howl that sliced through the silence of pre-dawn. In the dim light of early morning, rows of bunks came alive as bodies stirred, moaned, and scrambled to readiness.
Seventeen-year-old Kael Riven was already awake.
He sat on the edge of his bunk, feet bare against the cold stone floor, staring at the faded emblem etched into the wall across from him. A red spiral coiled inward like a snake devouring its own tail ,the mark of GenCore, the omnipotent corporate-military regime that ruled over every remaining habitable zone on Earth.
"Everyone up! Genetic Trials begin in twenty minutes!" barked a voice from the loudspeaker above, gravel-thick with command.
A boy to Kael's left groaned. "Trials, again? They're culling us early this year."
Kael didn't answer. He tied the laces of his worn boots and reached for the data band wrapped around his wrist. The old device flickered with faded blue light, the screen cracked at the edge. It showed his genetic profile:
> Subject ID: 7-KR12-13
> Gene Rank: Null
> Mutation Potential: Unlocked (Dormant)
> Overlord Compatibility: Unknown
Null. Like always.
In this world, your gene rank wasn't just a number it was your fate. Since the Great Collapse, when the Bio-War reshaped Earth's ecosystem into a jungle of predatory lifeforms, survival had become impossible for anyone without a genetically augmented body. Now, every child underwent Genetic Trials at age 17. If your genes were strong if you could merge with a core beast and awaken a combat genome—you'd be drafted into the Ascendant Corps.
If not, you were conscripted to the Pits.
Kael stood, tall but lean, shoulders wiry with the edge of constant hunger. His face was unremarkable pale skin, dark eyes, unkempt hair but his gaze was too sharp for someone with a Null gene. He slipped silently through the crowd toward the steel exit doors as they hissed open.
Outside, the air was thick with ash and humidity. Above, the sky was a stormy blend of orange and gray, split by the distant roars of rift serpents that coiled between crumbling skyscrapers like ghosts of a forgotten age.
"Form up!" Sergeant Bren's voice cracked through the open courtyard. His battle-scarred armor bore the stripes of a Silver Rank genome user, marked by the stylized insignia of a Gravemaw Hound fused to his chestplate. Behind him stood a truck-sized beast encased in bio-tech armor, its eyes glowing with violent intelligence.
One by one, the candidates lined up before a glowing obelisk (the Gene Stone) a towering shard of living crystal retrieved from the depths of the Rupture Zone. It pulsed with silent menace, whispering in frequencies only the gifted could hear.
"Step forward. Place your hand on the Stone."
One after another, the students approached. The Stone lit with bright green for those who had potential Rank F or above. For the unlucky, it remained dull, dark, dead.
Kael watched as two of his dorm-mates were called.
Tara Yen (Rank E), compatible with Fire-Tiger Genome. Accepted. Applause. She walked toward the Ascendant side, eyes wide with hope.
Joren Flint (Null). No reaction. A beat of silence. Then two guards stepped forward and escorted him to the Pit side. No eye contact. No words.
Then: "Subject 7-KR12-13. Kael Riven. Step forward."
Kael stepped toward the Gene Stone.
He pressed his hand to the cold crystal.
For a long moment… nothing.
A murmur ran through the crowd. Sergeant Bren tapped his comm, about to log another failure.
Then the Gene Stone pulsed once.
A deep, blood-red pulse. The ground shook. The air turned electric. Everyone froze.
"What the hell was that?" someone whispered.
The Stone erupted with energy, lines of ancient script glowing in patterns no one recognized except for the AI embedded in the scanning unit, which immediately triggered a Level 9 Alert.
> Subject Detected: Overlord Potential (Class Ω)
> Warning: Undefined genome signature. Possible divergence.
> Core Link: Incompatible. Initiate manual override? [Y/N]
Bren's eyes narrowed. "Override denied. Lock it down."
Too late.
The Stone flared again, this time bathing Kael in blinding red light. He staggered back, eyes wide, veins glowing under his skin. Something burned into his chest like a brand ancient, spiraled, alive. The same emblem as the wall in the dormitory.
The red spiral.
Kael collapsed to one knee, gasping. Inside his body, he felt… something shift. Bones? No. It was deeper. His code was changing. Not just awakened but rewritten. This wasn't a core fusion. This was something else.
Something older.
Then, everything went black.
---
When Kael woke, he was in a containment cell cold steel walls, surveillance drones hovering above.
A voice echoed from a speaker embedded in the wall. "Subject 7-KR12-13. You are no longer classified as Null. Your genome exhibits a dormant trait previously unrecorded. Overlord Class potential. You are to be transferred to Black Sector for further analysis."
Kael sat up slowly. His vision flickered brief images of ruins, creatures of molten bone, and thrones made from DNA strands flashed in his mind like a dream too vivid to forget.
"What the hell happened to me?" he muttered.
Another voice spoke now female, calm, precise. "You bonded with an extinct genome. One we thought was eradicated after the last Overlord War."
"Overlord War?"
"You'll understand in time. Or you won't. Either way, you're a threat now. And threats don't get choices."
A door hissed open. Two armored guards entered. One pointed a stun-baton at Kael's chest.
"Get up, anomaly. Welcome to the bottom."
Later That Night…
Deep below GenCore's Black Sector, Kael sat chained inside an energy-nullifying chamber. His mind buzzed with unfamiliar instincts. He could feel the presence of living organisms even through layers of concrete and metal. Their heartbeats. Their genetic codes. He could see it all threads of life.
And in the silence of the chamber, something called to him.
A voice. Not human.
Not exactly.
"Awaken, Heir of the Spiral. Your gene is not to be ranked. It is to rule."
Kael's chains cracked, sparks flying.
His eyes began to glow red, like the spiral.
---
End of Chapter 1