The warmth from Grendel's consumed life-force was a lie.
As ***Karys*** moved through the primary ventilation shafts of Sub-Level 12, the artificial heat of the "Bio-Sludge" began to evaporate, leaving behind a bone-chilling vacuum. The Loom-Nidus inside his arm wasn't just a weapon; it was a parasite with a high maintenance cost. Every footstep felt like he was dragging a limb made of solid lead. The Siderite-Marrow was too heavy for his remaining human musculature.
He stopped, pressing his back against a weeping pipe. His breath came in shallow, jagged hitches.
*Systemic Integration Percentage: 5.1%.*
The number throbbed in his subconscious like a migraine. He could feel the Nidus thin out, sending microscopic filaments through his *pectoralis minor* and down toward his ribs. It was searching for more calcium. Having exhausted the "fuel" from the Overseer, it was now looking at ***Karys***'s own skeleton as the next available resource.
"Stop," ***Karys*** hissed, clutching his shoulder.
The Nidus didn't stop. It tightened. A sharp, stinging sensation lanced through his *intercostal muscles*. If he didn't find a stabilizer or more high-density protein soon, the thing would hollow out his ribcage before the next shift-cycle began.
***Karys*** looked down at the "Dredge-Gutters" below. It was a vertical drop of forty feet into a river of grey industrial runoff. To anyone else, it was a death trap. To him, it was a shortcut to the "Valve-Gap"—the lawless slice of the Gyre where the Suture-Witches operated.
He didn't climb down. He leaned forward and let gravity take him.
As he fell, the Nidus reacted. It didn't wait for his brain to signal. It flooded his *quadriceps* with a surge of bio-electric adrenaline. His perception slowed. The rusted rungs of a maintenance ladder blurred past.
*Crunch.*
***Karys*** landed in the knee-deep sludge of the gutters. The impact should have shattered his femurs. Instead, the Siderite-Marrow absorbed the kinetic energy, radiating the vibration upward. His human skin split at the heels, blood leaking into the grey water, but the bone remained intact.
He didn't linger. The "Purge-Teams" would already be tracking the sudden drop in Grendel's biometric signature. In the Gyre, the Company didn't care about murder, but they cared deeply about lost equipment. Grendel's hydraulic grafts were worth more than a thousand Scrubbers.
***Karys*** waded through the filth, his right arm glowing with a faint, angry violet hue. He reached the "Sluice-Gate"—a massive, circular hatch caked in layers of calcified salt and old grease.
He placed his right hand on the locking mechanism.
The Nidus didn't use strength this time. It used precision. A dozen black filaments slid from ***Karys***'s fingertips, snaking into the keyhole and the internal tumblers. He could feel the mechanism through the filaments—the rusted springs, the jammed gears, the friction of the metal.
With a sickening *clack-whir*, the heavy gate groaned open.
***Karys*** slipped through and entered the Valve-Gap.
The atmosphere here was different. It didn't smell like rust; it smelled of rot and "Ozone-Incense." This was the territory of the **Graft-Sects**. Here, people didn't just work; they evolved. He saw a man sitting on a pile of discarded casings, his entire lower jaw replaced by a filter-mask that hissed with every breath. He saw a child with four spindly, insect-like arms weaving mats out of copper wiring.
They all looked at ***Karys***. Not at his face, but at his right arm.
In the Valve-Gap, a "Fresh Graft" was like carrying a bag of gold through a den of starving wolves.
***Karys*** tightened his grip on a jagged piece of scrap metal he'd pulled from the sluice. His *flexor digitorum* muscles felt like coiled springs. The Nidus was pulsing, sensing the proximity of so much "unprotected" marrow.
"Keep walking, boy," a voice rasped from a dark corner. "Unless you want to be harvested before you reach the Witch."
The speaker was a "Stiffie"—a man in the final stages of calcification. His legs were already fused to the floor, turning into a grey, stony pillar. He was part of the architecture now.
"Where is Vrax?" ***Karys*** asked, his voice sounding like two stones grinding together.
The Stiffie pointed a finger that was more bone than flesh toward a flickering neon sign that read: *RE-STITCH.*
***Karys*** moved toward the sign. Every step was a battle against the "Metabolic Debt." His vision was blurring. The violet lines on his arm were now crawling up his neck, nearing his jawline.
*SIP: 6.8%. Warning: Primary Neural Path Overloading.*
He reached the door—a heavy slab of reinforced polymer stained with chemicals. He didn't knock. He collapsed against it.
The door slid open, and the sterile, sharp scent of "Ichor-Antiseptic" hit him.
The room was a slaughterhouse disguised as a clinic. Jars of preserved "Nerve-Clusters" lined the walls. In the center stood a high-backed chair made of recycled rib-struts.
"Another Scrubber with a dream of being a God?"
Vrax stepped out of the shadows. She was taller than Grendel, but thin—impossibly thin. Her neck was elongated by three extra vertebrae, and her fingers ended in six-inch obsidian needles. Her eyes were milky white, cataracts covering everything except the pinpoint pupils that glowed with a faint, surgical blue light.
She grabbed ***Karys***'s right arm before he could protest.
"This..." she whispered, her needle-fingers dancing over the violet veins. "This isn't a graft. This is a **Primal-Root**. Where did a piece of filth like you find a Weaver's seed?"
"Sub... Level 12," ***Karys*** gasped. "It's... eating me."
Vrax laughed, a sound like dry parchment tearing. She shoved him into the chair. Heavy leather straps immediately snapped shut around his waist and left arm.
"Of course it's eating you. It's a parasite from the Pre-Collapse era. It doesn't want a host; it wants a temple."
She picked up a heavy, glass syringe filled with a thick, viscous black liquid. "This is 'Marrow-Suppressant.' It will slow the integration, but the pain... the pain will be clinical."
She didn't use anesthesia. In the Valve-Gap, anesthesia was for the rich.
Vrax drove the obsidian needle into ***Karys***'s *deltoid* muscle.
***Karys***'s back arched so hard the leather straps groaned. He didn't scream—his vocal cords were paralyzed by the chemical. He watched with horrifying clarity as his skin began to ripple. Beneath the surface, the Nidus was fighting the suppressant.
The black threads inside his arm coiled and uncoiled, lashing out against the invading fluid.
"Look at that," Vrax muttered, leaning in close, her blue pupils dilating. "It's intelligent. It's protecting the *brachial artery*."
She turned away to grab a scalpel. "I need to vent the pressure, or your skin will slough off like wet paper. Hold still, little maggot."
The scalpel sliced through the *Brachioradialis* muscle, exposing the radial nerve. The Nidus flared bright purple, the light illuminating the dark corners of the room.
Suddenly, a loud, metallic *boom* echoed from the street outside.
The violet light in ***Karys***'s arm didn't just pulse; it went static. The Nidus sensed a threat far greater than a Suture-Witch.
"Vrax!" a voice boomed from outside. It was amplified by a loud-hailer, distorted and cold. "This sector is under Company Purge-Protocol 4. We are tracking a Class-B Biological Anomaly. Open the door or we vent the room with neuro-toxin."
Vrax froze. Her needle-fingers trembled. "The Purge-Teams... they followed you."
She looked at ***Karys***, then at the half-open incision in his arm. Her expression shifted from curiosity to pure, cold survival. She raised her scalpel, not to finish the surgery, but to cut the straps and push him out.
"Get out," she hissed. "I don't die for Scrubbers."
***Karys*** felt the suppressant hitting his system. The "Metabolic Debt" was still there, but the screaming in his nerves had turned into a dull, vibrating roar.
He looked at the door. He could hear the heavy, hydraulic footsteps of the "Chitin-Guard"—the Company's elite enforcers.
He looked at his right hand. The skin around the incision was already stitching itself back together, the Nidus using the "Marrow-Suppressant" as a temporary catalyst.
"I'm not leaving," ***Karys*** said, his voice now a deep, resonant bass that vibrated in Vrax's own bones.
He broke the leather straps. It wasn't a struggle. He simply flexed his *biceps brachii*, and the reinforced hide snapped like thread.
He stood up, the violet light in his arm bleeding into his chest, forming the shape of a jagged, many-eyed spider across his ribs.
"I need a weapon," ***Karys*** said, his eyes turning a solid, bruised purple.
Vrax stared at him, terrified. She reached into a drawer and threw a jagged obsidian shiv at him—the "Nerve-Shiv."
"Take it. And if you survive... you owe me three liters of High-Graft Ichor."
***Karys*** caught the shiv in his right hand. The Nidus immediately sent filaments into the obsidian, bonding the weapon to his flesh. The blade began to pulse with a sickly green bile.
The front door exploded inward.
A wall of ammonia-green fog rolled in, and through the haze stepped a giant in rusted exoskeleton armor. A red visor flickered in the dark.
***Karys*** didn't wait for a command. He didn't wait for a warning.
He charged.
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