The first thing Kael noticed when he emerged from his shelter wasn't the three suns casting their familiar harsh light across the broken landscape it was the voices. Rough, confident voices that had no business being in his territory.
His enhanced hearing picked up every word from two hundred meters away: " told you the freak finally croaked. Been three days since anyone seen him." A pause, then the sound of metal scraping against stone. "This whole sector's ours now. Rico's been hoarding good salvage for months."
Kael's lips curved in something that might have been a smile on someone else's face. On his, it looked like a surgical instrument finding its mark.
He moved through the twisted metal corridors of the mining complex like liquid shadow, his enhanced physique turning what had once been careful navigation into effortless flow. The Bone Forging stage had transformed his skeleton into something approaching organic steel, while early Muscle Refinement had rewired his nervous system for inhuman reaction speeds.
The scavengers had made themselves comfortable in his main salvage depot a reinforced chamber where he'd stockpiled months of carefully selected materials. Four of them, led by a scarred brute named Torven who'd been testing Kael's boundaries for weeks. They'd brought cutting tools and heavy packs, clearly planning to strip the place clean.
Kael crouched on a support beam fifteen meters above them, studying their positions with the detached interest of a biologist examining insects. Torven commanded the center of the room, his broad shoulders and augmented arms marking him as the primary threat. Two flankers covered the exits nervous types who'd bolt at the first sign of trouble. The fourth man worked at prying open Kael's sealed storage containers, his back turned to the room.
Tactical assessment complete.
Kael dropped.
Fifteen meters of freefall compressed into a single heartbeat of terror for the scavengers below. Kael landed on the fourth man's back with the force of a meteorite, driving him face first into the metal floor with a wet crunch that echoed through the chamber. The man's neck snapped like kindling.
"What the... " Torven spun, but Kael was already moving.
The first flanker managed to raise his weapon a crude beam cutter that would have been lethal at range. Kael covered the eight meter gap in less than a second, his enhanced muscles coiling and releasing like mechanical springs. His palm strike caught the man's sternum, caving in his ribcage with a sound like breaking timber. The scavenger flew backward into the metal wall, leaving a red smear as he slid to the ground.
"Impossible," the second flanker whispered, his weapon trembling in his hands. "Rico's dead. We saw his body."
Kael turned to face him, and the man's expression shifted from confusion to pure terror. The Rico they'd known had been lean, wiry, dangerous in the way of desperate survivors. The thing standing before them now moved with predatory grace, his eyes holding the flat certainty of a natural killer.
"You saw what I wanted you to see," Kael said, his voice carrying easily through the chamber despite its conversational tone. "A weakness. A vulnerability. Did you really think I'd leave my territory unguarded?"
The flanker's finger tightened on his weapon's trigger. Kael was already moving before the beam fired, his enhanced reflexes turning the world into slow motion. The cutting laser passed through empty air as Kael flowed sideways, his body bending in ways that shouldn't have been possible for human joints.
His hand closed around the man's throat, lifting him off the ground with casual strength. The scavenger's feet kicked uselessly as Kael studied his face with clinical detachment.
"You came here to take what's mine," Kael observed. "That suggests you thought I was weak. Dead. Irrelevant." He tilted his head slightly. "Were you planning to kill me if I'd been here?"
The man's eyes bulged as he tried to speak. Kael loosened his grip slightly.
"Y yes," the scavenger gasped. "Orders. Torven said "
Kael's fingers tightened again, cutting off the words. "Thank you for your honesty."
The cervical vertebrae separated with a soft pop.
Torven had been backing toward the exit throughout the exchange, his augmented arms powering up with mechanical whines. "You're some kind of mutant," he snarled. "Essence corruption. Should have known."
"Not corruption," Kael corrected, advancing with measured steps. "Evolution."
Torven's augmented right arm snapped forward, pneumatic pistons driving his fist toward Kael's head with bone crushing force. Kael caught the blow one handed, his enhanced bones absorbing the impact without damage. The mechanical arm strained against his grip, servos whining in protest.
"Impossible," Torven breathed. "That's a Class 7 industrial augmetic. It can punch through bulkhead steel."
"Impressive," Kael acknowledged. He twisted his wrist, and the augmetic arm shattered like glass, sparks fountaining from severed power cables. "My turn."
Kael's palm strike caught Torven in the solar plexus with precisely calibrated force enough to rupture internal organs, not enough to kill instantly. The bigger man doubled over, blood frothing from his lips.
"Please," Torven wheezed. "I got people. Family. They need... "
"You should have considered that before deciding to rob me," Kael said.
He grabbed Torven's head in both hands, fingers finding pressure points along the skull. "This is going to hurt."
The technique was something from the Imperial education fragments a method for extracting information from prisoners through systematic nerve stimulation. Kael had never tried it on a living subject, but the theory was sound.
Torven's screams echoed through the chamber as Kael's enhanced strength applied precise pressure to nerve clusters. The man's body convulsed, his remaining augmetic arm twitching spasmodically as his nervous system overloaded.
"Who sent you?" Kael asked conversationally. "Who else knows about this place?"
"N nobody!" Torven gasped. "Just us! Saw you hadn't been around, thought "
Kael increased the pressure slightly. "Try again."
"Vera!" The name exploded from Torven's lips. "Vera Blackthorne! She's been asking questions about your territory. Wanted to know if you were still alive."
Interesting. The mining foreman had been carefully neutral in all their previous dealings. If she was probing for weaknesses, it suggested larger moves were in play.
"Anyone else?"
"Off worlders," Torven sobbed. "Ship landed yesterday. They were asking about... about people like you. Talented people."
Kael's grip tightened reflexively. Off world interest was a complication he hadn't anticipated. "What kind of off worlders?"
"Traders, maybe? Had medical equipment. Were offering passage for the right kind of person."
Medical equipment. Passage off world. Talent recruitment.
The implications crystallized in Kael's mind with perfect clarity. Someone had detected his awakening the essence pulse when the crystal activated had been stronger than he'd realized. Now they were moving to either recruit or eliminate him.
"Thank you," Kael said sincerely. "You've been very helpful."
Torven's eyes widened with desperate hope. "Then you'll... "
Kael's hands twisted sharply. The snap of breaking vertebrae cut off Torven's words mid sentence.
The chamber fell silent except for the soft hum of ventilation systems. Kael stood among the four corpses, his mind already working through the tactical situation. Off world interest meant his window of opportunity was closing. He needed to move quickly to consolidate his position before outside forces could interfere.
But first, he needed to send a message.
Kael spent the next hour arranging the bodies in his salvage depot's main corridor, positioning them to create maximum psychological impact. He used their own cutting tools to carve a simple message into the metal wall above them:
"The weak serve the strong. The strong serve themselves. Choose wisely."
When he was finished, he activated the depot's emergency beacon a signal that would draw every scavenger in the sector to investigate. They would find the bodies, read the message, and understand that the balance of power had fundamentally shifted.
Some would flee. Others would try to ally with him. A few might even attempt revenge.
All of them would spread the word: Rico the scavenger was dead. Something far more dangerous had taken his place.
Kael sealed the depot and began making his way toward the deep levels of the mining complex. If off worlders were hunting for talented individuals, he needed to find them before they found him. The game was expanding beyond simple survival, and he had no intention of being anyone's pawn.
As he descended through the twisted corridors, Kael's enhanced senses detected a new presence in the complex someone moving with the careful precision of a trained professional. The footsteps were too regular, too measured for a scavenger.
His first genuine challenger had arrived.
Kael's smile was all teeth and anticipation. The real test of his new abilities was about to begin.