Draven’s knife went up. He spun slowly, eyes scanning the shadows.Nothing moved.But the weight of being watched pressed down on him like a stone in his chest. Every sound.....the distant clatter of the market, a soft scuff behind a crate.....made him tense. He pulled the trembling broker, Silas, closer.“The market’s chaos is gone,” Silas whispered, voice shaking. “This silence… it’s bad. This is a trap, isn’t it?”Draven didn’t flinch. “Yes. And you’re part of it. You’re the bait.”“I don’t want to be bait!” Silas gasped.“You don’t get a choice,” Draven said firmly, his voice low, calm, commanding. “This man is using you to get to me. If you want to live, you help me.”Silas slumped, his shoulders sagging. “Fine. What’s the plan?”“First, we get stronger,” Draven said, determination sharpening his tone. “Tonight, we go to the lab.”“The lab?” Silas hissed. “Are you insane? The Citadel is on lockdown!”“They’re watching the main gates,” Draven said. “Not the old drainage culvert on

The walk back to the Citadel felt like walking with a storm tied to Draven’s spine. The air was not just quiet anymore. It was heavy. Thick. Every few seconds his new senses twitched, detecting faint auras far away, hungry, restless, and slowly turning toward one place.Toward him.Beside him, Silas gripped the case of glowing cores like it was the only thing keeping him alive. His voice shook. “Draven… they are out there, right? Watching us? Waiting?”“Yes,” Draven said. He did not sugarcoat it. The tension crawling along his skin told the whole story.When they reached the outer sentry post, two guards pointed their rifles at them immediately.“Halt! Identify civilian!”“He is with me,” Draven said, walking forward without slowing. The pressure of his Aura rolled ahead of him. Even the guards flinched. “Draven Ashford. Open the gate.”The lead guard hesitated. Everyone had heard of the lucky scout who survived the breach. But the man standing here did not feel lucky. He felt dangero

The world outside the Citadel walls was a different kind of dark. It was a living dark, humming with hostility. Draven’s Aura Sight painted it in stark, terrifying detail. Red shapes Stalkers, Ravagers, things with too many legs moved through the ruins.Some were drawn to the distant quake of the Juggernaut. The rest were drawn to him.Draven muttered, “Small flame… but closer.“Just keep running,” he muttered, vaulting over a girder. The core in his pocket burned like a tiny sun, urgent and pressing.Then he felt the Juggernaut. Each step shook the ground. Its energy sucked the light from everything around it. B-Grade, maybe higher. A walking extinction.Three Ravagers wolf-like mutants with jagged spines and split jaws pounced from a ruined storefront. They moved too well together to be random. They weren’t hunting they were herding him.“The hunter’s doing this,” Draven muttered. “Keeping me right where he wants.”No time to fight. He had to keep moving.He pushed Aura into his leg

Draven charged first, power flooding through him. His body felt sharp, steady, and impossibly strong.He reached the Juggernaut long before the others.The creature’s cracked eye locked onto him, glowing brighter as it charged its last attack.Draven muttered, “Yeah. Look at me.”The Juggernaut swung its one good arm, a blow strong enough to crush anything in its path.To Draven, the Juggernaut’s arm did not look like a world-ending blow. It looked like a big, slow tree falling toward him. He could see the weak spots in its Aura and the heavy drag in its movements.He did not dodge.He stepped in.“Alright, big guy,” Draven said. “Let us see whose arm breaks first.”He threw his fist forward. Golden Aura from his Adamantine Foundation flared around it like a burning halo.His punch met the massive stone limb.The moment they collided, the air did not just shake.It detonated.The Juggernaut’s arm didn’t just break. It turned into dust, crumbling from Draven’s fist all the way up to th

The “break” lasted only three days.Those three days were the most organized and exhausting days Draven had ever lived. He wasn’t a scavenger anymore. Not a scout. The Citadel treated him like a weapon they needed to understand fast.Every morning, Marcus dragged him to the training yard.It wasn’t training. It was punishment disguised as exercise.Marcus....massive, calm, and strong enough to dent a tank paced around Draven like a scientist studying a wild animal.“Ready?” Marcus asked.“No,” Draven said. “But go ahead.”Marcus slammed a fist into Draven’s stomach. Hard. The kind of punch that could fold steel in half.Draven’s body absorbed it with a deep metallic thud. His Adamantine Foundation shook, steadied, and held.The floor didn’t.A small crack shot across the stone under Draven’s boots.“Again!” Marcus shouted. “Your body’s a fortress, I need to know if it can break!”Draven braced as the punch hit. By the third morning, Marcus finally sent him skidding, his boots digging