Zhai Shen’s eyes tracked the slow, crimson pulse through the clear tubes, the stolen essence of his ancient power seeping into Tarkin Dax. The prodigy’s face, pale moments ago, now flushed with an unnatural vibrancy. His body, once lean, began to subtly distend, muscles knotting beneath his skin in grotesque, rapid undulations. The crystalline sarcophagus, now half-empty of its ruby fluid, hummed with a deathly silence. “My blood,” Zhai Shen murmured, a flat annoyance in his tone, as if a particularly lazy morning had been interrupted by a minor inconvenience. “Wasted on such a pathetic vessel.” Tarkin’s eyes snapped open, no longer the clear, arrogant blue, but a swirling vortex of deep violet, irises dilated to pinpricks. A guttural growl ripped from his throat, a sound far too animalistic for a human. His back arched, tearing the diagnostic tubes from his neck with a wet rip. Dark, chitinous plates erupted from his skin, twisting and clicking over his shoulders and chest, fusing with the institute jumpsuit. His Apex-Armature, stored in a dormant state nearby, resonated with his transformation, its metallic shell mirroring the organic mutation. The sheer mental pressure in the chamber intensified, pressing down on Zhai Shen and Yara with brutal density. “*Mine!*” Tarkin roared, his voice now a distorted chorus of his own and something far older, far more savage. He launched himself from the throne, a blur of new-found speed. Yara unslung her plasma carbine with practiced instinct, but Tarkin was faster. A concussive kinetic blast slammed into her, throwing her against the stone wall. Her head hit the dark rock with a sickening crack, and she slid to the floor, her carbine skittering across the smooth basalt. A faint whimper escaped her lips before she went still, a crimson smear blooming from her temple. Zhai Shen stood motionless. His gaze remained fixed on Tarkin, a predator assessing his prey. Yara’s unmoving form was a fresh smear of red against the grey rock, and a glint colder than apathy sparked in Zhai Shen's eyes. This was no longer about his wasted rest or the genetic cure. This was an affront to his comfort, his peace, and now, a subtle, burgeoning sense of proprietary annoyance. Tarkin’s transformed limbs, now tipped with wickedly sharp talons of living metal, tore at the remaining diagnostic equipment, generators sparking and dying in showers of light. He began to levitate, a dark, hulking figure rising slowly towards the vaulted ceiling, his mental aura a visible, distorting haze around him. “*This power… it is infinite! I am the Apex!*” “You are a leech,” Zhai Shen corrected, his voice so quiet it was almost lost beneath the hum of dying machinery. He took a single, deliberate step forward. The air around him shimmered, void of psychic haze, laden instead with a foreign pressure. A crushing, unseen force emanated from his body, expanding outwards like a silent, implacable wave. This was the Obsidian Domain, a subtle extension of his Abyssal Qi, capable of warping the very fabric of space and gravity. Tarkin, mid-ascension, suddenly found himself plummeting. The levitation field that buoyed him shattered, replaced by an overwhelming downward pull. He slammed into the basalt floor with a heavy thud, the chitinous plates on his back groaning under the impact. His new talons scored deep gouges in the rock as he tried to push himself up, his violet eyes wide with a confusion that bordered on primal fear. “Impossible!” he shrieked, his voice straining. “My… my ascent! My sacred might!” Zhai Shen simply raised a hand, a casual, almost bored gesture. The gravity around Tarkin redoubled. The prodigy’s limbs buckled, the ground beneath him cracking. He was pinned, struggling against a force that defied his understanding. “You stole my essence,” Zhai Shen stated, his voice devoid of emotion, “but you lack the wisdom to wield it. You merely borrowed a drop from an ocean you cannot fathom.” He moved then, not with speed, but with a terrifying, unhurried precision. Each step was a deliberate placement, closing the distance to the pinned Tarkin. The air around Zhai Shen coalesced into faint, dark motes, a visible manifestation of his controlled Abyssal Qi. Reaching Tarkin, he bypassed simple strikes. He simply reached out, his calloused palm meeting the grotesque chitin plate on Tarkin’s chest. The plate, an instant ago hard as a durasteel alloy, began to creak, then buckle. Zhai Shen’s hand sank straight into it, the dark Qi dissolving the organic-metal hybrid like acid. Tarkin screamed, a sound of agony and disbelief, as Zhai Shen’s arm plunged deeper, ripping through the fused armor and sinew. With a precise, almost surgical motion, Zhai Shen’s hand closed around a pulsing, crimson vein, thick as a power conduit, that had burst from Tarkin’s mutated flesh. He drew the liquid back with total mastery. The ruby liquid, still vibrant with his ancient power, flowed back into him, not through his mouth, but directly through his hand, through his very skin. Tarkin convulsed, his body shrinking, his neuro-luminescence guttering like a dying candle. The chitinous plates receded, leaving behind raw, weeping flesh. The violet in his eyes faded, replaced by the terrified, frantic blue of a common Gene-Null. “*No… stop… it burns!*” Tarkin croaked, his voice returning to its normal pitch, raw with agony. “*It’s tearing me apart!*” Zhai Shen ignored him, his focus entirely inward. The reclaimed blood, a torrent of pure, unadulterated Abyssal Qi, flooded his system. His body, already teetering on the brink of Helix-Rot collapse, spasmed violently. A searing, white-hot pain lanced through every cell, every strand of his disintegrating DNA. His vision swam. He felt his flesh melt, then violently re-knit, faster than his conscious mind could process. The Helix-Rot, instead of receding, seemed to accelerate to an unimaginable speed, consuming and rebuilding him simultaneously. It was a crucible. Bones grated, muscles tore and reformed, nerves screamed. His genetic code, once unraveling, was now being forcefully re-written, not by him, but by the very essence he was absorbing. A guttural roar tore from Zhai Shen’s own throat, not of pain, but of raw, primal force. Tarkin, now a whimpering, shriveled husk, was flung aside as Zhai Shen’s body erupted. Dark, obsidian flames, not hot but cold with an ancient, consuming power, burst from his skin, licking at the vault air. The very space around him seemed to warp and distort, the generators in the chamber dying completely, plunging the chamber into an eerie, pulsing green from emergency lights. His newly reformed muscles rippled beneath his clothes, no longer merely lean, but coiled with a terrifying, contained power. Then, a voice, calm and metallic, echoed through the vault's emergency comms system. “Excellent work, subject. The bait was irresistible.” An unseen presence filled the now-silent chamber. “The Sovereign’s tomb is now sealed, Gene-Null. You are a fascinating specimen, Zhai Shen. Fascinating enough to dissect.” With a deafening groan, massive blast doors, hidden in the rock above the entrance, began to slide down, sealing the vault with finality. The last sliver of light from the outer corridor vanished, plunging the chamber into near total darkness, illuminated only by the faint, emergency green and the hungry, black flames that danced around Zhai Shen's body. He was trapped. He was evolving. And the voice knew his name.

Blood Theft