LEGACY OF THE FORBIDDEN ARCHMAGE

5

The emergency lights in the underground corridor flickered red, reflecting off the damp concrete walls. Michael walked past the bodies of the two wardens without looking back. In his hand, he twirled the electric baton he had seized, feeling the remnants of static charge tingling against his palm.

"You’re crazy, kid! You actually made it out!" Silas shouted from within his cell. The sound of keys rattling against the concrete floor followed.

Michael paused for a moment, his back to Silas’s iron bars. "Use the keys quickly if you don't want to be fried when full security protocol activates."

"Wait! Where are you going? The elevator doors at the end are locked automatically!"

"I don't need an elevator," Michael replied shortly.

He wasn't lying. Michael could feel the electrical current in the corridor walls as if they were giant veins. His new heart beat heavily, demanding more intake. That punch earlier had been effective, but his mana circuits were still starving.

Michael pressed his palm against the access control panel beside the elevator. He didn't try to hack its digital code; he did something much cruder. He forced a drop of Ichor mana into the panel’s microcircuits.

The panel screen suffered a minor explosion, emitting black smoke. The elevator doors creaked open slightly—just enough for Michael to slip his fingers in and forcibly pry the metal doors apart.

Before his eyes was only the dark, silent elevator shaft.

"Michael!" Silas’s voice called out again, closer this time, as if he had successfully opened his cell door. "Listen, don't take the main corridor on the second floor. There’s a rapid response team there."

"I know," Michael replied. He jumped into the elevator shaft, grabbing a thick steel cable dangling there.

Going down? No. Michael climbed up.

Every pull of his hands on the steel cable felt stronger than the last. His heart reconstruction was working perfectly; oxygen was being pumped with terrifying efficiency into his muscles. He climbed three floors in mere seconds.

On the floor above, he could hear the thud of military boots marching across the metal platforms.

"Target missing from isolation monitors! Check sector B-4!" the voice echoed within the shaft.

Michael stopped climbing, clinging to the concrete wall like a waiting predator. Above him, an elevator door opened slightly. He could see the shadows of two guards peering down with tactical flashlights.

"Nothing down here, just some cables—"

Before the guard could finish his sentence, Michael’s hand shot out from the darkness. He grabbed the guard's ankle and pulled him into the shaft.

The man fell without having the chance to scream, his voice swallowed by the darkness at the bottom. The other guard froze, the muzzle of his energy weapon trembling as he tried to aim downward.

Michael didn't give him the chance. He leaped out of the shaft, landing right in front of the guard. Before the man could pull the trigger, Michael slammed his elbow into the guard's windpipe, causing him to choke on blood and collapse.

"Too noisy," Michael muttered.

He took the communication device from the unconscious guard’s shoulder. Lucien Osiris’s voice crackled through it, sharp and filled with rage.

"Status?! Why has the third-floor medical sector lost power? Report immediately or you’ll all end up on the dissection table this morning!"

Michael brought the device to his mouth. "Lucien."

Silence on the other end. Lucien’s heavy breathing was clearly audible. "Dorian? How are you... you shouldn't be able to speak after what the wardens did."

"Your wardens were pathetic. And your dissection table is too filthy for me," Michael stepped toward a large window at the end of the corridor, overlooking the neon-lit cityscape of Oakhaven. "I’m leaving now. Don't bother sending your dogs unless you want them returned as anatomical scraps."

"You think you can get out of the Ivory Tower alive? You’re just a lab rat, Michael! You belong to the state!" Lucien screamed hysterically.

Michael crushed the device under his boot. He knew Lucien wasn't bluffing. Outside this corridor, there were automated security systems and at least a platoon of elite security forces.

He needed something bigger than just bare-fisted punches.

Michael walked toward the chemical storage lab adjacent to the corridor. His eyes scanned the shelves filled with various colored fluids. Michael Dorian’s medical knowledge worked rapidly. He grabbed two large bottles containing Aetheric Acid and Liquid Nitrogen.

"If technology is god in this world," Michael mixed the two fluids into a glass container with terrifying precision, "then let me be the demon that breaks its laws."

He fashioned a simple chemical bomb with an electrical trigger from the baton he carried.

Suddenly, the corridor lights turned a deep red. A much louder alarm blared.

"Warning. Subject 0-9 has breached security protocol. Lethal force authorized."

At the end of the corridor, a massive steel door slid open. Five special forces units in full armor with energy rifles advanced in combat formation. In the center of them stood a man with a glowing red mechanical eye—Kaelen Reign, the Ivory Tower’s chief of security.

"Michael Dorian," Kaelen raised his weapon. "You just made the biggest mistake of your short life."

Michael didn't run. He actually stepped forward, twirling the glass bottle in his hand, which was now glowing purple as it was infused with Ichor mana.

"Mistake?" Michael smirked, his eyes flashing deep purple beneath the shadows. "My mistake was letting people like you think you had control over my life."

Kaelen fired the first shot. A blue energy beam sliced through the air, heading straight for Michael’s heart.

Michael threw the chemical bottle directly at the shot.

CRAAASH!

The chemical fluid exploded upon contact with the heat energy, creating a corrosive and simultaneously freezing gas cloud that engulfed the entire corridor. The special forces screamed as their armor began to crack and melt under the influence of the unstable chemical reaction.

In the midst of that lethal white mist, Michael lunged like a shadow.

However, just as he nearly reached the exit, a heavy pressure struck his back. Michael was thrown forward, crashing into a glass wall until it cracked. He turned and saw Kaelen Reign still standing, his shoulder armor destroyed, but his mechanical eye still functioning.

"You think cheap chemical tricks can stop me?" Kaelen drew a vibrating high-frequency short sword from his waist. "I’ve killed hundreds of fake mages like you on the borders."

Michael tried to stand, but he realized something terrifying. His legs couldn't move. There was a magnetic tracking device clamped to his calf, pinning his body to the corridor’s metal floor.

"A trap?" Michael muttered.

Kaelen stepped closer, his blade humming with bloodlust. Behind him, Lucien Osiris emerged from the shadows, his face filled with hatred and triumph.

"Take him to the dissection table now," Lucien commanded coldly. "I want his heart removed while he’s still conscious. I want to see what made him feel so superior."

Michael stared at the blade just inches away from his throat. He could feel his heartbeat accelerating—not from fear, but because his second mana circuit, the Brain Circuit, was being forced open by the pressure of death.

"You want my heart, Lucien?" Michael whispered, as his hand slowly touched the metal floor, which was conducting static electricity from the previous explosion. "Take it then... if you dare to touch the fires of hell."

Just as Kaelen swung his blade, the entire Ivory Tower suddenly went silent. The lights cut out completely. An unnatural silence enveloped the room before an invisible surge of pure mana slammed into every electronic device in the area.