The ornate, gilded invitation lay on the chipped wooden table of the dojo’s main hall, a stark, vulgar contrast to the worn simplicity of the space. Radomir barely glanced at it, expression flat, before stepping into the training yard. Milena watched him from the doorway, a mug of cold tea clutched in her hands, its ceramic warmth a comfort against the chill seeping into her bones. He moved. Not with the familiar, fluid grace she remembered from their childhood, but with a terrifying precision. Each ‘Ironbreaker Stance’ – a foundational pose she had drilled countless times herself – was held with an impossible stillness, his muscles coiled and uncoiled with a silent, devastating efficiency. His exhalations, when they came, were thin hisses against the relentless *thud-thud-thud* of his palms striking the ancient oak post. He was faster than she’d ever seen him, faster than any human had a right to be. The ‘Stonebreaker Palm’ wasn't just a strike; it was a blur, a force that left spiderweb cracks spreading further across the already groaning timber. He didn’t seem to tire. There was no sweat on his brow, no strain in his posture. Just an unrelenting, almost mechanical, repetition. His eyes, usually warm and quick to crinkle at the corners when he saw her, were flat. Vacant. They held a distant, cold fire, reflecting nothing of the room, only the invisible target of his relentless drills. He was here, in body, but his mind felt miles away, encased in a shell of brutal purpose. “Radomir?” she called, her voice small against the echoes of his strikes. He didn't stop. Didn't even flinch. It was like calling out to a ghost, a phantom of the brother she knew, now haunting the space he once inhabited. She shivered, despite the lack of cold. He performed a sequence of ‘Iron Shell Blocks’ – another basic technique, meant to deflect blunt force. But his movements were so rapid, so precise, that the air around him seemed to ripple. He struck the post again, and this time a segment of the old, hardened wood splintered off, falling to the dust with a soft *clack*. [Repetition x500 Complete. ‘Iron Shell Block’ has advanced to Level 91.] [Repetition x750 Complete. ‘Stonebreaker Palm’ has advanced to Level 99.] The system prompt flared in the air before Radomir, its stark blue script invisible to her, yet the concussive shift in pressure rolled through the hall like displaced air. She gasped, staggering back a step. The resonance, the *feeling* of that power, the numbers… it wasn't just Radomir that was changing. The world itself felt different, vibrating with an unseen energy. Her gaze drifted to the corner of the courtyard, near the splintered training dummy Dmitri had left behind. Something glinted amidst the sawdust and discarded wood shards. A small, dark shard of plastic and metal. Curious, and needing a distraction from the unnerving spectacle of her brother, Milena walked over and knelt, picking it up. It was a data chip, snapped in half, its polished surface marred by dirt and a faint, almost invisible scorch mark. Too clean to be from the dojo’s ancient tech. She recognized the casing. Ironweave Foundry issue. Dmitri’s. He must have dropped it when Radomir... when Radomir had shattered his arm. She pocketed the broken chip, returning to the dojo’s small, cluttered office. Her own desk, crammed with spare parts, soldering irons, and a stack of half-finished circuit boards, was a sanctuary. Plugging the two halves of the chip into a makeshift reader – a delicate arrangement of salvaged ports and a jury-rigged power supply – she watched as her old, patched-together terminal flickered to life. The damage was extensive. Most of the data was corrupted, fragmented beyond retrieval. But not all of it. A progress bar crawled across the screen, agonizingly slow. Milena chewed on her lip, her fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the desk. Finally, a directory structure appeared. A handful of files remained intact. Most were mundane, low-level operational logs for Ironweave’s supply chains. But one folder, heavily encrypted, stood out: `Project Sanguine Bloom`. Her ribs tightened. “Sanguine Bloom?” she whispered, the name tasting like ash on her tongue. It sounded like something beautiful, yet it signaled ruin. She started the decryption protocol. Her terminal groaned, the ancient fans whirring loudly. Minutes stretched into an eternity. The first few lines of text scrolled onto the screen, mostly medical jargon, genetic markers, cellular degradation rates… but then, a specific reference. `Parasitic Core Sigil cultivation protocols.` Milena froze. The words seemed to burn into her eyes. Parasitic Core Sigil. Not a natural illness. A weapon. A designer affliction. The description of its effects, the way it consumed the host's life force from within, mirrored her own symptoms with terrifying accuracy. Air hitched in her throat. The realization bit deep. *This* was what she had. This was what was killing her. And it was developed by Ironweave. At that precise moment, a sound ripped through the dojo from the dirt yard. A sharp, cracking *boom*, like thunderclap condensed into a single point of impact. Radomir had just unleashed a ‘Crushing Fist Strike’ – a technique meant to collapse stone. The very air in the office vibrated, her desk rattling under the force. Then, a searing pain blossomed in her chest, a sudden, blinding agony that left her gasping. It was the Core Sigil, the parasitic entity within her, flaring with unprecedented intensity. It felt like a thousand tiny needles piercing her heart, each one a direct conduit to a larger, invisible maw that was ravenously feeding. Her vision blurred, spots dancing before her eyes. The pain wasn’t just intense; it was *responsive*. It synchronized with Radomir’s power, a horrifying echo. Every surge of his strength struck her core like a hammer blow. It was as if his exponential growth, his newfound, god-like power, was somehow feeding the thing killing her. Accelerating it. She clutched her chest, the data chip’s horrifying revelations flashing in her mind, mingling with the searing pain. Her legs gave out. The floor rushed up to meet her. The last thing she saw before darkness claimed her vision was the screen of her terminal, still displaying the ominous words: `Sanguine Bloom. Host compatibility: Volkov lineage.` “Radomir… what have you become?” she murmured. The world went black.

The Hundredfold Ghost