The sound wasn't thunder.
It was the planet exhaling in terror.
Eden-9's upper atmosphere burned as the first Ruinborn tore through it. The creature was a knot of black lattice and molten veins, folding and unfolding itself faster than sight could track. It didn't fly. It existed forward.
Sera felt it arrive before the alarms blared. Her implant went silent, like the machine part of her knew better than to speak during prayer.
Neural load 72.4%. Growth stable.
Stable. For now.
She turned to her students. "Containment isn't possible. You know that."
Ryn's facets dimmed. "Containment is a polite word for denial."
Kael stepped forward, calm as ever. "You can reach it. You've seen its pattern already."
Tava's tail lashed. "Reach it? That thing eats patterns."
Morthen's mask hissed. "It eats everything. Especially the smart ones."
Sera smiled without warmth. "Then it'll choke."
Outside the Academy Dome
The Bureau fleet opened fire—energy beams bright enough to carve mountains. They hit the Ruinborn's skin and vanished, the light absorbed like it was being swallowed by water. The creature tilted its head as if curious, then opened.
The sky folded. Three Bureau cruisers disappeared, their hulls imploding into thin lines before bursting into fractal mist.
The city began to scream.
Sera stepped into the rain. The metallic drops hissed against her skin, evaporating before they touched her.
Her coat burned away in neat squares, her ability rewriting its molecular structure into armor that rippled like living glass.
Kael's voice came over the comm. "Your vitals are off the charts. You're going to burn yourself out."
"I've burned worse," she said.
She looked up at the Ruinborn. Its body was made of sound and nightmare. Around it, gravity warped—streets lifting like ribbons.
Adaptation event detected.
Neural load 81.9%.
Cognitive boundaries expanding.
The creature saw her.
The air vanished. Every molecule around her froze in reverence or fear. She felt its mind—an orchestra of hunger, a thousand voices begging to consume and become.
And then, against all probability, it hesitated.
Something inside the Ruinborn recognized her growth signature. Recognition turned into reflection. The creature folded closer, lowering itself until its thousand eyes mirrored her shape.
Ryn's voice cut through the comm. "It's mimicking you."
"Good," Sera said. "That means it understands competition."
She moved.
No weapon—just momentum. Her ability folded space like silk, dragging her forward faster than time allowed. The moment her hand touched the Ruinborn's surface, she saw everything: the structure of its cells, the code of its endless replication.
Her growth factor screamed in delight.
Assimilation pathway unlocked.
She poured data back into it—her own chaotic evolution, her defiance, her will.
The Ruinborn convulsed. Its geometry twisted, screamed, and began to copy her instead of the other way around.
From orbit, the Bureau fleet saw something they couldn't name.
A human figure, small as a spark, standing before a monster the size of a mountain—
and the monster changed color.
Black veins became white. Its roar turned inward. For the first time in recorded history, a Ruinborn broke pattern and stopped.
Back in the academy control room, Kael's eyes rolled white as he processed the feedback stream.
"She's winning," he whispered.
Morthen's voice was a rumble. "Define winning."
"She's teaching it how to evolve."
Iri opened her eyes, black irises flaring. "Then she's teaching the galaxy to fear her."
On the battlefield, Sera felt her body dissolve and rebuild. Muscles re-stitched into energy; her shadow stretched into light. She wasn't human anymore, not by any stable measure.
When the Ruinborn finally collapsed, it didn't die. It bent knee.
The rain turned to steam. The sky glowed white.
Sera stood there, bare-skinned, luminous, trembling—not from weakness, but from the sudden silence.
Adaptation complete. Neural load 99.7%.
Warning: Self-concept divergence imminent.
Kael's voice crackled in her ear. "Professor?"
She smiled faintly. "Still here."
He hesitated. "What did you do to it?"
"Gave it homework."
The line went dead.
Orbit, Bureau Command Ship
Director Voss watched the feed in silence. Around him, the other officers muttered disbelief.
"She… made it kneel."
Voss didn't answer. He watched the creature below—the white-veined Ruinborn, now silent, waiting like a student before its teacher.
He turned to his aide.
"Put out a sector-wide lock on Vance. She's no longer classified as human. She's an emerging class-zero entity."
"What's the codename, sir?"
Voss stared at the screen.
"Helios Break."
On Eden-9, Sera looked up at the sky.
Her students appeared behind her one by one, shadows stretching long in the fading storm.
Kael asked quietly, "What now, Professor?"
She looked at her hands, glowing with the remnants of creation and destruction.
"Now," she said, "we see who comes to learn next."