Deep within the Molten Trench, Soren was currently burning from the inside out.
The Cinnabar-Quartz mixture was proving not to be a gentle medicine. Instead, it was a behaving more like a construction material.
The Master Builder Gene was busy stripping the myelin sheaths from Soren's nerves; the fatty insulation that protected human electrical signals, and replacing them.
It was an agonizing, microscopic surgery happening across billions of neural pathways simultaneously.
Soren kept screaming, but his throat wasn't giving any sound.
His vocal cords were currently paralyzed, stiffening as they were coated in a thin layer of Mercury-Lubricant.
The Gene was weaving the processed Quartz into his neural pathways, creating Super-Conductive Filaments.
Since the major problem was the heat generated from his steel-coiled muscles, then the Master Builder Gene's solution was Quartz.
It doesn't just resist heat; it converts mechanical stress (vibration) into electrical energy.
Soren's new nerves wouldn't just be able to withstand the immense heat generated by his burst movements; but would also be leeching off the friction.
As a result, the faster Soren moved, the more "Charge" his nervous system would generate.
However, the shedding didn't just stop at his nerves.
The Black Sun, which was now spinning with a terrifying, heavy gravity, began to pull on his internal organs.
Soren felt his lungs, heart, and liver compress and tighten, and in that moment, he was swiftly reminded that they were all still made of the soft tissue of a seven-year-old.
In the battles to come, the pressure of his own movements might end up turn them into jelly before he could even deliver three blows to his enemies.
His Jade-Alloy ribcage was simply too rigid, and if he dared to move at insane speeds, his soft organs could turn to mush against his own bones, from the resulting G-force.
"Internalize... the pressure," Soren's mind projected, even as his consciousness began to slip off into the gray void of the shedding.
The Master Builder Gene however, responded proactively.
It began to "hollow out" the spaces around his organs, creating Biological Pressure Reservoirs.
It flooded his abdominal cavity with a high-density Coagulant Fluid derived from the Chimera Cub's "Oxidizing" influence and his own "Healing Factor."
His organs were no longer floating in empty space. They were now suspended in a Hydraulic Shock-Absorption System.
His heart's walls thickened, being encased in a Jade-Alloy "Pump-Housing" that evolved it from just a pump into a High-Pressure Injection Valve.
It could now store and release high-pressure Blood-Elixir through his veins at three times the normal speed without bursting the capillaries.
His lungs were also modified and evolved into acting as "Mercury/Tranquil Poison Storage," allowing him to exhale a toxic, heavy-metal mist.
His stomach ceased to function as a digestion chamber and became a Chemical Reactor, capable of holding raw minerals and chemicals in stasis until needed.
His marrows morphed into a factory for "Healing Fluids"; high-density coagulant that could be pressurized and shot to any wound in milliseconds.
Then the pain began to recede, replaced by a sensation of immense, contained power.
Soren lay in the Cinnabar trench, his body steaming.
Then his eyes snapped open, the silver ring around his pupils gone, replaced by a Crimson-Gold iris that pulsed with the rhythm of his new, pressurized heart flow.
The red dust around him had turned gray—he had drained every ounce of mineral essence from it.
His skin had changed again. It was no longer just matte-red silt but was now laced with fine, vein-like patterns of Crystalline Silver.
It had a shimmering, "Oil-Slick" luster—the result of the Mercury-Insulation and the Ferro-Silt merging.
He was no longer a human with modified skin. He had become a Living Fortress. His internal organs now the "Fuel Cells" of a war machine.
He felt the "Pressure" within him—the ability to store, move, and weaponize his own internal fluids.
He clenched his fist.
~Hummm~
The air around his hand didn't just move; it vibrated with a high-frequency electric hum.
His quartz nerves were live.
Soren sat up. He didn't feel the heat of the Molten Trench anymore.
His internal temperature was now being regulated by the Mercury-Flow and the Quartz-Insulation.
He stood up with movements so fluid they looked unnatural.
He looked at the Chimera Cub, which was already cowering slightly behind a rock.
Its size now approaching that of a large wolf, its hematite plates glowing a dull, angry red.
"It's done," Soren said.
His voice had changed. It was clearer, carrying a metallic resonance that rumbled through the sulfurous wind.
He checked the Courier's Vault strapped to his back. The leather straps were singed, but the box held.
Then, as the sun dipped below the horizon of the Wastelands, Soren felt it.
It wasn't a sound. It was a tremor in the deep earth.
~THOOM... THOOM... THOOM...~
It was rhythmic. Heavy.
Soren's Hematite-Silt Skin picked up the seismic signature instantly.
It wasn't a beast. Beasts walked with a varied cadence.
This was a march.
He closed his eyes, letting the Seismic Sonar paint the picture.
One entity. Massive mass. Moving straight through the "Screaming Hollow," ignoring the sonic attacks, ignoring the terrain.
It was crushing rocks rather than stepping over them.
Soren knew that stride. He had heard it for seven years from the bottom of the pit, vibrating through the cage bars whenever the Chieftain returned from war.
He was two sheddings away, and a week away from his "Pre-arranged Death." And the man who had sired him was coming to provide the first blow.
A cold, dark smile touched Soren's lips. It wasn't a smile of happiness. It was the smile of a trap that had just heard the wolf approaching.
"Oh, the Mountain is coming," He muttered, his voice now a multi-layered resonance that seemed to come from his chest, not his throat.
"So, he didn't come himself but instead sent the hammer."
Soren turned toward the entrance of the Molten Trench.
He raised his Dead Hand. The violet veins pulsed, hungry for the one thing Soren had never tasted:
Family.
"Come on, Father," Soren said, the electric hum in his nerves rising to a crescendo. "Let's see if your Iron Skin can hold back the Silt."
Then He began to walk toward the tremor, a boy made of Jade, Mercury, and Poison, marching to meet the man made of Iron and Lies.
---
Back at the opulent, rotting heart of the Ignis Camp, the Envoy of the Oman House watched the surface of his bone-white basin, monitoring the vitals of his puppet.
The water was perfectly still, save for three silver needles that drifted in a slow, hypnotic circle.
"The resonance has changed," the Envoy murmured. His voice was a thin, needle-like pressure that made the surrounding air feel cold.
Matron Elara, her fingers trembling as she adjusted her silk robes, looked at the empty space where her husband had stood only an hour ago.
"He will find him, My Lord. The Chief has never failed a hunt."
"You misunderstand," the Envoy said, turning his green-tinted gaze toward her.
"I do not care if he 'fails.' I have overdriven his nervous system with three Refined Qi-Needles.
Even if his heart is shredded, his muscles will continue to fire until the Vault is retrieved.
Your husband is no longer a hunter. He is a kinetic projectile."
He leaned closer to the Matron, the scent of her exotic incense cloying, yet stimulating.
"The boy has built a shell. He thinks density is a shield. But your husband's Golden Body is a foundation.
When an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, the resulting friction creates a heat that will refine the Gold-Violet essence for your son, Kaelen."
The Matron looked away, her eyes landing on Kaelen, who sat in the corner of the tent, playing with a dagger.
The boy's eyes were vacant, a mirror of the ambition his mother had carved into his soul.
"The cost is high," Elara whispered.
"The cost is irrelevant," the Envoy replied.
"The Oman House does not buy; we invest. And today, we are harvesting the interest on seven years of poisoning."
---
The Screaming Hollow did not tolerate life.
It was as ever, a canyon composed of hollow, fluted rock formations that turned the wind into a constant, maddening shriek.
To a normal man, the sound was a physical assault, a vibration that could liquify the inner ear and shatter one's sanity.
To Soren however, it was simply a diagnostic tool.
But today, the wind was silent. It had been displaced by something heavier.
Soren stood in the center of the widest throat of the Hollow, his Ferro-Silt skin shifting its microscopic grain to resonate with the canyon's frequencies.
Beneath his skin, the Third Shedding was reaching its final, stable state.
The Quartz-Nerves; those super-conductive filaments woven into his very marrow, were quiet, but they hummed with a pre-kinetic tension.
His heart, now encased in its Jade-Alloy Pump-Housing, beat with a slow, heavy thud that sounded like a hammer striking a muffled anvil.
Like a shadow in a world of stone, his breath was invisible, his heartbeat masked by the Quartz-Insulation of his new nervous system.
He was no longer a boy hiding from the wind; he was a component of the landscape.
Beside him, the Chimera Cub; now nearly as large as a mountain lion, crouched low.
Its rusted-hematite pauldrons were raised, the oxidizing heat from its scales turning the surrounding air into a shimmering mirage.
Then, the mirage parted at the far end of the canyon.
~THOOM... THOOM... THOOM...~
It was a heavy, rhythmic percussion that bypassed the ears and vibrated directly into the bones.
The entity was massive.
It wasn't avoiding the jagged obsidian shards of the Hollow; it was crushing them into powder with every step.
There was no finesse in the movement, only an overwhelming, singular momentum.
Then Soren closed his eyes, letting his Seismic Sonar paint the image.
Come straight at them was Chief Ignis, walking like an avalanche.
He was a titan of weathered granite and scarred iron.
His skin, tempered by decades of "Golden Body" cultivation, shined with a dull, menacing glow that seemed to absorb the dim light of the setting sun.
He was seven feet of scarred muscle and tempered aggression.
His muscles were not merely large; they were knotted like the roots of ancient, petrified trees.
In his right hand, he dragged the Megatherium Mace—a thigh bone wrapped in bands of jagged Blood-Steel.
It carved a deep furrow in the rocky ground as he walked, sparking against the flint.
But it was his face that made the Chimera Cub whine in confusion.
The Chief's face was a mask of slack, unfeeling meat.
His mouth hung slightly open, drooling a thin line of saliva.
But his eyes... once fierce and intelligent, were now two voids of flickering green, a result of the "Puppet-Seals" now glowing at the base of his skull.
The Qi-Needles of the Eden Clan pulsed with his every move, overriding every instinct, every memory, and every mercy.
Soren felt the vibration of the Chief's approach through the soles of his feet.
It wasn't the rhythm of a warrior. It was the rhythm of a machine.
The Black Sun in his chest rotated slowly, its gravitational pull latching onto the dense spiritual energy leaking from the needles in his father's neck.
Chief Ignis stopped twenty paces away, the green light in his eyes flaring as he let out a low, guttural growl that vibrated the very ground.
"Thief," He rumbled.
Chief Ignis' voice was a tectonic groan, devoid of the deep, booming warmth Soren remembered from his childhood.
"He's not in there anymore," Soren muttered with a sigh that carried the electric buzz of his Quartz nerves.
It was clear that the three Qi-Needles glowing at the base of his skull had buried their silver tips deep into his brain, turning his seven decades of warrior experience into a series of automated commands.
"Vault," the Chief rumbled.
His words coming out as a wet, guttural sound, forced out of a throat that had forgotten how to speak.
Then he raised the massive mace, the muscles in his shoulder coiling like bridge cables.
"Retrieve."