A sharp, sterile light bore into Malak's vision the moment his eyelids fluttered open. The world around him felt cold, mechanical—like he was no longer flesh and blood but something dissected, studied, and reassembled into something less than whole. His body refused to move at first, but pain flared across his nerves as if his very essence had been peeled away and crudely sewn back together.
Metal restraints clamped tightly around his wrists and ankles, biting into his skin, cold as death. A thick band wrapped around his throat, locking his head in place. He tried to speak—his throat was raw, dry, stripped of its natural voice. Only a hoarse rasp escaped.
Shadowed figures loomed above him, their faces obscured by reflective visors, making them nothing more than specters of cruelty. The rhythmic beep of monitors echoed in the sterile air, tracking his heartbeat, his breathing—his suffering.
One of them leaned closer, a gloved hand gripping a wicked syringe filled with a viscous, black substance. Without hesitation, they drove it into his neck. Liquid fire burned through his veins, every nerve ignited in torment. His muscles seized, his spine arched violently against the table, but the restraints held firm. His wings—once mighty, now stripped of their grandeur—twitched uselessly behind him, raw where the feathers had been torn out.
Another figure pressed a scanning device against his temple. The machine emitted a high-pitched whine as it cataloged every detail of his biology, dissecting him on a level beyond flesh and bone. The screen flickered, reading data aloud in a cold, robotic voice.
"Subject: Cambion. Hybrid composition: 54% infernal, 46% human. Vital signs: stable. Resistance threshold: increasing. Initiating next phase."
More hands reached for him, their instruments gleaming under the light. A scalpel traced along his chest, carving into him without hesitation. No anesthesia. No mercy. Malak gritted his teeth, his canines elongating in agony. His blood, darker than human crimson, oozed from the wound as a device was shoved beneath his ribs. A surge of electricity coursed through him, frying every thought, every instinct, reducing him to raw sensation. He wanted to scream. Wanted to tear them apart. But his body betrayed him—drained, broken, dissected like a mere specimen.
A voice, distorted and inhuman, crackled through unseen speakers. "Strip him down further. We need to know exactly how he functions."
Gloved hands reached again, this time for his horns. A drill whirred to life. Malak's vision blurred, his body spasming as agony swallowed him whole.
The pain was unrelenting, a symphony of suffering that dulled his thoughts, but Malak's mind sharpened the moment he heard thatvoice.
Boots clicked against the sterile floor with deliberate precision. A presence loomed over him, radiating the cold, suffocating authority of a man who commanded destruction without hesitation. Through the haze of agony, Malak's blurred vision focused on the approaching figure. Even before the bastard spoke, he knew. Commander Silas Morrigan.
The architect of his downfall. The man who had unleashed the Sentinels upon him, who had orchestrated his capture, who had dragged him into this godforsaken hellscape of scalpels and syringes.
Malak's breath came in ragged gasps, his body refusing to obey his fury. His fingers twitched against the restraints, his wings shuddered against the cold steel beneath him, but he couldn't move, couldn't fight. He was a caged beast, stripped of his strength, his fire, his pride.
Silas stopped beside the table, tilting his head slightly as he regarded Malak with an expression unreadable behind the faint reflection of his visor. For a moment, the Commander simply watched, hands folded behind his back, as if studying a failed experiment—asifMalakwerenothingmorethanaspecimenontheslab.
Malak tried to speak, to hurl every curse in every infernal tongue he knew, but his throat was too raw, too weak. His lips curled in a silent snarl, his body trembling with suppressed rage.
Silas exhaled, almost disappointed. "I expected more."
A flick of his wrist, and one of the masked figures stepped forward, gripping Malak's jaw with gloved fingers, forcing his mouth open. Another needle, thinner than the last, slid between his teeth and into his tongue, delivering a sharp, burning injection.
Malak spasmed, his throat constricting as his voice—his very ability to speak—was stolen from him. Silas finally leaned closer, voice low, methodical. "Let's make one thing clear, cambion. You were never going to win. The Sentinels are perfected, forged to bring creatures like you to their knees. And now, you get to serve a greater purpose."
Silas reached down, his gloved fingers clamping around Malak's throat like a vice. His grip was unrelenting—calculated, precise, meant to remind the cambion of his place.
Malak wheezed, his body still ravaged by the torturous experiments, but even in his weakened state, his hate remained untouched, seething just beneath the surface. The Commander's visor gleamed in the cold, sterile light as he leaned in, voice like a blade against Malak's raw nerves.
"Who the hell are you, really?" Silas hissed. His tone wasn't just demanding—there was something else buried beneath it. Uncertainty. A hint of something he wouldn't dare admit. Fear. "Veymarsaidyou'redifferent. Notjustanothermutant. Whatareyou?"
Malak's breath came ragged, each syllable torn from his throat like shattered glass. His lips barely moved, the words crawling free with the last dregs of his strength. "I… am… s-son… o-of… Iblis."
Then, a tremor ran through the air. The heart monitors flatlined. The sterile light above flickered. A deep, guttural boom echoed from Malak's core, like a furnace erupting from within. His body convulsed, his veins glowing red-hot, his flesh splitting with molten cracks as if something ancient—something primordial—was clawing its way free from his mortal shell. Then came the fire.
It started as a flicker, crawling along his restraints, melting metal into slag. But in the next heartbeat, the inferno exploded outward, swallowing the lab in waves of searing, hellish light. The air turned molten, the walls buckled and cracked. The masked figures didn't even have time to scream.
Their bodies ignited instantly, flesh bubbling, bones blackening as they collapsed into ash where they stood. Their suits, their armor, their very existence—erased in a storm of brimstone.
Even Silas, shielded by his nanotech armor, staggered back as the temperature spiked beyond human comprehension. The suit reacted instantly, encasing him in a full-body protective shell, its outer layer shifting to withstand the infernal heat. But it wasn't enough.
Sweat trickled down his temple, boiling before it could even reach his jaw. His breath hitched—the oxygen around him had been devoured by fire, replaced by the choking scent of sulfur and scorched metal.
And in the center of it all… Malak rose. His body warped, stretched, twisted into something no longer bound by human or even cambion limitations. His limbs lengthened, muscles pulsing beneath obsidian-blackened skin, his veins glowing like magma coursing through stone. His wings, once tattered, tore free in full glory, now vast, leathery appendages wreathed in licking hellfire. His horns, jagged and uneven, curved back from his skull, crackling with molten embers.
His face contorted—his jaw unhinging slightly, revealing fangs too long, too unnatural, his eyes now depthless pits of fire and shadow. The last remnants of the medical table melted beneath him, reduced to nothing but molten slag as he stood at his full height, something more—something worse—than a cambion.
Silas, still shielding himself, clenched his jaw. His suit's AI blared warning after warning, heat levels surpassing maximum thresholds, internal systems failing to compensate.
And then… Malak spoke. But his voice was not his own. It came layered, distorted, deeper than any mortal throat could produce—like something ancient and wrathful had awakened in him. "You should have let me die, Commander."
Malak spread his newly reborn wings—vast, leathery structures wreathed in living hellfire. As they unfurled, heatwaves rippled outward, melting the very steel beams embedded in the facility walls. Then—he moved.
A single downward thrust sent him rocketing upward like a comet. The force of his ascent alone shattered the reinforced steel restraints that once bound him. The four layers of titanium-reinforced concrete between him and freedom might as well have been paper. BOOM!
The entire underground facility ruptured, an explosion of molten debris and fire launching skyward as Malak tore through every floor. The reinforced ceilings—meant to withstand nuclear blasts—cracked and crumbled like brittle glass. Shockwaves rippled through the underground corridors, sending surviving personnel screaming as fire engulfed them.
And then—he was free. Malak burst through the final layer of the facility, erupting into the sky above Havenford. Havenford—the crown jewel of modern civilization. A metropolis of towering skyscrapers, neon-lit streets, and throngs of people going about their lives without a clue of the nightmare that had just been unleashed.
Malak hovered in the air for a moment, his fire-drenched wings silhouetted against the moonlit skyline. His molten gaze scanned the city below—his mind consumed not by reason, but by pure, unrelenting wrath. Then—he roared.
It was not the sound of a man, nor even of a monster. It was a declaration of annihilation, a voice that carried through every street, every alley, shaking windows, shattering glass. The temperature across the entire district spiked instantly, warping metal, igniting entire buildings just from his presence alone.
And then—he unleashed hell. Fire erupted from his hands, from his mouth, from the very air around him. Skyscrapers exploded, their metal frames melting like wax. Streets cracked open, asphalt turning into pools of molten rock. People ran. Screamed. Burned.
Malak swooped down, carving a fiery scar across the heart of the city. Cars burst into flames as he passed. Bridges collapsed, their supports melting like candle wax. A train—mid-motion on an elevated track—derailed and plunged into the inferno below, its passengers' screams cut short as the fire consumed them.
Silas Morrigan stood motionless, his nanotech armor adapting to the rising temperatures, his mind calculating the sheer level of destruction. The city blocks before him—gone.
Entire buildings had collapsed into burning heaps. Streets that once pulsed with life were now scorched wastelands of charred bodies. And in the middle of it all… Malak stood amidst the ruins of civilization, his form still shifting, still mutating. His body—once humanoid—was now a monolithic demon, his horns twisted higher, his fangs lengthened, his hands ending in jagged obsidian claws.
Silas landed, his armor humming as it braced against the intolerable heat. His HUD blared warnings—oxygen depletion, structural collapse risks, heat levels exceeding safety thresholds. None of it mattered.
Malak turned slowly, his molten gaze locking onto Silas. Then, he grinned—a predator's grin, a devil's grin. "You should have killed me when you had the chance, Commander."