The silence that followed the implosion of the Mk-II unit was not a reprieve; it was a vacuum. For a heartbeat, the laws of physics seemed to hold their breath. Then, the backlash hit. It didn't come as a blast of fire or a wave of heat, but as a cold, agonizing rejection. The "Dual Core" energy Shin had so arrogantly consumed was not a pure source of power—it was a biological virus disguised as lightning.
Shin Van Croft, the man who had walked through the most secure facility on Earth like a ghost, suddenly felt the crushing weight of his own bones. His knees didn't just bend; they buckled with a sickening crack against the cold floor.
[The Internal War]
A jagged, searing pain erupted in his chest, radiating through his nervous system like molten lead being poured into his veins. He tried to take a breath, but his lungs felt as though they were filled with crushed glass. When he coughed, the blood that splattered across his pale hands was not red. It was a dark, oily violet, shimmering with unstable static that ate away at the floor tiles where it landed.
"You greedy, arrogant child," the Monarch's voice hissed within the recesses of his mind. It no longer sounded like a tool; it sounded like a hungry predator watching its master bleed out. "Did you truly think you could swallow a star without burning your throat? That artificial core was corrupted—designed to self-destruct the moment it was integrated into a living host. You didn't just eat their project; you ate their poison."
"Shut... up," Shin wheezed, his fingers clawing at the reinforced floor, leaving deep grooves in the metal.
His #HIGHIQ mind, usually his greatest weapon, was now his greatest tormentor. It was forcing him to perceive every micro-second of his body's failure. He could calculate the exact rate of his cellular decay, the rising toxicity in his bloodstream, and the 89% probability that his heart would stop in the next ten minutes.
[The Environment of Despair]
Site Zero began to groan—a deep, metallic sound that vibrated in Shin's teeth. The Void energy he had unleashed during the fight had destabilized the structural integrity of the entire underground complex. Dust and debris began to rain from the ceiling, and the emergency red lights flickered, casting long, distorted shadows that looked like grasping hands.
Shin tried to summon a Void Fold—the teleportation ability that had made him untouchable. He reached for the darkness, but his vision fractured into a thousand shards of static. The Void wasn't responding; it was retreating, leaving him stranded in a body that was rapidly becoming a cage.
[The Desperate Struggle]
He didn't stand up. He couldn't. Instead, he dragged his body across the floor, his black coat trailing through the dust and blood. Every inch felt like a mile. He used the edge of a jagged, half-melted laboratory table to haul himself up, his muscles screaming in protest. His hands, usually so steady, were trembling so violently he could barely maintain his grip.
"System... status..." he gasped, his voice a mere shadow of its former authority.
[WARNING: Core Synch at 9%. Physical Trauma: Level 4 - Critical. Void Manifestation: Disabled. Internal Bleeding Detected. Recommendation: Immediate Stasis.]
"Stasis is... for the dead," Shin muttered, a ghost of a defiant smile flickering on his bloody lips.
[The Hunted]
As he staggered into the main corridor, the sounds of heavy combat boots echoed from the far end. Under normal circumstances, Shin would have found the idea of security guards threatening him laughable. Now, the sound of their approaching footsteps felt like the tolling of a funeral bell.
A squad of eight guards rounded the corner, their white tactical armor gleaming under the red emergency strobes. They weren't elite Echo-Saints; they were just men. But they were men with kinetic rifles and working bodies.
"Subject identified! He's down! I repeat, the Sovereign is wounded!" the squad leader shouted into his comms.
Shin leaned against the wall, his breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. He looked at his hand. He couldn't even form the strength to draw The Fractured Monarch. He was a king without a sword, a god without a miracle.
[The Human IQ]
But if his power was gone, his intellect remained. He didn't look at the guards; he looked at the ceiling above them. He saw the high-pressure coolant lines running alongside the electrical conduits.
As the guards raised their weapons, Shin didn't try to shield himself. He took a heavy brass paperweight from a nearby desk—a relic from Vane's office—and threw it. It wasn't a throw of strength, but of perfect, mathematical precision.
The object struck the junction valve of the coolant line.
HISS.
Super-chilled nitrogen erupted in a blinding cloud of white fog, instantly freezing the guards' visors and seizing the firing mechanisms of their rifles. In the chaos and the screams of frostbitten men, Shin ducked into a ventilation shaft, his movements clumsy and painful, but hidden by the mist.
[The Abyss Closes In]
Crawling through the narrow, dark metal tunnels of the ventilation system was a new kind of hell. The air was thin, and the smell of ozone and burning circuitry was overwhelming. Shin's consciousness was fading, the edges of his vision turning black.
He realized now that Vane hadn't expected the Mk-II to win. It was a sacrifice—a "Trojan Horse." They knew Shin's nature was to consume, and they had given him something that would rot him from the inside out.
"I am... Shin Van Croft..." he whispered to himself in the darkness of the vents, his fingers digging into the metal. "And I... do not... lose."
But as his head hit the cold metal floor of the shaft and the world began to spin, the terrifying truth remained: he was 30 levels underground, his power was a poison, and the Council was already counting his remaining heartbeats.