Plans tore like paper in rain. Xun Xun and his bodyguard had set a feint east, strike west, yet the other guard snapped to it in a blink and ran him down—he’d misread the man’s strength.

Panic rose like frost up his spine before his legs moved. He knew nothing about this lab, but the hound at his heels drove him through its door—he couldn’t, mustn’t, be caught.

The door yawned open like a cold mouth. He burst inside and met a forest of glass columns, each a tall, pale coffin holding something that breathed.

A textbook Dreadwolf slept like a shadow with fangs; chimera things stitched from almost-Earth beasts twitched like bad dreams; even human infants floated like drowned moons.

Teen girls, half human, half Monsters, hung like lilies on hooks, pale tubes burrowed in their skin, dripping life into them like rain into parched soil.

In a flash, the sign “No Admittance” rang like a temple bell. He finally understood why they posted those words like talismans warding off the curious.

The Order Keeper had outlawed human experiments, iron on parchment; yet this Modification Center lab worked in the dark, hands red as dusk.

Compassion tugged like a thin thread through his chest, then fear cut it clean. He wanted to save them, but he was barely keeping his own head above water.

Breath burning, he saw the guard close as a shadow on a wall, and he stopped looking. He drove his heavy legs deeper into the lab, like wading through snow.

The room ended fast, like a tunnel bitten off. Cold bit his teeth; no vents breathed, no door waited ahead—only a hard, thick wall, a clean dead end.

He glanced at the wall and dropped the thought of breaking through like a stone. The guard arrived, chest heaving; even he looked surprised the “weakling” could run.

“Young master, this is a dead end,” the man said, voice flat as steel. “Go back and do the surgery. It won’t affect you or me at all.”

It won’t affect a thing—absolute crap. Rage flared like sparks under wet wood, stubborn and hot.

A chip in the skull meant pervert or slave, leash or collar. His family weren’t doves from his vantage—they wanted a puppet to warm the chair his father built.

He remembered a saying: wealth rarely outlives three generations. Take the second, and the third is a name on paper, a crown on an empty head.

What burned him wasn’t the title; he never wanted to be patriarch. He wanted wind and open road, yet they hauled him back like a fish on a hook.

Even his mother had sold him out; that house was a gilded cage. Better to die in a knife-bright sprint for freedom than breathe forever on strings.

Xun Xun stopped running. The cold settled, and his anger sat like a stone in a river, unmovable.

He was a rich kid with a new Mechanical Arm and zero real fights under his belt. Across from him stood a cyborg under fifty, seven years their family’s blade.

Experience, muscle, reflex—on every front, he was outmatched. To win, he needed a storm from outside, like the Magic Tool tucked by his ribs.

He didn’t know why someone who wanted him dead handed him something so lethal; maybe they feared he’d slip the net. The question flared, then vanished like smoke.

His fingers were already on the Magic Stone. Silver Array Patterns lit up like frost veins, drawing Mana and spinning it tight as a knot.

The guard moved like a piston. His Mechanical Arm howled, pure-white steam hissing out, clumping in the cold like breath before tearing itself apart.

He’d listened earlier, jaw tight: a steam Mechanical Arm turns fossil fuel into punch and roar; it eats fuel and takes ages to charge.

Each charge rode a heavy slider up the arm, then crawled down, venting white steam like a kettle from hell—heat born from fuel burning in iron pipes.

No way he’d recharged just now; he’d primed it early, patient as a hunter. The doctor had listed pros and cons, but skipped how long a charge would last.

The thought cut off when a metal fist filled his world. The air around it burned and bit, heat wrapped in cold, wind like a razor to the face.

Instinct flung him sideways, two quick steps like slipping past a wave. Luck kissed his cheek; the punch missed and thundered into the floor.

The impact boomed, deafening as a bell in a burial hall. Xun Xun flinched; the guard didn’t pause—another iron comet arced for his skull.

Xun Xun braced, every muscle stringed tight. He couldn’t meet steam with flesh; he had to vanish like a swallow dodging a stone.

This time the guard read the angle like a book. The fist swelled in Xun Xun’s pupils; there was nowhere, no breath, no gap to slip through.

CLANG.

Metal screamed across the not-large lab. His fresh Mechanical Arm threw itself in, catching the iron blow that aimed for his belly at the last heartbeat.

Stitches spit beads of blood like crushed pomegranates. Threads snapped; the wound gaped; one more hit and the arm would tear off like a door under a ram.

Opportunity flickered like a firefly. Xun Xun bit down hard, lunged three steps, and thrust out the arm etched with Array Patterns, seizing the iron fist and shoving with borrowed force.

As the fist smashed to the floor, he yanked out the readied Magic Tool and shot the guard’s belly. A lance of light burned through, branding the floor with a small black tear.

Blood washed the scorch like a tide. Xun Xun staggered back, clutching his arm; sweat poured like rain, blood threading from the seam where deep-blue metal met skin.

The guard clutched his gut and crawled up, dragged by his steam arm like a chained beast. Xun Xun blocked him again and hissed in awe—the arm was good; his body was not.

He swallowed the pain and sprinted for the exit. At the door, ice slid down his heart—his allied guard hung in a white coat’s grip, face marked and eyes dim.

The woman in the lab coat carried no scratch, like a blade fresh from oil. That wasn’t a fight; that was a crush, maybe a clean instant kill.

She was strong, painfully so—likely a Magic Maiden. Xun Xun knew his state; steel against her was a fool’s wish.

“I’m the young master of the Xun Group,” he said, voice tight as wire. “Please let me leave.”

He hated to flash the family crest, but pressure needed leverage. Still, the words tasted like ash.

The lab-coat woman didn’t bite. Underground wolves don’t bow to banners; he cursed himself—giving his name here was offering his throat.

“Cute little brother, I don’t care if it’s Wang Group or Xun Group,” she said, smile sugar then stone. “You’re on my turf. Have they forgotten my name out there?”

Her smile died like a lamp snuffed. Mana poured off her in cold waves, and the air grew winter-thick.

She was a wall he couldn’t climb; odds weren’t odds—they were zero. The weight pressed his waist, then his knees; his body folded to the floor.

A mouthful of iron-salt clogged his throat. Cold churned in lung and gut; each breath was a thousand ice needles combing his windpipe.

His eyes flushed red; blood slipped from his lips; bones creaked like old wood; wounds swelled and sang with pain.

“Good willpower,” she said, voice a knife wrapped in silk. “Dying here’s a waste. As a test subject, you’ll shine. This lab will be your new home and your debt repaid.”

Dark edged his vision; blood seeped from ears and nose, seven gates leaking red. He heard her clearly—his life would end as neither human nor Monster.

Freedom was a mirage on hot sand. A devil’s chuckle curled in his ear; a slender arm reached, a white palm like snow, dragging him toward a deeper pit.

But off to his side, a thin light trembled like dawn. In a glass pillar, a half-human, half-Monster girl opened eyes green as wet jade.

Her pupils stood vertical, a cat’s slits in moonlight. She moved her mouth under the clear liquid, silent words like bubbles; he didn’t know them, but he knew this was it.

His Mechanical Arm poured out its last heat, and the Magic Stone in the Magic Tool bled dry, crumbling into pale gray crystals like spent ash.

Array Patterns flared deep blue, river-lines under skin. He pushed through the crushing weight and slammed the nearest glass pillar with everything left.

Cracks spidered like frost across a window. The heavy transparent fluid burst out, a cold flood that swallowed the floor.

“Been a while, big sister—getting careless, are we?” the girl said, voice rough as rust.

She flexed rotting arms; blood-red fissures crawled from her back like wildfire, racing until they cloaked her whole body. Heat rolled off her and cooked the liquid to steam.

She caught Xun Xun’s arm with one hand, grip hot and sure. “Hey, kid, got the guts to run with a demon—no, with a Monster?”