Alarms blared sharply, oscillating wails that pierced the air like needles. Emergency lights bathed the walls in angry red pulses. A synthetic voice echoed overhead:

  “WARNING: Containment breach detected. Psionic suppression protocols initiated. Sector 7 lockdown in progress.”

  Reinforced doors slammed down with thunderous finality. Pressure seals hissed. Magnetic locks snapped into place. The air grew heavy, thick with ozone and fear.

  One scientist stepped forward. He looked barely older than thirty, lab coat soaked with sweat, clutching an electro-prod like it would save him from a god.

  “Stay back!” he shouted, voice cracking. “This is your final warning!”

  “You wanted my power? Then take it.” I gestured for him to come to me.

  He lunged forward and jabbed the prod into my chest. It fizzled, but I didn’t feel anything.

  I reached out and closed my hand around his throat.

  Verum surged.

  His eyes widened as veins lit up beneath his skin, glowing like molten wire. For a heartbeat, he just stood there, trembling.

  Then he ignited.

  Flames erupted from within, devouring flesh, bones, everything before bursting out of his eyes, mouth, nose, and ears in thin jets of fire. His skin blistered and split, glowing from the inside out like a furnace on the verge of collapse.

  For a moment, he was a statue of light, hollow and burning from within.

  Then he collapsed into a pile of scorched ash.

  Gone. Like he never existed at all.

  Panic erupted. Scientists scattered like insects with their wings torn off. One slammed his fists against the sealed exit. Another fumbled at a console, muttering rapid-fire codes that the system rejected with cold indifference.

  “Anti-psionic dampeners offline. Neural containment failed. Sector breach escalating to Tier Omega.”

  I lifted my hands, feeling the energy build, tendrils of pure energy crackling as they arced between my fingers. It felt cold, pure, righteous. The room was mine now. The galaxy would follow. All will kneel.

  “You had your chance.”

  The next blast tore through a cluster of lab techs. No time to scream, only heat, light, and a smear of blood across the glass wall behind them.

  I could feel the fury simmering beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed. The scientists had wanted to harness my power, dissect it, control it.

  But they’d miscalculated.

  I stalked forward, the energy coiling around me, pulsing like a living, breathing creature eager to consume everything in its path.

  With a single thought, I reached out and crushed the nearest scientist in a lab coat. His torso collapsed inward, bones splintering, blood splattering across the room as his body flew backward, hit the far wall and exploded into pink mist.

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  A young woman ran for the security terminal. I reached out with a thought, and her spine folded the wrong way. She collapsed without a sound, like a puppet with cut strings.

  The next man, an older xenobiologist with silver-rimmed glasses, tried to raise a shield drone.

  His ribcage imploded mid-command.

  “W-Wait!” a voice cracked out, high and vibrating like glass under pressure.

  A Rannoth.

  It was my first time seeing one up close, it’s limbs jittering like cracked glass under pressure. His crystalline body refracted the emergency lights in shifting prisms, shimmering with every motion.

  “What do you want?” he asked, voice chime-thin and unstable.

  I stepped closer, the heat of power still bleeding off my skin. I let out a short, humorless laugh.

  "You Rannoth call yourselves protectors of the stars, don’t you? And yet here you are, helping monsters dissect everything with a pulse."

  The alien shuddered. His chest lit with a dull pulse, and his eyes refracted the glow like shattered starlight.

  "Even stars need to be studied," he murmured, cryptic and trembling. "Especially the broken ones."

  I blinked, then let the weight drop back into my voice. "Where is she? Where’s Astra?"

  "S-Sector Twelve… west wing… but..." His body flickered, refracting light in a twitch of hesitation. He wasn’t moving fast enough.

  I took a step closer, voice colder now. "But what, glass boy? Show me. Or I’ll decorate this floor with the rest of you."

  His limbs jerked. A clawed arm extended toward the holoterminal and keyed it alive. A 3D schematic shimmered into view showing corridors, sublevels, and then a blinking marker deep underground.

  Exactly where she was.

  “Good boy,” I muttered.

  With a thought, I snapped his neck. A crack echoed like a shattering wineglass. His body collapsed into a glittering pile of fragments.

  I turned.

  Yuki stood near one of the broken consoles, a vial of golden ichor cradled in her gloved hand. She looked like she was about to smash it.

  "What do you think you're doing with that?" I asked, voice low.

  "Trying to make sure no one else ever gets their hands on it," she replied. "This stuff—what they pulled out of you, they shouldn't be able to weaponize it.

  I stepped closer, power still simmering in my blood. "Don’t worry about the ichor. I’m going to burn this place to the ground before we leave. No one’s walking out of here with anything."

  She hesitated, then slowly lowered the vial.

  I stepped in close. She tensed, knuckles whitening around the glass like she thought I might kill her.

  I raised a bloody fingernail-less hand and gently tilted her chin until her gaze met mine or at least what was left of it. Her breath hitched. For a second, she flinched, like she thought I might burn her alive the same way I did the others. My hand hovered against her jaw, the heat of verum still lingering in my fingers.

  “I almost forgot you were here, beautiful,” I said, quieter now.

  She didn’t move.

  “Did you enjoy it?” I asked, my voice soft, dangerous. “Watching me scream while they tore the power from my veins?”

  Yuki’s mouth opened slightly, but nothing came out at first. Her eyes searched mine, guilt flickering beneath the surface. Tears welled there, catching the low light, barely held back.

  “No,” she said quietly. “Not for a second.”

  Her grip tightened around the vial. “But I couldn’t stop it. If I had tried…”

  She trailed off, then forced her features back into something unreadable. But the tears didn’t lie.

  I didn’t move. Just watched her. The weight of silence pressed between us like a drawn blade.

  She finally spoke again, low and guarded. “We need to move.”

  “We? Why do you think I would allow you to leave this place alive, let alone come with me?”

  “I’ll explain everything later. Right now, Valeria’s fleet is en route. If they catch us here...”

  “I could destroy them.”

  “You might,” she said, voice tight, almost impressed. “But that power you’re using? It’s burning through you. Like sprinting through fire. You’ll collapse before you realize you’re bleeding.”

  I looked at her. Then the map. Then the corridor lit on the holoscreen.

  "Fine," I muttered. "But you’re going to tell me everything."

  Yuki gave a small nod, voice low. "I promise."

  I leaned closer, my voice colder than the dead bodies littering the floor around us. "If you lie to me again, Yuki... I will destroy you."

  Her eyes didn’t flinch, but fresh tears welled at the corners. "I won’t."

  I stared a second longer, then turned and headed toward the corridor leading to where they were keeping Astra.