088 DRAIN
The air twisted like a living thing as Damen was yanked off his feet, dragged toward the creature once known as Kurt.
Ivory hovered midair, blood tendrils spiraling around him like the arms of a demon god. They pierced into Damen's flesh, black-red energy surging as his body jerked violently.
"Is this the strength of a Rank C?" Damen muttered through clenched teeth.
Every muscle in his body screamed as his power was being taken.
"He's two ranks above me. I can't overpower him… I'll be drained dry in seconds," Damen complained.
The tendrils pulsed greedily, sucking at his blood and meta essence. It was a sensation he knew too well—Kurt had done this to him once before, back when he was still human.
Only now, Ivory's hunger was monstrous.
Below, the SIA soldiers were bound by the same crimson binds, their screams swallowed by the roaring vortex of blood around them.
One by one, their bodies began to pale and wither.
"Think, Damen Dark. Do something—before he drains everyone," he growled inwardly.
And then it hit him.
A piercing whine erupted through the air as a blast of sound rippled outward from Damen's body. The walls cracked. Windows shattered.
The very air screamed.
It was his Sonic Wave, an evolved meta technique assimilated by his mining app. The skill was assimilated by Damen through taking over the Ring of Power.
This wasn't the ordinary sonic wave meta that Green Crab and his friends used- this was a far more advanced version of the meta.
The blood tendrils around him burst apart into fine mist efficiently destroying them.
Damen dropped to the ground, panting hard.
Ivory tilted his head, amused. "You think that little trick will save you? How many more times can you use it before your meta runs dry?"
The Sonic Wave meta was extremely strong but Ivory was right, he couldn't fire another shot. He was completely drained of meta power.
"You're right," Damen rasped. "It's not enough… but they'll handle the rest."
The soldiers who were previously stricken by the blood tendrils were now freed from their binds by Damen's sonic meta.
They quickly raised their meta cannons at Ivory. Barrages of searing energy tore through the smoke causing the warehouse to explode in white-hot light.
Ivory roared in pain as his body glowed with molten cracks. The meta blasts from the soldiers' cannons scorched through his armor.
"You bastard humans—!"
The onslaught wasn't killing Ivory fast enough, but it gave Damen what he needed- Time.
Damen glanced at his phone screen.
"I have one chance to do this. Its do or die for me."
The identify glyph on his app was locked onto Ivory's right hand before finding its intended target- the Ring of Greed.
"Cease your fire!" Damen shouted to the soldiers, dashing forward as they hesitated and paused their firing.
Ivory laughed, mistaking the move for desperation. "Are you rushing to your death so eagerly?"
Blood tendrils lashed out again, this time wrapping Damen in a cage of crimson. There was no escape for him this time. His veins bulged. His Skin darkened.
His life force was drained away like water through sand.
"You can't use meta now, nothing can save you now," Ivory sneered, dragging him close. "What else can you do but die?"
Damen's voice was low, almost a whisper. "Come closer…"
Ivory leaned in, savoring his victory, opening the tendrils enough for his hand to reach his neck.
"Any last words, little hero?" he asked.
Damen smiled faintly, "Yeah. It's about time."
His thumb pressed on his phone screen- Assimilate.
The Assimilation process was activated.
The Ring of Greed screamed—literally screamed—as cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. Its golden luster turned black, molten, before erupting in a shockwave that flung both men apart.
"What is happening to my ring?" Ivory screamed.
The ring shattered.
Ivory's tendrils disintegrated. The vortex of blood collapsed. The monster crashed to the ground, his body twitching and smoking.
The soldiers didn't hesitate—they surged forward, firing restraints and meta chains that bound him in layers of glowing steel.
When the dust settled, Damen stood unsteadily, his phone glowing faintly in his hand. The ring's energy had been absorbed—now sealed within him.
Ivory's broken form twitched, his eyes wide with disbelief. "You… stole my ring?"
Damen looked down at him, blood running down his arm. "No, Ivory. I assimilated it."
Dorin and Lander crashed into the warehouse just in time, operatives fanning out and moving to secure the wounded cultists. They reached Ivory as the SIA men forced him down and snapped heavy restraints over his wrists.
"Do you think this is over? I'll tell them everything about you…all your secrets," Ivory spat at Damen, his eyes burning with fury.
Damen felt the words like a knife.
Kurt knew too much—about Sienna, the Alliance of Psyche, probably even about the phone app. Any one of these things could destroy him.
A single thought burned clear and cold in his mind: "Ivory must die."
But not here, not now. Ivory was already subdued. There were officers everywhere. There'd be trouble if he killed him now in front of everyone.
Dorin covered Ivory's head with a hood, hauling him to his feet. The hood muffled his babbling which was good for Damen- they don't have to listen too much to his confessions.
"Good work," Dorin said to Damen, her voice clipped and led the captive out for processing.
Damen sagged to the floor as operatives dragged the survivors away. Dust and the metallic smell of blood hung heavy in the air.
He fumbled for his phone and opened the app.
Ivory's profile was still locked in his scanner. But something had changed—the Acquire button that was gone appeared again.
"I thought I lost the Acquire function", he said before he realized his mistake. This wasn't the same button.
A system message blinked across the screen: "Congratulations — new function enabled: DRAIN."
Damen read the word twice, his throat tightening.
"Drain." Damen had a rough idea what that function means.
He swallowed hard.
If Ivory survived interrogation and talked, everything—Sienna, the phone, his past—would leak out. There was no convenient way to eliminate the threat without implicating himself.
But the convenient way presented itself to him. All he needed to do was to take it.
His thumb hovered, then pressed Drain.