(Adddd to Library… before the Venombats find you.)
Avery's Section
The lights snapped off.
The stench hit first—thick rot curling into her sinuses like wet mold, clamping her diaphragm tight. A gust of morgue-chill air followed, brushing past her neck like ghost fingers, carrying flakes of dead skin that clung to her sweat like ash.
Her augmented irises adjusted instantly, lenses clicking like sniper gear.And then she saw them.
Scarlet-Eyed Venombats.
Bodies the size of fists. Wings bent the wrong way. Grotesque monkey-like heads with mouths that split ear to ear, lipless and full of needle teeth.
[Data Retrieved: Scarlet-Eyed Venombat]Classification: Mid-Tier Illusion ConstructToxin: Class-3 NeurocompoundSonic Frequency: 18.5kHz – resonance with human cerebellumThreat Level: Lethal without mitigation
"SCREEEEE—!"
The sound sliced through her skull. Her brain screamed as her temporal lobe went static.
Tactical instinct kicked in. She rolled hard, just as a mist of acid sliced through the space her throat had occupied—green vapor melting stone into sludge.
Illusion or not, that stuff kills.
She launched herself—three vaults, thirty meters. The walls didn't get closer.
Illusory terrain. But the pain was real.
The second wave came.
This time, Avery didn't run.
She planted her feet.Dropped her hips.And punched.
Her right fist became a ballistic missile, augmented bones cracking as A-rank force exploded outward—
CRACK—
Four Venombat skulls detonated like rotten pumpkins. Black ichor sprayed her sleeves, sizzling through cloth, burning skin.
"Ghk—!"
She looked down.
Her hand was gone.
Not in theory. Not in spirit. Literally—torn to shreds. Tendons curled like cooked noodles, bones gleamed beneath layers of melting muscle.
The pain—raw, electric, screaming through her spinal cord like it had teeth.
Then—
"Clap. Clap. Clap."
Light returned, flooding the arena in clinical white.
Nyra Night leaned against the frame of the open door, rolling her bone-white ring across her knuckles like a magician working a coin trick.
"You cracked my Nightmare Theater."
The ring pulsed—a sickly glow, like a fallout warning before a nuke hits. Nyra's smile twitched, one-sided. The left dimple showed—where an old scar pulled tight across her cheek.
"Little Vivi's tougher than most idiots I've trained for six months," she drawled, her gaze dropping to Avery's completely intact hand. "In real combat, that arm would be soup."
Avery flexed her wrist. Her nerves still screamed phantom pain signals all the way up her spine.
Mental-type illusions.The ultimate interrogation tool.No need to leave marks when you can fracture a soul.
By the time Nyra called a halt, two hours had vanished from the clock.
Avery's muscles burned like fire. Her brain felt scrubbed raw, every neural pathway rewritten.
"Vivi's got talent," Nyra muttered at last, her stiletto heels leaving precise divots in the scorched training mat.
The look in her eyes?The same one weapons dealers gave custom-forged sniper rifles.
Midnight – Nightshade Lounge
Gold light shimmered across obsidian counters. Behind the bar, a mixologist's shaker spun in slow arcs—its polished metal reflecting the pulse of embedded Lumenstone.
Avery reached out.
Her fingers brushed the stone—And power surged into her like a shot of adrenaline straight to the brainstem.
The glow flatlined, vanishing in an instant.
She gasped, yanking her hand back. Her cheeks flushed with stolen light.
Same Hour – Wolfe Estate
Lucian Drake exhaled into the frigid air leaking from the training chamber. Ice crystals formed around the rim of his coffee mug, the brew inside cooling faster than physics allowed.
The hidden door hissed open.
Soren Wolfe stepped out of the subzero chamber, cloaked in cryogenic mist. Frost clung to his silver hair like diamond dust.
His robe hung loose, revealing a body painted in fractured thermographic patterns—skin etched with the burns of extreme cold exposure.
"Damn, Wolfe," Lucian muttered, shivering. "You could flash-freeze a steak with those abs."
Soren's smirk was pure steel.
"Serena Quinn's gone dark."
The teacup on the table—froze solid in the blink of an eye.