The silence in the Specimen Hall was heavy, broken only by the dripping of green fluid from the shattered tank.

Elena stood before the remains of Alice. The High Elf diplomat, once a voice of peace, was now just a pile of wet flesh and metal on the cold floor.

She didn't cry. High Elves believed that tears shed for the dead only weighed down their journey to the World Tree.

Instead, she knelt.

She placed her hand on the cold stone.

A soft, green light pulsed from her palm, not the harsh laser of judgment she had used moments ago, but the gentle warmth of spring.

From the cracks in the concrete, a single white lily bloomed. It grew rapidly, curling around Alice's lifeless hand.

"Return to the roots, sister," Elena whispered, closing his staring eyes. "Your cage is broken."

She stood up. Her face was pale, but her eyes were dry and furious.

"I am ready, Professor."

Damien nodded. "Then let's move. The basement is waiting."

….........................

[Location: The Basement Level]

They descended a spiral staircase into the bowels of the facility.

The air got colder, smelling less like rot and more like ozone and burnt copper.

As they reached the bottom landing, Lyra stopped.

Her spectral grey ears twitched. She stared at the thick, black cables running along the walls, pulsing with a low, rhythmic thrum.

"Boss," Lyra said, her voice tight. She gripped the hilt of her dagger so hard her knuckles turned white.

"This frequency..."

"You recognize it?" Damien asked.

"It's the same as Sector 7," Lyra hissed.

"The same hum that was in the mines sixteen years ago. The signal from Subject Zero... it's here again."

She looked at Damien, realization dawning on her face.

"This isn't just a random lab. This is a receiver. They've been using the data from the Subject Zero experiments to build something new."

"Correct," Damien said, stepping up to the heavy blast doors.

"They were trying to solve the flaw of the Void Body, the instability. And to do that, they needed an engine."

He looked at Lukas.

"Mr. Lukas, if you please?"

Lukas stepped forward, looking exhausted, but he didn't complain. He placed his finger on the lock.

'Focus,' Lukas thought. 'Don't explode. Penetrate.'

HISSS.

A blue-white flame drilled through the mechanism. The door groaned and unlocked.

Leona kicked it open.

CLANG.

The room beyond was massive. It wasn't filled with biological horrors like the floor above. It was filled with machinery.

Thick mana cables snaked across the floor like arteries, all feeding into a central containment unit protected by a Grade-4 Barrier.

Inside the barrier floated an object.

It was a sphere of rough, dark iron, roughly the size of a human heart.

It looked ancient. It pulsed with a rhythmic, heavy thump-thump sound that vibrated the teeth of everyone in the room.

Every time it pulsed, the mana cables connected to it glowed white-hot, effectively filtering the volatile energy into something stable.

"What is that?" Lukas asked, shielding his eyes from the intense light.

"A bomb?"

"No," Damien said, a spark of recognition and greed flashing in his eyes.

He walked toward the console.

'Found it,' Damien thought.

'The Titan's Capacitor. In the original novel, Alaric found this in a chest after clearing this dungeon alone. '

'It's the only reason he could fight Demon Generals with ease. The Flesh-Crafters must have found the dungeon first and tried to reverse-engineer it to stabilize their chimeras.'

"This," Damien said aloud, typing a command into the console to lower the barrier,

"is the engine."

VZZZT.

The barrier dropped.

Damien reached out and grabbed the iron heart. It was heavy, dense as a collapsed star.

The cables snapped away, hissing as they disconnected.

He turned to Alaric.

"Mr. Ironheart. Catch."

Damien tossed the artifact.

Alaric fumbled, barely catching it. The moment his skin touched the rough metal, the iron sphere hummed. It instantly resonated with him.

"Sir?" Alaric looked up, confused.

"What is this?"

"The Flesh-Crafters were trying to use it to fix their broken monsters," Damien explained, gesturing to the dead facility.

"They failed because this item wasn't made for monsters. It was made for a human"

Damien walked over and tapped the artifact in Alaric's hands.

"It takes ambient mana and implodes it! It converts magical energy into pure Kinetic Force."

Damien smiled behind his mask.

"You wanted to protect the weak, Alaric? You wanted to become stronger? Now here's your chance."

He pointed to a massive steel support pillar holding up the ceiling. It was three feet thick, reinforced with earth runes.

"Put the heart against your chest. Let it sink in. Then... punch that pillar."

Alaric hesitated. He looked at the iron heart. It felt... right. Like a missing piece of his own body.

He pressed the sphere to his chest.

Instantly the metal turned to liquid, sinking through his uniform, through his skin, and merging with his sternum.

THUMP-THUMP.

A sudden, violent surge of power flooded Alaric's veins.

It wasn't the flow of water like mana; it was the rush of a landslide. His eyes snapped open, glowing with a faint, steely light. His muscles coiled, dense and heavy.

He turned to the steel pillar.

He pulled back his fist concentrating on his next move.

BOOM!

Alaric punched.

He didn't use a technique. He just threw a right cross.

The steel pillar under his new strength buckled, exploded, and sheared in half.

The impact created a shockwave that blew Lukas's hair back.

The entire ceiling groaned, dust raining down.

Lukas's jaw dropped. "Holy..."

Elena stared, her elven senses screaming at the sudden displacement of air.

'That wasn't magic. He hit the air so hard it turned into a solid wall.'

Alaric looked at his fist, stunned. He felt... heavy. Unstoppable.

"Class dismissed," Damien announced, adjusting his cuffs as the ceiling began to crack ominously.

"Now, let's get out of here before the building collapses on our prize student."

WEE-OOO. WEE-OOO.

Suddenly, red lights flashed across the room. The blast doors slammed shut, sealing them inside.

A holographic projection flickered to life in the center of the room.

It showed the face of a man wearing a bio-mask. An Elder of the Twilight Association.

"Intruders," the voice distorted through the speakers. "You should not have come hre."

The ground shook. Not from the collapsing ceiling, but from something approaching the blast doors from the outside.

Three immense pressure waves, 6th Order Intent slammed against the room.

"Did you think you could walk into the Twilight Garden and leave?" the Elder sneered.

"My associates have returned, get ready to leave your bodies behind"

Alaric gripped his fists, the Titan's Capacitor thumping in his chest.

Damien sighed. He checked his pocket watch.

"Right on time," Damien muttered.

He turned to his terrified students.

"Take out your notebooks," Damien said, his voice calm amidst the chaos. " How to slaughter a 6th Order Cultivator."

He looked at Leona and Lyra.

"You guys, you're up."

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