// SHARD IV/ DIES IRAE //

  

  For a heartbeat, the arena fell into a vacuum of absolute, terrifying silence. No screams, no mechanical hums. Just the void.

  Then, the static screamed back.

  Violet and pitch-black tendrils erupted from the center of the darkness, lashing out like jagged lightning. The arena's high-end speakers didn't just turn on—they exploded with a distorted, viral beat.

  Boom-boom-clap-clap.

  ?AHAHAHAH-H-H▲!? a voice crackled through every H.A.L.O. in the stands, a predatory, glitched laugh that made the elite clutch their heads. ?SL▲SHSTR€€T'S B▲CK, B-B?TCH€S!?

  CRACK!

  The sound of shattering bone echoed like a gunshot. From the center of the Behemah’s closed, massive maw, a curve of pitch-black steel punched through the upper palate and erupted between its eyes. The beast’s head jerked back, its trunk flailing in a spray of hot, metallic ichor.

  "What the f-fuck am I doing?! Let me go!" I screamed in the vault of my own skull.

  ?W€'r€ Surv?v?ng, k?d,? the voice purred, perfectly in sync with the song’s bridge. ?L-L€?rn t0 €nj0y th€ r?d€.?

  The darkness spat me out. I hit the obsidian floor, sliding through a pool of the monster's blood. But I didn't fall. I stood up with a mechanical, insect-like twitch. My brown hair had withered, drained of life until it was a ghostly ash-white, fluttering in the ozone heavy air.

  In my right hand, the shadow morphed into a heavy, toothed blade, black as a collapsed star. And a guard shaped like a pointed crown, which kept the miasma from ripping my arm off. It felt like holding a piece of the abyss.

  ?M-M?ss€d d??ng th?s... w?th th€ D?€s ?r▲€? the voice rumbled as the distorted duet of my own vocal cords come out while i watch the blood run down the blade with joy.

  "Richie? What... what happened to you?" The Pulga voice crackled through the comms, small and fractured by terror. "Why is that... that thing still chasing you?"

  The Behemah wasn't dead. The elephantine mass of warped muscle and bone-plated spine surged forward, its yellow eyes clouded with agonizing rage. It dragged its mangled jaw, tusks scraping the glass floor, intent on crushing the life out of me.

  "Richard, stop this!" Gabrielle’s voice cut through the chaos, trembling with a scientist’s fear of an out-of-control experiment. "The integration is—"

  "?Q-Qué pasa, Mamá? ?Acaso no era esto... lo que querían?" I—or rather, It—sneered, the violet glow in my eye pulsing with the beat of the music. ?R€lax... €nj?y th€ sh-sh?w.?

  "Arturo, are you going to let this circus continue?" Caelo hissed from the shadows of the balcony, his eyes fixed on me. "Contain him. Now!"

  Domesa scrambled at his console. Six heavy security drones detached from the ceiling, their red targeting lasers locking onto my chest.

  ?L-L??k ▲t th€m, R?ch?rd,? the radio in my head purred, dripping with a disgusting, infectious logic. ?Th€y w▲nt t0 p-put y0u b▲ck ?n th€ c▲g€. ?t's t?m€ t0 t▲k€ c0ntr0l... t-t? f?ght... m-my w▲y.?

  The Behemah lunged at the same time the drones opened fire.

  I didn't think. The entity didn't give me time to. My body moved like a blur of black static. I parried a drone’s pulse bolt with the Dies Irae, reflecting the energy directly into the beast’s open wound.

  I loped up the beast's bone-plated spine, my boots thudding against its wire-thick fur. With a savage laugh, I plunged the blade into its neck, using the momentum to swing around and kick a closing drone into the monster’s eye.

  The Behemah trumpeted in agony as I pirouetted under its bulk, the music roaring: “All you victims can't you see, can't you see..... How your blood's ejecting with brutality!”

  The monster stumbled back, thrashing. Blind with agony, it swiped a claw the size of a reaper's scythe. My legs moved on autopilot, dropping my center of gravity and sliding me under the beast's arm. Before the beast could turn, I pivoted on my heel.

  The static sword hummed. “Everytime you’re down we can take your life!” the speakers roared as I lashed out with two crossing strikes at its Achilles tendons. The creature's plated flesh unzipped like wet tissue paper. Behemah crashed to one knee, painting the obsidian floor with dark sludge.

  The arena was a symphony of gore and distorted pop. I felt my muscles tearing, my lungs burning, but voice just pushed harder.

  ?F-F?n?sh th€m, k?d. Sh0w th€m th€ ▲rt 0f th€... Sl▲sh.?

  I leaped from the beast's head, the violet flames on the blade reaching the ceiling. Time seemed to slow as I looked down at the Behemah, now a broken, bleeding mountain of meat.

  "H-H0r▲... d€ m-m0r?r... D-Dumb0... m-m▲ld?t0."

  With the music at its peak, the hook comes to light. "....And that's when you die by my knife!"

  I delivered a crushing slash that didn't just cut; it released a kinetic shockwave ripped through the Behemah, launching its ten-ton bulk twenty meters back into the north wall. The steel groaned and collapsed into a crater of viscera. The drones, caught in the backdraft, disintegrated into sparks.

  The music cut to a deafening, terrifying static.

  Instantly, the leash snapped. Gravity hit me like a falling building. The smell of copper, the tearing pain, the white-hot brand of the H.A.L.O .—it all jumped me at once.

  ?N-N0t b▲d, b0y... n0t b▲d ▲t ▲ll,? the voice whispered, fading back into the static as I felt my soul trying to leak out of my pores.

  My knees hit the shattered glass. I looked at my ash-white hair, then at the crater where the monster lay dead. The euphoria of the crowd's roar felt like a physical assault.

  The last thing I saw before the lights went out was Caelo. He was leaning over the railing, a slow, dark smile spreading across his face.

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  //THE BOARD AND THE LIBRARIAN//

  The coliseum shook under the hysteria of the crowd. In N.U.V.S., a society sanitized to the bone, this kind of raw, unhinged violence was a match thrown into a powder keg. They hadn't just seen a fight; they had witnessed a Hardware Mutation that defied every law of their "perfect" physics.

  In the VIP box, Arturo Domesa mopped his forehead with a silk square, his hands trembling so hard he nearly dropped it. His eyes bounced frantically between the butchered, steaming carcass of the Behemah and the passed-out kid lying in a pool of black ichor.

  "Impossible," he muttered, his voice cracking. "No untrained novice has that kind of kinetic output. That violet flux... it’s not in the database. It’s an error! A terminal error!"

  Caelo Magnis remained silent. He looked at the ash-white hair boy still hummed with dying static. Caelo’s dark eyes, usually stagnant pools of boredom and old depression, were burning with a predatory hunger. The guy wasn't a glitch; he was a powerful weapon that didn't belong to them... yet.

  Meanwhile in the other side of the arena...

  "Richie! Richie, wake up!" The Pulga’s scream pierced the grades, raw and jagged. She lunged for the stairs, her small hands reaching for the railing, but zadquiel heavy palm slammed into her shoulder, pinning her back. "Let me go! I need to help him!"

  Gabrielle didn't turn. Her eyes were locked on the holographic readouts, her professional mask finally spider-webbing with cracks. She knew that "static" wasn't a glitch; she recognized the ancient, rotting signature of the radio in his head. "Neural levels... they didn't just spike, Zadquiel," she whispered, her voice a mix of scientific thrill and cold dread. "They evolved. We have to secure the subject before Caelo realizes—"

  "It's too late for that, Gabrielle," Zadquiel interrupted, his voice a freezing river.

  He didn't wait for permission. He released his grip on Amelia off and vaulted over the railing, landing on the obsidian floor with a heavy thud. His hand was already on the grip of his service weapon, his eyes locked on the six med-drones descending from the ceiling like metallic spiders.

  "Step back, Commander Raymos!" Arturo Domesa’s voice boomed from the podium, his face a frantic shade of purple. "By the mandate of the Evaluation Council, the anomaly is to be moved to the Shining Industries max-security wing for immediate... disassembly."

  "He is my son, Arturo," Zadquiel hissed, his posture a predatory warning.

  "He stopped being your son the moment he committed that heresy," Caelo Magnis intervened, his voice calm and terrifying. He remained leaning over the railing, that slow, dark smile never leaving his face. "Secure the weapon, Domesa. Do not let the Raymos touch him."

  The drones lunged, their red targeting lasers painting Richard's white hair.

  They never reached him.

  The air in the coliseum just collapsed. A suffocating, atmospheric pressure slammed into every soul in the dome, pinning the drones to the floor with a metallic crunch. Zadquiel’s knees buckled. Gabrielle gasped, clutching the railing as the glass of the VIP box began to groan.

  Walking through the south entrance, hands buried in the pockets of a beat-up tweed jacket, a middle age man who looked like he’d gotten lost on his way to a library made his enter to the arena.

  He carried a ceramic mug, steam still rising from the dark roast coffee. He took a slow, deliberate sip, the clink of the mug against his teeth the only sound in the deadened arena.

  "Professor Torres!" Domesa screamed, his voice reaching a desperate pitch. "This is a restricted sector! That boy is property of the Council!"

  Diego stopped next to Richard’s body. He looked at the butchered Behemah, let out a soft, impressed whistle, and then lazily tilted his head toward the Director's box.

  "You're late, Arturo," Diego said, his voice projecting perfectly through the dome without a mic, calm as a Sunday morning. He nudged his glasses up with his free hand. "The system finalized his enrollment four minutes ago. He’s a student now. Not a subject."

  "That boy is a volatile anomaly! He just slaughtered a Class-A specimen!" Arturo hammered the console. "He is under the direct jurisdiction of Lord Caelo's security forces!"

  Diego looked past Arturo, his piercing grey eyes locking dead onto Caelo Magnis. For a fraction of a second, the pressure in the air threatened to shatter the dome. A tired Aeon staring down an apathetic Fallen Angel. The tension was so heavy that a dozen students in the front row started bleeding from their noses, their H.A.L.O.s flashing amber warnings.

  "The rules are clear, Arturo," Diego said, breaking the stare as if it bored him. He crouched, hauling Richard over his shoulder with a casual, terrifying strength. He looked at Gabrielle, then at Zadquiel, his expression unreadable behind the steam of his mug.

  "Any student who shows 'unclassified potential' or 'behavioral defects' defaults to House Eclipse. At least, that's what the bylaws you wrote dictate. And in case you forgot..." He adjusted Richard’s weight over his sleeve. "...that makes him mine."

  Zadquiel stepped forward, his jaw tight. "Give him to me, Torres. This isn't a game for your House of Misfits."

  Diego didn't even look back. He started walking toward the exit, stepping right over the crushed, sparking drones.

  "I’m not playing, Commander. Now, if you'll excuse me," he tossed over his shoulder, "I need to teach my new student how to get monster blood out of a dress shirt. It’s a bitch to clean."

  Nobody moved. Not because they didn't want to, but because the "gravity" Diego left in his wake made it impossible to breathe. As they vanished into the tunnel, the Pulga’s screams for her brother were the only thing that broke the silence, while Caelo Magnis watched them go, his dark smile widening.

  And deep inside Richard's mind—far away from the blood and the roar of the crowd—a door wrapped in rusted chains and ancient runes creaked open a single inch.

  And in the pitch black behind it, someone was waiting. the shadow wasn't gone. He was just making himself at home, waiting for the boy to wake up to a world that would never, ever be the same.

  // ENCRYPTED CONNECTION ESTABLISHED //

  

  [WARNING: CRITICAL SYSTEM BREACH]

  [OVERWRITING USER: MARIO_ADMIN...]

  [NEW ENCRYPTION DETECTED: ▲TH0S_V.0]

  ?Shut up, l?ttl€ m0nkey. Th€ ?dults ?r€ t-t?lking n0w.?

  [LOADING... CORRUPTED ARCHIVES]

  

  THE N.U.V.S. GLOSSARY: VOL. 3

  trashy biomass.

  “M?rd?t0” (Maldito):

  Classification: Ancient Curse / Absolute Spite.

  In your world, it’s just a word. In mine, it’s a death sentence. Richard spat it at the Behemah right before the kinetic bomb erased its existence. It’s the final nail in the coffin. When the code turns violet and this word is spoken... pray your gods are listening.

  “Paju?”:

  Classification: Intellectual Dismissal / Verbal Slap.

  Diego Torres called Arturo Domesa a "viejo pajuo." It’s the ultimate way to tell someone they are a pretentious, useless idiot. In House Eclipse, we don't respect the suit; we respect the weight. And Arturo? He has the weight of a feather.

  “?D?€S ?r▲€?” (Day of Wrath):

  Classification: Sovereign Hardware / The End.

  That "shadow-blade" you saw? It’s not a toy. It’s a piece of the abyss forged into a serrated grin. It drinks the subject’s life to exist—hence the ash-white hair. If you see the black steel, it’s already too late to run.

  [SIGNAL STABILIZING... FORCING REBOOT]

  // CONNECTION RECOVERED //

  Anyway, I hope that cleared things up!

  Now that the door in Richard's mind is open, what do you think "The Shadow" will say to him the moment they meet face-to-face?

  Hardware Mutation is evolving.

  Stay out of tune.

  // CONNECTION TERMINATED //