All Chapters of APEX AWAKENING : Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
122 chapters
THE UNKNOWN FOE
The heavy doors of the Upper Hall clicked shut, leaving Draven alone in the corridor. The air felt colder now. Corbin’s words echoed in his mind. They wanted you.He walked back to his barracks, his every sense on high alert. He could feel eyes on him. A Warden standing too still at the end of a hall. A cleaner who paused his work just a little too long to watch him pass. The Citadel was no longer just his new home; it was a prison where he was the main suspect.He reached his small, sterile room and locked the door. He sat on the edge of his bed, his mind racing. He needed to find Silas, the broker. The man was a coward, but he knew things. He was a link to the world outside the Citadel’s rules.A soft tap came at his door.Draven was on his feet instantly, knife in hand. “Who is it?”“It’s Liana.”He cracked the door open. She stood alone, her expression serious.“Can I come in?” she asked.He stepped back, letting her enter. She glanced around the bare room. “Not much of a home, is
UNLEASHED
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 HUNTER’S GAME
The darkness lasted only a moment.Not real darkness, because the purple glow from the twisting vines still flashed through the hallway like weak, bruised light. Draven blinked as his Aura Sight snapped into place.The hunter was gone.The Stalkers were gone.Only the sharp smell of ozone and the fading echo of claws on metal remained.Silas gasped. “Where… where did they go?”Draven did not answer. The hunter’s cold pressure had disappeared completely. It left Draven’s skin tingling with unease. A direct attack was one thing. This silence felt worse. It felt planned.“Move,” Draven said quietly. “Now.”He pushed forward without waiting. Every sound made his nerves twitch. Every shadow felt alive. Silas hurried behind him, clutching the case of glowing cores like it was his last hope.They stepped out of the ruined lab and into the cold night air. The wind carried the smell of dead buildings and dust. Everything was quiet.Too quiet.Draven stood in the broken street. The rising spire
THE WEIGHT OF THE SCALE
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
COUNCIL OF WAR
The second Aura pulse hit like a physical wave. Dust sifted from the ceiling. A low, metallic groan resonated through the Citadel’s superstructure.Captain Liana didn’t hesitate. She abandoned the path to the Council chamber and broke into a sprint toward the nearest command stairwell. “Sound general quarters! All sections to battle stations! Corbin, get Silas secured and then to the Western Wall! Move!”Liana’s orders snapped everyone awake. The Citadel shifted from repairs to full-on emergency mode as people rushed to battle stations.Draven followed her, clutching the case of cores. His fear settled into a cold focus. The Beacon inside him wasn’t just humming it was reacting, almost speaking to whatever was coming.Corbin glanced at him. “You look like you’re about to pass out.”Draven shook his head. “It’s not that. The Beacon… it’s talking to something.”Silas yelped, “Talking to what?!”Draven swallowed. “Something big.”They ran out onto the Citadel’s main command deck, a wide
THE BURNING SIGNAL
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
PINNACLE
His Unyielding Foundation, strengthened through seven stages of Marrow Refining, held the line. Barely.He gritted his teeth. “Come on… hold.”But even as he stood firm, he felt the cost biting into him, deep and painful.He felt the bones in his forearms groan as tiny fractures spread through them like spiderwebs. His enhanced healing and Aura rushed in, sealing the cracks before they could spread. The skin on his chest and shoulders blistered and ripped as the Aura-charged debris scraped across him, but it quickly knitted itself back together, tougher than before.His first passive, Adamant Hide, now evolved into Reinforced Barrier, activated at full strength. What should have turned him to dust instead became raw, crushing pain.He slid back almost fifty feet, carving a trench before slamming into a twisted crane leg. Dust filled the air, heavy and choking.Draven coughed. “Still alive… barely.”His Aura Sight cut through the haze. The two enhanced Wardens were gone. Corbin’s Aura
ECHOES OF VICTORY
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
DEBRIEF AND DIVIDENDS
The Citadel had changed.The silence inside the walls wasn’t fear anymore. It was the heavy, charged quiet after a lightning strike.As Draven walked in with the five Captains, soldiers didn’t stare at him like a threat they stared like he was a storm that had suddenly chosen their side.A young guard whispered, “That’s him… right?”“Who else bends metal like paper?” another muttered.Draven heard everything. His boots echoed across the yard.Captain Liana shot him a sideways look. “They’re not scared of you now.”“Could’ve fooled me,” Draven said.“That’s not fear,” she replied. “That’s respect.”A nearby soldier saluted, voice trembling. “Sir. Welcome back.”Draven nodded, unsure what to do with all the attention.Liana smirked. “Get used to it.”He sighed. “I’d rather not.”“Too late,” she said, walking ahead. “You’re their storm now.”People moved out of the way without anyone telling them to. The hammering and repair work stopped. Even the wounded in the med-bays went quiet as Dr
THE NEW VARIABLE
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