Two days later.
The academy was quiet—not with peace, but with fear.
Sections of Xyprus remained under repair. Students were evacuated to offsite campuses. Medical drones patrolled corridors. Holoscreens broadcast only neutral updates. No combat. No tournaments.
No Damien.
Infirmary Wing – Mila Evermeere's Recovery
The room hummed with low lighting and monitoring drones. Mila lay in bed, chest wrapped in nanoweave bandages. Her vitals were stable. Her mind? Restless.
She'd seen it. All of it.
The fury. The power. The man she called a friend becoming something terrifying.
"He moved like he wasn't human," a nurse whispered in the hallway.
Mila turned her head.
No.
He moved like someone who had nothing left to hide.
Xyprus Detention Sector – Level 6, Restricted Access
Damien sat alone in a reinforced observation room. No chains. No guards. But his very presence had cleared the entire floor.
Across from him sat Director Lucien Varr, head of planetary combat oversight.
The man's voice was cold, clinical.
"Twelve bodies. Three unrecognizable. Security AI disabled. Emergency systems breached."
Damien said nothing.
"And you. With no augmentation. No fusion. No exo-frame. You ended it in under four minutes."
Still, silence.
Varr leaned forward.
"You crossed a line."
Finally, Damien spoke.
"They came to take me."
"And you responded with lethal force in an academic zone."
"They blew up a campus and nearly killed my friend."
"You could've restrained—"
Damien's eyes glinted gold.
"They weren't there to be restrained."
Varr slid a datapad across the table. On it, blurry footage from 17 years ago: a shadowy figure tearing through a Null Sanctum lab—subject 000's escape.
"This… is your father, isn't it?"
Damien's jaw clenched.
"We've had theories. Reports. But never confirmation. Subject 000 wasn't a test subject. He was a prototype—a living weapon. He escaped. Vanished. And now… you."
"Same anomaly. Same unpredictability. Same fear."
Damien stood slowly.
"So what now?""You lock me up? Label me dangerous? Treat me like him?"
Varr's face was unreadable.
"You're too dangerous to ignore. Too powerful to control. You either join the system, or you threaten it by existing."
Outside the room, Mila limped through the hallway with clearance given by one of the faculty scientists she'd impressed.
She stopped outside the observation window. Looked at Damien.
He looked so calm. But she'd never seen eyes so loud with pain.
Elsewhere… in the Black Systems of Null Sanctum
Footage from the attack streamed silently.
A new voice spoke:
"He's awakening. Bloodlines don't lie."
Another responded:
"What of his mother?"
"Disposable. She played her role. The boy's real value isn't just strength."
"Then what?"
"The Starborn wasn't just bred for war. He was bred to choose."
Damien was released.
No charges filed. No media coverage.Only eyes. Watching.
Students no longer stared in awe. They stared in terror. Or envy.
But Damien didn't care anymore.
He walked back to Mila's room. She sat up, waiting.
No words at first. Only a long silence between them.
Finally, she said:
"Next time you disappear, I'm punching you in the throat."
He gave a tired smile.
"I'll deserve it."
But outside those walls… the world had changed.
Null Sanctum had declared war—silently.Governments were divided: protect Damien, use him, or fear him.The name "Thorne" was no longer just an anomaly.
It was a warning.