# Chapter 11: Enhancement ProtocolThe Peterson Research Facility looked different in the pre-dawn darkness. Where once it had been a sterile corporate building, now it pulsed with an otherworldly energy that made Kael's enhanced senses recoil. The very air around the structure seemed to writhe with malevolent purpose."He's turned the entire building into a conduit," Raphael observed, his angelic nature allowing him to perceive the spiritual corruption that saturated the place. "Every floor, every room—it's all connected to him now."*The enhancement chambers,* Vex'thul noted grimly. *He's using them to create something new. Something worse than enhanced soldiers.*From their position on the adjacent rooftop, Kael could see through the facility's windows. What he saw made his blood run cold. The building was filled with cocoon-like structures, each one containing a partially transformed human. But these weren't the crude cybernetic enhancements Peterson had been working on—these were

# Chapter 13: AbominationKael walked out of the dying facility, past the bodies of the enhanced soldiers and the wreckage of Peterson's dream. The God-killer hummed with power at his side, and for the first time since this nightmare began, he felt ready for whatever came next.Behind him, the facility finally collapsed, burying the horrors within. But ahead of him, eleven more facilities waited, and somewhere in the darkness, Azrael was beginning Phase Two of his plan to remake the universe.*The war is just beginning.*"Then let's make it count."But as Kael took his first steps away from the ruins, the ground beneath his feet began to tremble. Not the aftershocks of the building's collapse—something else. Something that made the God-killer's humming shift to a warning tone.*Wait. Something's wrong.*The rubble behind them shifted, concrete blocks rolling aside as if pushed by invisible hands. Through the settling dust, Kael could see a faint bioluminescent glow emanating from the

Chapter 15: Betrayal in the RanksThe sun, now fully risen, was a harsh, unforgiving disc in the morning sky. Kael moved through the city like a ghost, a solitary figure amidst the growing morning bustle. The familiar sounds of traffic, distant market chatter, and the calls of street vendors felt alien, a stark contrast to the echoing screams and collapsing concrete of hours prior. The **God-killer**, a constant, weighty presence at his hip, hummed with a quiet power that seemed to vibrate in sync with his own exhausted heartbeat.*They're still searching for you,* Vex'thul observed, his voice a low, gravelly rasp in Kael's mind, a constant counterpoint to the God-killer's ancient resonance. *Their patrols are tightening. You are now public enemy number one, Kael Draven.*"I gathered that," Kael muttered, pulling the hood of a stolen sweatshirt lower over his face. He'd ditched his ruined clothes for something less conspicuous from a discarded laundry bag. The lingering scent of smoke