The air thickened as they moved forward, footsteps echoing softly against the walls. A faint mechanical hum vibrated through the floor beneath them, growing louder with every step.

They reached the threshold of a massive chamber.

Akiko stopped short.

The room had once been industrial. Storage, maybe. But that purpose had long since been consumed. Scars marred the metal walls, some charred black, others slick with long-dried blood. Crystalline shards jutted from the floor like thorns. The ground was strewn with twisted corpses. Failed experiments, their bodies frozen mid-contortion, mana-bloated and shattered.

Akiko's nose wrinkled. The air reeked of iron and spent energy. "What... is this?"

"It looks like an arena," Joran said, voice flat. "He's been testing them here. Seeing who survives."

"Blood sport," Raya added, bitter. "And data. Every fight gives him something."

Quinn crouched beside one of the corpses, half-human, half-mirrored growth. "He's refining them. Tuning each version like a weapon."

Then the intercom clicked on.

"Ah, welcome to my proving grounds," Karn's voice rolled in, laced with amused pride. "Here, the strongest of my subjects rose. Or broke. And now, it's your turn."

Akiko's fists clenched. "Get to the point," she snapped.

Karn chuckled. "Impatient, as always. Very well. You'll be facing my finest result. The culmination of mana integration. I'm curious to see how long you'll last... especially you, Akiko. After all, you're only lightly infected."

Static hissed briefly, then silence.

Heavy footsteps echoed from the far end of the chamber. Deliberate. Inhumanly steady.

Akiko's eyes locked on the shadow growing at the edge of the light.

The creature stepped forward.

Even Joran flinched.

It towered over them, green skin veined with pulsing crystal, tusks jutting from a thick jaw, shoulders plated with jagged mana armor. Its arms rippled with muscle, every movement precise. Its eyes burned with raw energy. Rage made sentient.

"The orc," Akiko whispered. "From the feed."

The creature snarled, a guttural sound that vibrated through the floor, and slammed one clawed fist into the ground. Cracks spidered across the arena floor.

Akiko's hand went to her necklace out of instinct. Still drained. Still cold.

"It's not just strong," she said. "It's stable. Karn finished this one."

"Then we break it anyway," Joran said, rifle rising. "Focus fire. Aim for the joints, eyes, any weak point."

"Assuming it has any," Quinn muttered, slipping into a flanking position.

Akiko summoned her foxfire. It flickered in her palm, faint but steady.

The intercom crackled, Karn's voice slithering in smooth and cold.

"Ah. There it is. My finest creation. Impressive, isn't it?"

"Impressive isn't the word I'd use," Quinn muttered, grip tightening on his rifle.

Karn chuckled, low and dry. "This subject represents the pinnacle of my work. Mana is not merely a resource. It is potential made manifest. This creature proves what can be achieved when science and magic are allowed to truly intertwine."

The creature—orc, monster, weapon—roared and charged.

The ground shook with each impact-heavy stride. Metal trembled. The team scattered.

Akiko surged to the side, boots scraping hard against the metal. She twisted low and fast, the motion driven by instinct and momentum. The lumbering beast's clawed hand carved a trench into the floor where she'd stood a heartbeat before.

"It's fast!" she shouted.

"Keep it occupied!" Joran barked. His rifle snapped to his shoulder, barking rounds with surgical precision.

The shots hit with solid cracks of impact. Did nothing.

Quinn flanked right, ducking behind a metal crate. "Got plating across the chest and shoulders. Crystal. Reflective. Not ornamental."

"It's shrugging off small arms," Raya snapped, already retreating. Her sidearm fired. Sharp, concussive blasts more about disorientation than damage.

The orc roared, a grinding, hollow sound like stone splitting under strain. Its crystal-plated forearms pulsed with raw energy, and its next charge tore a diagnostics rig free of its housing. Debris scattered. Akiko sidestepped into its shadow.

Her breath came fast. The HUD warned her of elevated exertion levels, but her mana reserves were empty. Her claws were dim. She had no spells left to throw.

"Keep it on me," she said through grit teeth. "You can't punch through it, just buy me time."

Joran grunted. "You sure?"

The orc pivoted. She let it.

It lunged again, faster this time. Its movement had adapted. Less brute, more targeting algorithm. She darted toward a support strut, rebounded off the column. Just missed its outstretched claws. Her tail flicked clear an inch before impact.

Another volley from Quinn splashed uselessly off the plating.

"I hate this thing," he muttered.

Akiko landed hard, rolled, came up into a crouch near the creature's flank. Twisted. Evaded. Her breath caught as a claw swiped past her throat, close enough to tug at her hair.

Karn's voice echoed from the intercom. "Disappointing. You dance well, kitsune. But I designed him for more than sport."

Akiko's lip curled. She didn't bother replying.

The wall panels behind her hissed and began to glow.

Turrets.

Twin flame jets erupted from either side of the chamber, angling inward to box her in. Heat rolled through the air in searing waves.

"He's herding me," she muttered. Then louder: "Stay back!"

Flame arced across the chamber, forcing Akiko into a retreating dodge. The area behind her was a dead end. Blocked by melted debris and the orc's earlier charge. The flame jets hissed, pivoting subtly as they tracked her movements. Karn hadn't just lit the room, he'd caged her.

She dropped low, tucked into a roll, and sprang to her feet near one of the room's tables. Her claws were dim, mana still scraping bottom. The HUD was red with warnings. Her lungs burned with the heat.

The orc kept its pace slow, measured. It didn't need to rush. The turrets were doing its work.

Joran fired another burst, the shot deflecting off crystal plating with a sharp ricochet. "Still nothing."

"I noticed," Akiko snapped, eyes scanning the perimeter. The glow from the flame turrets created deep, shifting shadows, but it also revealed something else. A hum, a shimmer, pulsing through conduits leading back toward the mounts.

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She ducked as a gout of flame swept overhead. It caught the edge of her suit's sleeve, burning fabric away to the undersuit. Pain lanced up her arm, but she gritted her teeth and kept moving.

The fire hadn't just burned. It resonated. A familiar pulse, buried under the chaos. Familiar mana. Structured. Intentionally shaped.

The same signature, the same arcane weave as the constructs on the station. She could feel it now, threading through the flame, the air, the targeting logic of the turrets tracking across her field of view.

The orc moved again, pushing toward her position. The turrets shifted to cover its flanks. A pincer movement.

She didn't have time to explain.

Akiko burst from cover, sprinting straight toward the flame. The heat intensified instantly, the air itself shimmering. The turret snapped toward her with a mechanical whine, flame roaring in a wide arc.

She slid low, using the incline of a damaged support to vault up and over the blast path. Her boots slammed down next to the turret housing. She reached for the glowing conduit, claws sparking against reinforced alloy.

"Come on—"

The housing popped free. A flood of raw mana surged up her arm, and her HUD flared. The mana bars that measured her potential ticked back up. Not full, but enough to fight.

External Mana Source Detected.

Core Saturation: Restored.

Combat Threshold Reached. Spellform Access Reinitialized.

Blue-white foxfire burst from her fingertips, spiraling around her arms like coiled smoke.

Akiko turned. The orc saw her. Recognized the change.

Now it charged.

She hit the ground running, but this time it wasn't to evade. Foxfire pulsed from her limbs, each footstep enhanced by miniature bursts of propulsion, launching her into a low arc above the shattered floor.

The orc swung upward to intercept. Akiko twisted mid-air, launching a jet of foxfire downward to angle her path over its claw. The spell roared as it caught the air, dragging her skyward.

Gravity fought her ascent, but the sapphire core pulsed in sync with her breath, feeding the propulsion. Her HUD flared as the altitude reading ticked up. The orc roared below, slashing wildly.

She pivoted in midair, calling another pulse behind her to launch forward in a sharp arc, drawing a tight loop around the beast; a streak of blue-white spiraling overhead.

Akiko launched downward, a comet of flame, her claws reignited to full strength. She struck the orc's shoulder at an oblique angle, carving through a seam in the crystalline plate and tumbling past before it could counter.

The beast staggered. Shards of crystal scattered across the floor. Foxfire clung to its side, burning with unnatural heat.

She used the moment to launch again, bouncing off the far wall and redirecting mid-flight with another sharp burst of thrust. Her entire body was a weapon, every move calculated on instinct and feedback from her HUD.

The orc howled, flailing with increasing rage.

Karn's voice crackled over the speakers. "Now that's more like it."

She didn't hear him. Not really.

She was focused, burning bright, a streak of myth in a facility of dead steel and dark intent.

The orc snarled and slammed its fists into the ground. The metal floor groaned, buckled. From beneath, a conduit ruptured, spilling light and sparks as raw mana surged upward.

Her HUD flickered. Light around her dimmed.

The orc gripped the conduit like a whip. Then, in one fluid motion, it lashed.

Akiko barely had time to brace.

The impact hit her squarely in the chest, hard enough to drop her from the air. Pain erupted in every nerve. She crashed through a support beam, then the floor itself, and vanished into the dark below.

Everything hurt.

The world steadied just long enough for her to see the conduit beside her. Gold-veined crystal, cracked and flickering, jutting from the ruined deck like a broken fang.

She hesitated. Not long. Not really.

The orc would come. It wasn't tired. It wasn't mortal in the ways that mattered. And her foxfire was already burning low. The top-up from the turret's battery hadn't lasted long. One more hit like that and she wouldn't get up.

She needed more. Enough to finish it. Now.

Akiko reached out, pain singing in every tendon, and closed her hand around the fractured housing.

Heat surged through her palm.

Her breath caught.

Then everything fell away.

No floor. No ceiling. No skin.

She was in the circuit. Through it. Between it.

Color and current blurred. Memory disconnected from muscle. Her self unspooled, stretched across lines of force threaded deep through the station's bones.

She felt the structure hum around her. Not like sound. Like awareness. Doors that were not doors. Cameras that blinked like eyes without sight. The facility breathed in algorithms and pressure checks, flickering logic pulses that had no place for names.

For a moment, she had none.

She was power rerouted. She was doors locked. She was oxygen cycles stuttering on the east wing.

She was too much and not enough.

A foreign process. Unlabeled. Unclaimed. Unwanted.

"Akiko."

Takuto's voice cut across the static like a lifeline thrown into dark water.

"Anchor. Now."

Not a command. A construct.

Anchor: a view.

Anchor: her eyes, somewhere else.

A loading bay, overhead camera view. Cold, high angle. Figures below.

A ship. Sleek. Asharan markings near the aft struts. The boarding ramp half-raised.

And Karn.

The image held steady. Karn moved below. Calm, slow. Watching a floating console with one hand at his hip, as if this were nothing more than a rehearsal.

His coat shifted with the pressurized breeze of the loading bay. He wasn't in a hurry.

He didn't need to be.

"You're not fully synced," Takuto warned. "This link is unstable."

The viewpoint stuttered. Cameras flickered. A new display window opened across her borrowed vision. Static-laced schematics of the facility's systems.

One bay open. The last phase of departure hadn't begun.

Now.

Akiko didn't reach so much as will. A connection surged between her and the loading bay's defense grid. Cold and mechanical, but willing, for the moment, to obey. She activated the sentry systems. A warning blinked.

Manual override detected.

Target locked.

Turrets dropped from ceiling rails with a hydraulic hiss.

The first shot lanced the transport's side, slicing through the hull plating with surgical precision.

The second clipped the forward engine shroud, and Karn turned sharply, face unreadable.

Then the shield came up. A smooth, curving wall of rippling silver light enveloped the ship, absorbing the rest of the volley with a dull flicker. Too late to prevent damage, but enough to prevent destruction.

Inside the camera's lens, Karn looked directly toward the source of the attack.

Not toward her, not exactly. But close.

A pressure built. Not heat. Not pain. Just presence. Massive. Unquestioned.

She felt it like a wall behind her eyes, something older and deeper than the circuit she'd hijacked.

UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS

FOREIGN SIGNATURE DETECTED

CONTAINMENT PROTOCOL ENGAGED

Takuto's voice snapped through the space between thoughts.

"Akiko, sever the connection. Now."

But she couldn't. Not fast enough.

The presence focused.

She felt her self fracture. Not violently, not with fire, but with cold, clinical detachment. Labels peeled away. Markers stripped.

The facility didn't view her as a threat. It rejected her like a malfunction.

ERROR: UNDEFINED INSTANCE

PROCESS QUARANTINED

TERMINATING ACTIVITY TREE…

No breath. No body. Just absence.

And then... White-hot static lanced through her skull. She screamed, but there was no throat to carry it.

A moment later, she slammed back into her body.

Her vision returned in flickers. Real vision, her own again. Her back arched with the whiplash of return, and her fingers clawed at scorched plating. The conduit beside her had shattered, its light spent. Smoke curled upward from her gloves.

The rubble shifted.

She groaned, half-buried, her arms trembling beneath cracked stone and scorched plating. Her suit's diagnostics scrolled across the HUD in fractured layers.

Subskill Acquisition (Mana Manipulation): Capacity Overcharge – 20.8% milestone achieved.

Mana levels: beyond critical. Overflow markers flickered. Warning, then blinking out as the system failed to parse them.

Too much. It was too much.

Takuto's voice came through, low and sharp.

"You're back. But you can't do that again."

The moment stretched between them.

"Not like that."

Akiko swallowed hard, the taste of copper thick on her tongue.

"I wasn't… trying to."

Her voice didn't sound like hers.

Her chest heaved. Her fingertips sparked with leaking foxfire. Every breath felt like it would ignite her from the inside.

Above, she heard it. The slow crunch of boots through debris.

The orc loomed at the crater's edge, frame flickering with residual energy from the conduit, crystal plating blackened but intact. It didn't rush. It reached down, claws opening, like it meant to rip her out piece by piece.

Akiko raised her hand. Her fingers barely moved.

The runes formed anyway. Not carved. Not spoken. Not even shaped. They just were. Etched into the air like scars in reality, rising in a slow, spiraling helix.

Her HUD flared:

Applied Spellform Initialized: Foxfire Pulse Vector (Tier II) – UNSTABLE VARIANT

Mana Channels: Overcapacity (132%)

Neural Buffer: Threshold Exceeded

The space between her and the orc ignited.

A column of blue-white fire tore upward, so bright it bleached her vision to pure light. The orc had no time to react, no time to scream. The pulse lifted it, pressure alone flinging it into the air. Flesh, plating, crystal, all vaporized in the heart of the blast.

The beam didn't stop.

It carved through the ceiling in a searing line, vaporizing steel and concrete as it reached for the stars. The night sky burst open with falling debris and reflected starlight. A moment of false dawn.

Akiko was forced down, the pressure of her own creation slamming her deeper into the crater. Bones creaked. Her jaw clenched. Her suit screamed warnings she couldn't read. Her breath came shallow, thin, full of copper and smoke.

Then, silence. The light faded. The runes dissolved like ash on the wind. The mana left her in one brutal, final surge.

Akiko lay still in the dark, every nerve raw. Eyes open. Staring up through the smoking hole she'd carved into the sky.

Foxfire flickered weakly across her fingers, guttering like a candle about to go out.

Notice:

Skill Layer Integration: SUSPENDED

Neural Strain Threshold Exceeded

Automatic Recovery Protocol: INITIATED

System Recommendation: Rest

The message hovered just long enough for her to register it.

Then her vision faded.

The air was still hot. Her limbs wouldn't move. But the world finally, finally went quiet.

Akiko slipped into unconsciousness with the taste of ash on her tongue and foxfire scorched across her skin.

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