Patna – 03:17 AM
Rain fell in silver needles through the alley's flickering neon glow, hissing as it kissed the three fresh corpses steaming on the pavement. The scent of blood hung thick—iron and ozone and fear—twisting into the humid air like a living thing.
Ankur stood frozen amidst the carnage, fingers dripping.
What have I done?
The girl—the survivor—stared at him from against the wet brick wall, her uniform plastered to her skin. Not with terror, but something worse: recognition. Her lips formed two silent syllables that cracked through him like gunfire.
Vam-pire.
The bodies at his feet told their own story. The first enforcer's ribcage yawned open like a broken cathedral, heartstrings unraveled into crimson filaments that still quivered in the rain. The second man's skull had imploded from within, dark liquid seeping from every orifice. The third…
Ankur's stomach lurched.
The third man's lightning tattoos still sparked along his flayed skin, his nervous system suspended in a glistening web of stolen blood.
My doing. All of it.
The interface pulsed behind his eyes:
[Blood Assimilation: 97% Complete]
[Fresh Biomatter Detected – 4.3L Available]
[Current Power Tier: Δ-Σ (Anomaly-Class)]
[Warning: GAC Asset 'VALKYRIE' Approaching – 800m]
The girl moved first.
"You're him." Her voice barely rose above the patter of rain. "The Null from Sector 9's Ceremony broadcast. The one who…" She gestured weakly at the absence where his reflection should've been in a rain puddle.
Ankur's throat closed. That livestream had played across every screen in Patna. Millions watching as his body spasmed, as his veins turned black, as he died on camera only to vanish before the medics could bag him.
"You need to run." The words tasted like ash.
A mechanical shriek split the night—somewhere above the clouds, something powerful changed trajectories.
The girl clutched her bleeding arm, gaze darting between him and the sky. "They'll dissect you."
"I know."
[VALKYRIE Proximity Alert: 600m]
Ankur moved in a blur. His fingers brushed her wound—just the lightest contact—and the blood leaped to his touch, swirling into a perfect sphere between them. The girl gasped as her skin stitched itself shut beneath the crimson glow.
"Tell no one." He willed the stolen blood into his veins, feeling his power crest like a tide. "Not if you want to live."
Her nod was barely perceptible.
Ankur exploded upward just as the alley screamed apart—a tungsten railgun round reducing the corpses to pink mist. He ricocheted off crumbling facades, the city whipping past in streaks of neon and shadow. Behind him, the hovering gunship emerged from storm clouds: fifty feet of matte-black alloy, its belly bristling with plasma batteries. The GAC's insignia glowed blood-red beneath searchlight beams.
[GAC THEMIS-CLASS PURSUIT VESSEL]
[Callsign: VALKYRIE]
[Primary Armament: X-12 Plasma Lances]
[Secondary Asset: 1x Elite Operative]
Something human-shaped detatched from the gunship's undercarriage—no parachute, no hover rig. Just a freefall from two hundred meters.
The operative landed in a crater of shattered asphalt less than fifty paces ahead.
Rain steamed off her armor—black carbon-fiber etched with glowing blue circuitry. Her visor pulsed with target-lock runes, scanning him head to toe.
"Ankur Virel." The voice modulator flattened her tone into something mechanical. "By order of the Global Awakened Council, you are designated Omega-class biohazard. Surrender for neutralization."
Her gauntlets crackled to life.
Twin whips of liquid lightning unspooled from her wrists, carving molten trenches in the street.
Ankur's muscles coiled. He tasted ozone. Felt the city's pulse in his teeth.
Somewhere beneath the hunger and the fear, something older woke up.
Let them come.
The Harbinger's Gift
The fight lasted seventeen seconds.
Ankur learned three things:
GAC Elite Operative Ira Patil could fracture soundwaves with her punches—a vibration manipulation power that liquefied concrete and shattered his ribs on the first impact.
His blood didn't care.
Every injury reknit itself before she could land the next blow, stolen vitality cycling through his veins. He caught her third strike mid-swing—bones snapping her wrist instead—and watched in dull horror as his body moved without his permission.
When the hunger took over, he was stronger.
Too strong.
Ira's helmet shattered on the fourth impact, revealing dark eyes and a nose pouring scarlet. She gasped—first genuine sound she'd made—as Ankur's claws hovered at her throat.
"Why?" His voice wasn't his anymore—it guttered from someplace cavernous and ancient. "Why hunt me?"
Her laugh was wet with blood. "You really don't know?"
The interface flared:
[Discover Primary Objective]
[Access GAC Database Fragment? Y/N]
Ankur's claw twitched.
Y.
Pain detonated behind his eyes—a data burst screaming across his synapses:
—CLASSIFIED MEMORY IMPLANT—
A lab. White walls. Children in glass tubes. His face reflected in the monitors—but younger, so much younger, wires snaking from his skull. A man in a silver mask holding up a vial of swirling black fluid.
"Subject 7-ECHO is ready. Begin Eclipse Phase."
—TERMINATE TRANSMISSION—
Ankur reeled.
Ira used the distraction. Her knee crashed into his solar plexus—not enough to hurt, but to create distance. Her gauntlet flared.
"VALKYRIE! Scorched earth protocol!"
The gunship's plasma cannons whined to life overhead.
Ankur moved.
His body became smoke, shadow, a thing of edges and gaps—some new instinct unraveling him at the molecular level. The plasma beams tore through where he'd stood, glassing entire blocks in cerulean fire.
When he reformed three rooftops away, his hands shook.
[Emergency Power Activation]
[Umbra Shift (Level 2) – Duration: 00:14 Remaining]
[Warning: Extended Use Causes Cellular Degradation]
Ira's broken visor tracked him through the smoke.
"You're a harvest, Virel." Her voice carried on the wind. "And they'll burn this city to ash before letting Eclipse have you."
The interface pulsed like a dying star.
[Main Objective Updated]
[Locate Eclipse Order Sanctuary]
[Probability of Survival: 8.3%]
Beneath the hunger, beneath the fear, something in Ankur's blood sang.