The laboratory slumbered beneath the bedrock of the imperial complex, cloaked in an eerie, stifling quiet.
It was not the tranquil silence of peace, but the suspended breath of controlled catastrophe.
The air smelled of acrid ozone, pressurized glass, and the faint, copper-sharp tang of latent blood magic. The rhythmic *tick-tock* of brass chronometers and the steady, low hiss of pneumatic release valves echoed off stone walls lined with floor-to-ceiling rows of crystal stasis jars. Suspended within translucent, viscous fluids were volatile alchemical reagents—some pulsing with a soft, bioluminescent luminescence, others squirming against the glass despite possessing no recognizable organs of movement.
At the epicenter of the facility stood a massive, reinforced experimental chamber crafted from runic steel and multi-layered glass.
Inside sat an orc.
The creature was a monolithic wall of muscle, its jade skin heavily crisscrossed with jagged pale scars left behind by previous trials. Thick iron bands clamped its massive wrists and ankles flat against a sloped metallic pedestal.
Behind a reinforced observation barrier, a handful of researchers monitored the instruments with strained breath. Among them stood Ayesha Truelah.
Her violet hair was gathered back into a sleek, precise tail over her shoulders, and her dark-framed spectacles rested flawlessly on the bridge of her nose. Her violet eyes—cold, analytical, completely devoid of fear or excitement—remained locked on the subject inside the glass.
She was not admiring her subject. She was dissecting it with her gaze.
"Initiate the next phase," a senior researcher ordered, his voice thin against the ambient hum.
A technician hauled back a heavy iron lever. With a screech of metal, a wide conduit lowered from the ceiling directly above the chamber, unleashing a torrent of murky water.
The orc stared upward, its nostrils flaring as the liquid rapidly pooled around its boots. Knee-deep. Waist-deep. Chest-deep. The creature began to thrash, the iron restraints groaning under the sudden burst of brute force.
"Increase the intake," came the next command.
The water surged, climbing past its collarbone. The orc threw its head back, bellowing a muffled roar as it strained to keep its snout above the rising tide, bubbles of trapped air escaping its mouth in desperate bursts.
"Vital signs spiking!" a technician called out. "Respiration erratic—he's entering panic!"
"Obviously," Ayesha muttered smoothly, not taking her eyes off the rising fluid.
The water crested over the orc's jaw. Choking, desperate gurgles vibrated through the reinforced barrier.
A younger researcher wavered, his hand hovering nervously over the emergency release. "Lady Ayesha… should we suspend the trial?"
"No," she replied without a heartbeat's hesitation. "Record every fluctuation."
The orc's thrashing reached a fever pitch, its claws scraping uselessly against the metal.
Ayesha raised a single, slender hand. "Now."
A researcher hastily unlocked a lead-lined containment drawer and pulled out a jagged chunk of dull black ore using heavy, heat-insulated tongs. The mineral possessed no inner light, no magical aura, and no discernible pulse of mana. It appeared entirely inert—a mere fragment of dead rock.
"Introducing Myrath ore," the researcher announced, dropping the shard into the top funnel of the chamber.
For a fraction of a second, the water remained undisturbed.
Then came a violent *CRACK*.
From the exact point of impact, jagged spears of white frost exploded outward in a violent, cascading reaction. The entire volume of water instantly crystallized. In less time than it took to draw a breath, the surge of liquid transformed into a dense block of solid ice, locking the roaring orc inside a crystalline tomb, its jaws still wide in frozen agony.
Silence fell over the observation deck.
A clipboard clattered softly against the stone floor. "...Impossible," someone breathed.
"Check the thermal readings!" another called out, diving toward the brass dials. "Temperature drop?"
"It's... it's still plunging!"
"Quantify it!"
"The sensors are malfunctioning—they can't track the gradient!"
Ayesha stepped closer, her breath lightly fogging the glass. Her spectacles caught the sharp glint of the blue ice. The black ore sat motionless at the core of the frozen block. It hadn't emitted heat. It hadn't absorbed cold. It had done something altogether different—something fundamental.
"Fascinating," she murmured. She removed her glasses, polished the lenses with the edge of her coat, and settled them back on her nose. "Exact duration of the phase change?"
"Under three seconds, Lady Ayesha."
"The entire volume?"
"Every drop."
Ayesha stared into the opaque depths of the ice. "Then the Myrath ore isn't acting as a thermal drain. It is altering the structural state of the liquid itself." She gestured toward the console. "Prep a secondary trial."
The researchers blinked at her in shock. "With... with the subject?"
Ayesha glanced at the speaker, her expression unreadable. "No. Reduce the fluid volume to a localized sample."
Relief washed over the technician's face. "Right away, Lady Ayesha!"
Another scholar peered closer at the glass monitor. "The subject's life signs are stable. The tissue hasn't ruptured."
"Good," Ayesha said neutrally.
"Shall we initiate a slow thaw?"
"Eventually." She turned away, walking toward her central workstation. "First, extract the ore without fracturing the structure."
As the team scrambled to execute her orders, Ayesha opened her leather-bound ledger. The parchment was crammed with dense, tight script: chemical equations, anatomical diagrams, mana-flow vectors, and crossed-out hypotheses.
Flipping to a pristine page, she dipped her quill and wrote:
> **Myrath Ore — Preliminary Observation**
> *Result: Hyper-reactive interaction with aqueous compounds.*
> *Note: Rapid phase-solidification confirmed.*
>
She tapped the feather of her quill against her chin, staring thoughtfully at the frozen chamber before adding one final line:
> *The Myrath ore functions as intended.*
>
*BANG.*
The heavy reinforced doors of the laboratory slammed open, rebounding off the stone wall with a crack that startled half the scholars into dropping their instruments.
A young intern scrambled over the threshold, drenched in cold sweat, his robes disheveled and his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"Lady Ayesha!" he gasped out.
No one answered. Ayesha didn't even raise her quill.
The intern swallowed hard, clutching his chest. "Lady Ayesha!"
Slowly, methodically, Ayesha set her pen down and turned around. "Speak."
"King... King Leornars Servs Avrem..."
The room went dead silent. The faint clatter of glass ceased entirely.
Ayesha raised a single eyebrow. "What of His Majesty?"
"He's... he's outside!"
"Outside?"
"He's walking through the facility," the intern squeaked, looking as though he had sprinted through the entire subterranean complex. "Alone. Just... strolling through the corridors!"
Ayesha's gaze remained fixed on the terrified youth. "...Walking?"
"Yes!"
"Without an escort?"
"Yes!"
"For what purpose?"
"I don't know!" the boy wailed. "He just walked right past the guards and started wandering down the hall!"
Ayesha closed her ledger with a soft snap. "That sounds remarkably like him." She adjusted her glasses, a sharp, violet gleam flashing behind the lenses. "Clean this disaster area up."
The scientists panicked, looking at the strewn parchment, bubbling vials, and half-assembled apparatuses covering every counter. "Right now?!"
"Immediately."
As the room dissolved into frantic hushed activity, Ayesha strolled calmly toward the entrance. Behind her, a low voice whispered: "Do we thaw the orc?"
Ayesha paused at the threshold, glancing over her shoulder. "No."
"...Understood."
"Leave him precisely as he is."
She stepped out. The corridor beyond was cool and eerily silent, the ambient noise of the complex deadened by thick stone.
At the far end of the hallway, sitting nonchalantly on a carved wooden bench, was the King himself.
Leornars Servs Avrem looked entirely out of place amidst the dark, subterranean architecture, yet he owned the space effortlessly. His sharp, platinum-blond hair fell loosely around his face, framing features of pale elegance. His crimson eyes, glowing softly in the dim light, were quietly tracing the masonry of the ceiling.
Ayesha stopped a few paces away, smoothing her skirts. "Lord Leornars."
Leornars turned his head toward her, his expression unreadable, calm as a stagnant lake. "Ayesha."
"You chose to visit the laboratory today."
"So I noticed."
Ayesha blinked, her analytical mind pausing for a fraction of a second. "...You noticed?"
Leornars drifted his gaze past her toward the open doorway behind her. "I could smell the alchemy from three corridors back."
Ayesha's mouth thinned into a tight line. "Ah."
Leornars rose from the bench in one fluid motion, his crimson eyes locking onto the doorway. "What nightmare are you brewing today?"
A faint, dangerous smile touched Ayesha's lips. "Something quite extraordinary, actually."
Leornars let out a low sigh. "When you use that word, it usually means someone is about to suffer terribly."
"Not necessarily," she countered smoothly, lifting her ledger. "We may have just unlocked a viable weaponization phase for Myrath ore."
Leornars looked from the book to her eyes, then back toward the depths of the lab. "...Should I be concerned?"
Ayesha nudged her glasses up her nose. "Most likely."
"I knew I should have stayed above ground," Leornars muttered, though he stepped past her and into the lab.
"Follow me," Ayesha said, leading the way.
"Where?"
"Science."
Leornars tilted his head as he walked behind her. "...That is somehow significantly less comforting than if you had said 'the torture chamber.'"
"High praise," Ayesha murmured.
The moment Leornars crossed the threshold into the main chamber, he was hit with a wall of scent—solvents, raw metal, dense mana, and the unmistakable underlying stench of singed flesh.
His eyes slowly swept over the chaotic room, coming to rest on the massive block of ice in the central containment unit. The frozen orc, mouth wide in a silent scream, stared back out at him.
Leornars stared at the specimen for a long moment. Then he looked sideways at Ayesha. "Let me guess."
Ayesha said nothing, merely holding her posture.
"Some Salene-inspired madness?" Leornars gestured vaguely toward the block. "Just ensure that thing is dead before it starts sprouting useless limbs or acting like those disturbing organic tea cups she keeps in her quarters."
Ayesha's hand twitched over her glasses. "We are conducting controlled physical testing, Lord Leornars. Not tissue mutation."
"That is precisely what Salene claimed before she slaughtered six goblins in the Ashevilliah territory last week," Leornars noted dryly.
Ayesha paused, her mouth forming a subtle 'o'. "...Point taken."
They walked past rows of tables cluttered with glowing vials, mechanical components, and pulsing organic samples resting in glass dishes. Leornars casually hovered a hand over a bubbling vat of dark blue gel. "What's this?"
"An artificial tissue culture."
"And that?"
"A cell-regeneration compound."
His fingers drifted toward a crimson fluid humming with erratic mana. "And this?"
"I must strongly advise against touching that," Ayesha said, her voice dropping an octave.
Leornars immediately pulled his hand back, wiping his fingers on his coat. "Fair enough."
They reached a side wing of the facility—a vacant, wide testing hall containing nothing more than an iron table, a few chairs, and a vast, empty stone floor.
Leornars stepped into the center of the room and paused, taking a slow, deep breath.
*BOOM.*
Without a flicker of warning, Leornars vanished.
The displacement of air was so instantaneous and absolute that Ayesha's purple hair whipped violently around her face, her skirts snap-cracking like a flag in a gale. A heavy, thunderous shockwave echoed from somewhere far outside the facility walls—followed instantly by a second *BOOM*, then a third, before complete stillness returned.
Ayesha stood frozen, her eyes wide behind her lenses. "..."
A fraction of a second later, Leornars was simply standing in the center of the room again. Not a single strand of his platinum hair was out of place. His clothing hadn't even settled from movement.
He let out a slow, controlled exhale. "This room will suffice."
Ayesha straightened her collar, trying to process the violent shift in air pressure. "You... just left the facility."
"Yes."
"And came back."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I required a tool."
From within his coat, Leornars produced a small, silver utility knife.
Ayesha's eyes narrowed instantly. "Lord Leornars—"
Without a word of explanation, he pressed the edge of the blade against his left thumb. A thin line of crimson bloomed across the pale skin, and a few dark droplets pooled, falling cleanly into a glass measuring beaker resting on the nearby table.
Ayesha's mind raced, her scientific instinct immediately overriding her alarm. "You're providing a biological sample?"
"In part," Leornars said calmly.
He shifted the knife, placing the gleaming steel blade directly against the joint of his pinkie finger.
Ayesha's eyes widened. "Wait—"
*Slice.*
With a sickeningly clean sound, his finger was severed at the base. It tumbled into his waiting right palm.
Ayesha stared at the severed digit, then at his hand.
Before a full drop of blood could even spill from the fresh wound, the raw stump flared with a terrifying, localized surge of mana. Flesh wove together like living threads. Pale bone extended, muscle fibers knitted in visible, rapid pulses, and fresh skin sealed seamlessly over the tip. In less than two seconds, a perfectly formed, brand-new finger flexed in the air, as if it had never been severed at all.
Leornars tossed the detached pinkie into the glass beaker alongside his blood with all the casualness of discarding an apple core.
"I need you to synthesize a soulless vessel," Leornars said, leaning against the table. "A precise replica of my physical form."
Ayesha slowly lowered her gaze to the dark crimson blood and the severed finger sitting at the bottom of the glass. Then she looked back up into his crimson eyes. "An artificial avatar?"
"Precisely." He gestured to the cup. "Duplicate my exact physical parameters. Bone structure, vocal cords, facial features, height, weight. Everything."
Ayesha picked up the glass beaker, holding it up to the dim light. Her eyes sparkled with a terrifying, unadulterated curiosity. "What is its intended function?"
"Irrelevant for your current parameters."
"Shall I construct a spiritual conduit? Does it require your abilities?"
"No."
"Memories?"
"No."
"Any level of autonomous consciousness?"
"Absolutely not," Leornars commanded sharply.
Ayesha nodded slowly, processing the logic. "An empty shell. A pristine, biological decoy."
"Exactly. Something that bears my skin, but contains nothing behind the eyes." Leornars turned toward the exit, his business concluded. "I trust your expertise."
Ayesha bowed her head deeply. "It shall be done, Lord Leornars."
"Good." He took two steps toward the corridor, then paused, looking back over his shoulder. "One more detail."
Ayesha looked up, attentive.
"Salene will be returning from her deployment within the next few days," he said, gesturing toward the beaker in her hand. "Have her analyze my blood structure. Search for any cellular mutations or genetic anomalies that can be harvested to bolster our forces or refine our recovery compounds."
Ayesha's gaze drifted to the blood sample. "I will oversee the integration personally."
Before another word could be spoken, the side door clicked open.
A girl strolled into the room, blissfully unaware of the intense atmosphere. It was Sumi. She was holding a half-eaten stick of grilled meat, happily chewing away.
She took another bite, looked up, and instantly froze.
Leornars turned slowly to face her. His dark brows furrowed into an terrifyingly sharp line. "Sumi."
Sumi swallowed the chunk of meat with a visible *gulp*. "Y-Yes, Lord Leornars?"
"A word."
The meat stick slowly drooped in her hand. The color drained from her face as confusion gave way to sudden, absolute terror.
"Wait—Lord Leornars, I—!" She took a skittish step backward toward the frame of the door. "I wasn't slacking off, I swear on my life!"
Leornars folded his arms over his chest, his gaze heavy enough to crush steel.
Cold sweat broke out across Sumi's forehead. "I swear on Ayesha's life!"
Ayesha's head snapped toward her so fast her glasses nearly slipped. "Excuse me?!"
Sumi cringed. "On whose life?!" Ayesha demanded, stepping forward.
"I panicked!" Sumi shrieked.
"You could have sworn on your own!"
"I don't trust my own life! And in case you forgot, I'M UNDEAD! I'm literally already dead!"
Leornars let out a long, suffering exhale, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "What in the hell are you even complaining about? You begged me to make sure you wouldn't die."
"Exactly!" Sumi squeaked.
"You are exhausting," Leornars muttered, his tone dripping with profound regret. "If I had known you would be this much of a headache, I would have made you bald when I turned you."
Ayesha's eyes glinted menacingly. "We could always execute her and reanimate her a second time. I can adjust the parameters."
"EXCUSE ME?!" Sumi squawked, taking two huge strides backward.
Ayesha glared at her. Leornars simply watched the chaos with deadpan indifference.
Realizing she was cornered, Sumi's eyes went wide. "Nope!"
Her body suddenly shivered, glowing with a soft, iridescent light. In the span of a heartbeat, her shape melted and reformed. Her hair lengthened into a sharp violet tail, her height adjusted, and a pair of dark spectacles materialized over her newly formed violet eyes.
Standing before them was a perfect, flawless mirror image of Ayesha Truelah.
The fake Ayesha flashed a frantic, terrified grin, offered a quick salute, and yelled, "Goodbye!"
She turned on her heel and sprinted down the corridor at full speed.
Ayesha stood rooted to the spot in utter disbelief.
Leornars blinked twice.
The footsteps of the shapeshifted Sumi echoed rapidly into the distance.
Leornars slowly turned his head to look at the real Ayesha. "I constantly forget she possesses that trait."
Ayesha's left eye twitched violently beneath her lens. "Well... *I* was unaware of it." She raised a trembling hand and carefully adjusted her glasses. "But *NOW I AM*."
Leornars stared down the dark hallway, a faint, rare smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "That is going to prove... troublesome."
Ayesha let out a heavy, defeated sigh. "Undoubtedly."
From far down the winding subterranean tunnels, a faint, muffled scream echoed back: *"I HEARD THAT!"*
Leornars closed his eyes, exasperated. "Of course you did."
Ayesha turned her attention back to the glass beaker, holding the precious genetic material close to her chest. "Shall I commence the flesh-binding process for the avatar body immediately?"
Leornars looked at her, his expression instantly sobering, all traces of amusement vanishing into the dark shadows of the lab. "Yes."
He paused, his crimson eyes locking onto hers with a chilling intensity. "And Ayesha?"
"Yes, Lord Leornars?"
"If that shell shows even the faintest spark of independent thought... if it breathes on its own, speaks a single word, or twitches without an external tether..." He stepped closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "Burn it to ash. Obliterate every single cell. I will not suffer another Kurnov."
Ayesha bowed her head, her voice dead serious. "Understood. Complete eradication."
A heavy beat of silence hung in the chamber.
Then Ayesha's gaze drifted back toward the corridor where the rogue undead had fled. "...Should I incinerate Sumi while I'm at it?"
Leornars actually pondered the offer for a second. "No... she remains functional for our current phase." He sighed again. "Besides, she would likely just attempt to shapeshift into the flames."
Ayesha let out a short, sharp laugh.
"I nearly forgot," Leornars added, his tone returning to business. "I need you to open a gateway to Julah's sanctuary. Inform her to lock onto my soul resonance in precisely two hours. We are convening at the Skyvault Citadel, and I expect every head of the inner circle present."
"Consider it done, Lord Leornars."
"And retrieve Sumi on your way out," Leornars said smoothly.
Before the final word had even fully left his lips, his form dissolved into thin air, leaving behind only the faintest breeze to stir the quiet air of the laboratory.