The Genesis Zone was no longer still.
Something beneath its layered fluid tides had shifted. A faint tremor pulsed through the environment, barely perceptible, but consistent—like a distant heartbeat.
Xerion sensed it even before the system did.
He didn't need alerts or threat pings anymore.
His body felt it.
[Alert: Energy Core Detected — Class: Unstable Fusion Residue][Warning: Origin Unknown. Foreign Matter. May cause mutation anomaly.]
Xerion hovered in silence.
Fusion cores didn't belong here.
They were not natural spawn from the zone, nor the byproduct of evolved predators. No, fusion cores came from before—from the fragments of the world that existed long before Xerion's birth… before his awakening.
He felt it in the deep hum.
Ancient. Artificial.
And powerful.
The system flickered again, almost hesitant.
[Location: Sector Void-Δ13][Distance: 3.6 bio-units][Warning: 100% of prior lifeforms entering zone have not returned.]
So it was a death zone.
A trap.
But the difference between a creature and a conqueror… was what they were willing to risk for evolution.
Xerion moved.
Sector Void-Δ13 was nothing like the nutrient-rich crevices or fluid tunnels he'd traversed before. It wasn't quiet—but mute. No ambient vibrations. No drifting life. Not even residual enzyme trails.
Just cold emptiness.
It felt dead.
But it wasn't.
Because in the center of it hovered a sphere.
Half his size.
Pulsing with a light that didn't flicker or fade. Just steady blue glow, outlined by electric strands of data weaving around it like orbiting filaments.
[Scanning…][Unstable Energy Core Identified — Subtype: Reactor Heart Fragment][Potential Outcome: Randomized Mutation or Evolutionary Surge]
No certainty.
No safety.
This wasn't a trait tree. This wasn't a system-guided choice.
This was raw chaos.
And something inside him… wanted it.
He paused only once.
Not in fear.
In reflection.
The moment before contact stretched like a veil—pulling all his previous victories, defeats, and decisions into one question:
Was he becoming more than life?Or just a collection of things he stole?
He didn't know.
He reached out anyway.
And touched it.
The impact was instant.
Light stabbed through every thread of his neural web. His sensory fibers ignited. His perception fractured and multiplied—like he was seeing from ten bodies at once.
And through the pain… he saw visions.
A tower, rising above black oceans. A girl with hair made of stars floating within it. Her eyes closed. Her core humming.
A battlefield made of floating cities, burning, screaming. Creatures with halos of circuitry clashing against titans made of twisted flesh.
A signal.
One word: "Xerion."
Then silence.
And darkness.
The system screamed.
[System Overload. Processing Mutation Pathway Override.][Foreign Data Stream Accepted: Unknown Protocol 5.][Stabilizing Core.]
His body convulsed.
Shells peeled, then reformed. Neural lines snapped, then rewove tighter. His Memory Bloom matrix twisted—adjusting to new bandwidth.
Then, the final result:
[Mutation Acquired: Proto-Core — Stage I][Effect: Stores excess energy from kills. Allows one-time Overcharge Skill Cast.][Secondary Effect: Psychic Distortion Field - radius 0.5 units]
A new node now pulsed inside his body—a core.
Not external like others.
Internal. Hidden.
His own heart.
For the first time, he did not simply absorb. He stored. Harnessed. Managed.
He could feel the energy rising like pressure behind a dam.
One release, and it could wipe an entire micro-zone clean.
He wasn't a feeder anymore.
He was becoming a reactor.
The world shimmered again.
A soft echo.
"You took it…"
Her voice.
Not angry. Not afraid.
Wistful.
"You really are going to become something they won't understand."
Xerion couldn't respond yet. But he thought of her.
Of the tower in the vision.
Of her still form, humming with power.
Celestara.
She had seen the core too.
She had let it go.
Why?
Because it wasn't hers?
Or because she was waiting for him to claim it?
[Dominance Rank: 20th of 64][System Core Integration: 67.2%][Proto-Core Charge: 3%]
He drifted to the edge of the zone, the core dimming quietly inside his chest.
The predators ahead still thought of him as an anomaly.
An outlier.
They would learn.
He was no longer just one of them.
He was a force waiting to be unleashed.