The descent into Sector 5 was not an elevator ride; it was a drop into a grave.
Varian sat in the back of a heavily armored prisoner transport, his wrists bound by magnetic cuffs that hummed with a headache-inducing frequency. Beside him sat Gorgon, hunched over, his massive stone frame barely fitting on the bench.
They weren't wearing disguises. They were wearing rags.
"Stop squirming," a guard shouted through the grate, jamming a shock baton against Gorgon's ribs. ZAP.
Gorgon grunted but didn't fight back. "This itches," he whispered to Varian. "And I feel... empty."
"It's the Soul Dampeners," Varian murmured, leaning his head against the cold metal wall. "We entered the field range ten minutes ago. It suppresses the connection to the Symbiote. Onyx is asleep."
Varian closed his eyes. It was a terrifying sensation. For months, he had lived with the constant, low-level buzz of Onyx in his mind and the warm hum of the Solar Core in his gut. Now, there was only silence. He felt cold. He felt human.
But this was the only way in.
Lady Venom had turned them in. She walked into the bounty office in the Rust-Jungle, claimed to be a freelance hunter named "Widow," and collected two million credits for the capture of "The Golem" and "The Scavenger." It funded the Legion and bought Varian a ticket to the most secure facility on the planet.
The Pit.
The transport lurched to a halt. The rear doors hissed open.
They were dragged out onto a landing pad suspended over a black void. Above them, the smog of the Industrial Belt was a distant gray ceiling. Below them... nothing but darkness and the sound of distant, grinding machinery.
[Genetic Archivist Scan... Failed.][System Error: Neural Link Disrupted.][Passive Mode Only.]
Varian grimaced. Even his chip was struggling against the interference.
"Move it, trash!"
A drone—a floating sphere with a stun-gun—zapped Varian's neck.
They were herded through massive blast doors into the processing center.
Welcome to General Population
The Pit didn't have cells with bars. It had "Blocks."
Block C was a massive, cylindrical shaft lined with honeycomb-like pods. There were no walkways, only gravity-lifts in the center. The prisoners roamed the floor of the shaft—a concrete circle filled with sweat, blood, and tension.
Varian and Gorgon were shoved onto the floor. The blast doors slammed shut above them.
"Fresh meat!" someone shouted.
Varian stood up, rubbing his wrists. The magnetic cuffs were gone, replaced by a heavy iron collar.
[Item: Suppression Collar.][Effect: Neutralizes Soul Energy. Active Shock Protocol if heart rate exceeds 180 BPM.]
Varian scanned the yard.
There were hundreds of them. Mutants, failed experiments, political dissidents. Some had extra limbs; others had skin made of bark or scales. But all of them looked weak. The Dampeners stripped them of their magic, leaving them as nothing more than physical freaks.
"Stick close," Varian whispered to Gorgon. "We need to find out where they keep The Architect."
"We stick out," Gorgon noted. Even suppressed, he was a seven-foot monster of granite.
A group of prisoners approached. They were led by a man with a jaw made of rusted iron—a cog-lord enforcer who had likely been here for years.
"That's a lot of rock," the Iron-Jaw man sneered, tapping Gorgon's chest. "But in here, rock doesn't float. You pay the tax, or you bleed."
"We have nothing," Varian stepped in front of Gorgon.
"You have teeth," the man grinned. "I collect teeth."
He pulled a shiv made from a sharpened toothbrush handle.
Varian didn't have Onyx. He didn't have the Sun-Piercer. He didn't have heat.
But he had Biology.
His muscles had been reinforced by the Symbiote for months. His bones were dense from the Titan Blood residue.
Varian didn't wait for the shiv. He lunged.
He caught the man's wrist with his left hand.
CRACK.
Varian squeezed. Without the Symbiote, his grip strength wasn't supernatural, but it was crushing. He broke the man's radius bone.
"Argh!" The man dropped the shiv.
Varian headbutted him. THUD.
The man collapsed, nose shattered.
The other prisoners froze. They expected magic. They expected powers. They didn't expect a skinny kid to brawl like a berserker.
"Anyone else want to play dentist?" Varian asked, wiping blood from his forehead.
The circle widened.
"You got a name, kid?" an old prisoner asked from the shadows.
"Ash," Varian lied. "Where do they keep the High-Value Assets? The ones the Union is scared of."
The old man laughed wheezily. "Assets? You mean the Monsters? They're in The Hole. Sector Zero. Bottom of the Pit. But you don't want to go there. No one comes back from the Hole."
"How do I get sent there?"
"You kill a guard."
"There are no guards," Varian pointed to the drones hovering silently overhead. "Only machines."
"Then you make a riot," the old man grinned. "Big enough that the Warden has to wake up."
The Riot of Block C
Varian sat with Gorgon in the corner of the block.
"I can't start a riot," Gorgon whispered. "If I go berserk, the collar will shock me to death. Heart rate limit."
"I know," Varian said. "We don't need rage. We need leverage."
He looked at the central gravity-lift. It was a beam of blue light that carried food crates down from the ceiling.
"That beam," Varian noted. "It's a localized anti-gravity field. If we disrupt the emitter..."
"The food stops coming," Gorgon finished. "And hungry prisoners get angry."
"Exactly. Lift me up."
Gorgon cupped his massive hands. Varian stepped into them.
"Heave!"
Gorgon launched Varian into the air.
Varian soared twenty feet up, grabbing onto the maintenance railing of the gravity emitter.
"Warning. Prisoner in unauthorized zone," a drone blared, swooping down.
Varian didn't fight the drone. He jumped onto it.
He weighed 180 pounds of dense muscle. The drone dipped under his weight. Varian jammed the shiv he had stolen into the drone's rotor.
CRUNCH.
The drone spiraled out of control. Varian rode it like a rodeo bull.
"Aim for the emitter!" Varian yelled.
He steered the crashing drone directly into the blue light projector in the center of the shaft.
BOOOOM.
The drone exploded on impact. The blue gravity beam flickered and died. A crate of nutrient paste that was descending plummeted fifty feet and splattered all over the floor of Block C.
"FOOD FIGHT!" someone screamed.
Chaos erupted. The prisoners, deprived of their meal, turned on each other and the remaining drones.
Sirens wailed. Red lights flashed.
[Alert. Riot in Block C. Suppression Protocol Initiated.]
The blast doors at the bottom of the shaft—the ones leading deeper—hissed open.
A squad of Suppression Droids flew out. But behind them walked a man.
He wore a black Union uniform. He had no face—just a smooth, glass visor. He held a stun-baton that crackled with purple energy.
The Warden.
"Who broke my lift?" The Warden's voice was amplified, calm and terrifying.
Varian dropped from the wreckage of the emitter, landing in the center of the room. He raised his hands.
"I did," Varian said. "Block C has bad service. I want a room upgrade."
The Warden tilted his head. He didn't stun Varian. He walked up to him.
"You want the Hole, boy? You think you're tough?"
The Warden touched Varian's chest with the baton.
ZAP.
Varian's world turned white. The pain was agonizing—it felt like his nerves were being pulled out of his skin. He collapsed, convulsing.
"Take him to Sector Zero," the Warden ordered the droids. "Let the Architect have a new plaything."
Gorgon roared, trying to reach him, but a containment foam grenade exploded in his face, gluing him to the wall.
"Don't worry, rock," Varian wheezed as the droids dragged him away. "I'll be back."
Sector Zero: The Hole
Varian woke up in darkness.
It wasn't just dark; it was absolute. No light. No sound. The air was cold and smelled of old ink.
He was in a glass cell.
"Hello?" Varian rasped.
"Quiet," a voice whispered. "You'll interrupt the equation."
Varian sat up. He pressed his face against the glass.
In the cell next to him—illuminated by faint, glowing scribbles on the walls—was an old man.
He had wild white hair and a beard that reached his waist. He was naked, his body covered in tattoos of mathematical formulas. He was scratching the glass with a piece of bone, muttering numbers.
[Genetic Archivist Passive Scan.][Subject: Human (Unmodified).][Identity: Dr. Aris Thorne. Alias: The Architect.]
"Dr. Thorne?" Varian asked.
The old man stopped scratching. He turned slowly. His eyes were milky white—blind.
"Thorne is dead," the old man cackled. "Thorne died when he realized 1 plus 1 equals Zero. I am just the Calculator."
"I need your help," Varian said. "I have a Legion. I have weapons. But I need ammo. I need a Soul-Smith."
"Ammo?" The Architect laughed. "Small thinking. Boring thinking. Why shoot bullets when you can shoot holes in reality?"
He turned back to the wall.
"Go away, boy. I'm busy calculating the date of the Apocalypse."
Varian sighed. Crazy. Mama Ferro didn't mention he was crazy.
"I have a Symbiote," Varian said, trying to get his attention. "A chrome slime. It eats metal."
The Architect didn't react. "Common. Industrial waste mutation. Boring."
"It evolved," Varian pressed. "It became a Juggernaut. And... I have the Sun-Piercer."
The scratching stopped instantly.
The Architect rushed to the glass separating their cells. He pressed his blind face against it.
"The Sovereign's Spear?" he whispered. "You found it? The Key?"
"I found it. And I found the Abyssal Knight."
The Architect gasped. He slid down the glass, sitting on the floor. He looked terrified.
"The Knight... the Knight is the Lock. If you have the Key and the Lock..."
He sniffed the air. He inhaled deeply through the ventilation gap between the cells.
"You smell like him," The Architect whispered. "Not Vance. You smell... older."
He pointed a trembling finger at Varian's left arm—where Onyx lay dormant under the skin.
"That is not a slime, boy. You think you evolved a piece of trash?"
The Architect giggled. It was a manic, broken sound.
"Subject X-99. X stands for Xenolith. It's not from this planet. It's not a mutation."
The Architect's milky eyes widened.
"That slime is a Seed. I planted it fifty years ago. It didn't grow... until you."
Varian looked at his arm. Onyx wasn't a mutant? It was an alien seed?
"What does it grow into?" Varian asked, a cold dread settling in his stomach.
The Architect smiled, revealing toothless gums.
"A God," he whispered. "Or a Planet-Eater. Depends on what you feed it."
Suddenly, the lights in the corridor flared red.
[Alert. Containment Breach in Sector Zero.]
A blast shook the floor.
"Looks like your rock friend broke loose," The Architect cackled. "Or maybe... something else broke in."
Varian stood up.
"We're leaving, Architect. And you're going to build me a god-killer."