Day 2 in the Qin Estate. The Alchemy Lab.Ethan stood over the bronze cauldron, his hands moving with surgical precision. To the guards watching from the doorway, it looked like he was refining the "Soul Anchoring Pill."In truth, he was constructing a bomb.He took a handful of Thunder Spirit Stones-volatility crystals used to fuel airships-and crushed them into dust. He mixed the dust with Dragon's Blood Ink, an extremely flammable binding agent."Stabilize," Ethan murmured, sending a thread of his Golden Qi into the mix.The black sludge began hissing and coagulating, forming little and heavy spheres that looked like medicine pills but packed a blast equivalent to a hand grenade when subjected to enough force."Master Han," a servant called from the door. "Lord Qin requests your presence. The Gala is commencing."Ethan swept the explosive spheres into his sleeve. "Tell him I am coming."He moved to the rear of the lab, where Emily was busy scrubbing the floor. He didn't so much as g

The laboratory dissolved into madness."Fire!" Qin commanded, stepping back behind his wall of enforcers.Muzzle flashes filled the smoke-filled room. Rounds raced toward the center, but never touched.Ethan's father didn't dodge; he simply surged. A shockwave of telekinetic force blasted out, stopping the rounds in midair and hurling them back with shrapnel-like velocity. Three of Qin's soldiers instantly dropped, surrendering their own approved ammunition to shred through their armor."Quick!" Ethan yelled. He tackled Kaelen behind a heavy steel workbench, just as a rogue wave of energy sheared the top off a computer terminal."He's going to bring the whole building down on us!" Kaelen shouted above the sound of crumbling masonry."He doesn't know who he is!" peeked Ethan from over the barrier.Violently blurred, Ethan's father was in the middle of the room, moving with a speed so disjunct and horrifying it was almost disconnected. One moment he was tearing off a soldier's helmet; t

The safehouse was little more than a rusted shipping container buried beneath a scrapyard on the city’s edge. It smelled of grease, stale air, and now, copper-sharp blood.Ethan slammed the heavy steel door shut and turned the bolt. The instant the locking mechanism clicked into place, his legs buckled beneath him, and he slid down the metal wall, gasping for air; the silver aura of the White Wolf finally flickered out and left him exhausted.His father wasn't sitting in that corner of the room, and though wounded and with years of cryo-stasis, the former Alpha stood in the center of the cramped space examining a med-kit that Ethan had kicked towards him."Pathetic," his father muttered, tossing a packet of antiseptic wipes onto the table. "We used to burn wounds shut with silver nitrate. Now you use... wet paper.""It's antiseptic," Ethan snapped, pushing himself up. "And you're welcome."His father turned slowly. In the harsh light of the singular hanging bulb, he looked like a reve

The silence in the shipping container was heavier than the steel walls that enclosed them. It was a silence built of unsaid words, of guilt that tasted like copper, and of a grief Ethan refused to swallow.Ethan was on a crate furiously disassembling his pistol in mechanical anger. Click-clack. Snap. The slide came off; the spring followed. He cleaned them not because they were dirty but because if he were to stop moving his hands, it would mean first punching the wall until his knuckles shattered.His father sat cross-legged on the cot in the corner. He had not moved for an hour, the very definition of stillness, his breath almost imperceptible. It was as though a statue carved from grey stone had taken form. The crude stitches Ethan had sewn into his shoulder held the skin taut, but already the area around the wound was bruising in sickening, necrotic blackness."Your anger is loud," his father spoke, eyes still closed, voice cutting through the humid air. "It vibrates against the w

The world was white.Ethan woke up, but he couldn't move. He wasn't tied with ropes or chains. He was floating. Thick, warm liquid surrounded him, holding him in place. He tried to breathe, panic rising in his chest, but a mask was clamped tight over his nose and mouth, forcing air into his lungs with a mechanical hiss-click.He opened his eyes.He was inside a tube. This one looked similar to a cryo-pod that his father had been inside, except this was vertical. Through the thick glass and the bubbling liquid, he could see a room. It was shiny, metallic, and full of computers.Ethan tried to thrash. He tried summoning the White Wolf. He pushed for that spark of silver energy buried in his chest.Nothing.He wasn't simply too weak. It was like the wolf was simply gone. A deep hollow ache had taken the place of where his power used to be.Silver, he realized. The liquid is laced with silver."Pulse is rising," said a voice, sounding tinny through the glass. "He is awake."The surface li