I swing over a twisted beam, boots landin’ hard on a grated platform.
A killing perch.
A place to bleed them dry.
The closest one behind me climbs, faster than I expected. Hands graspin’, reachin’.
I drop low, swing under the beam, come up behind. Hook his ankle, twist. Bone snaps. He falls screaming.
One down. Let’s fuckin’ go.
I swing back up onto my platform and this is when I hear the chant again. It never stopped, my mind just blanked it out. It’s back now.
All the mutants in the crowd are going wild.Wild.
Rise a god!Rise a god!Rise a god!
I pause, even though the horde is still comin’.
What does that mean?
But there’s no time, the horde is here.
I let the fray come to me. One at a time, I take them out. Killing without thinking.
Somewhere beneath the skin of reality, another world hums. A different underground.
Another frequency.
A cavern cathedral, its ceiling strung with chains of glowing pearls, swaying in an unfelt wind. Below, a procession of monks draped in red-stitched robes moves in silent prayer, their faces hidden, their hands clasped around knives carved from bone.
One cuts his palm, lettin’ blood drip into the roots of a massive, pulsin’ crystal. The crystal drinks deep. It shudders. It sings.
I blink the scene away.
A mutant lunges.
I twist, crush his throat, move on.
The energy is thick, pulsin’, pulsin’,pulsin’…
Chanting. Chanting.Chanting… everything is vibrating. Not from the impact of the stompin’ mutants, but fromsound.
The voices.
The monks are seated in a perfect circle, heads bowed, mouths open. No words. Just tone. Resonance. The chant isn’t spoken—it’s sustained. A living frequency, hummin’ through the bones of this place, stitchin’ it together.
I watch, unseen. Unheard. But I feel it—inside my chest, in the threads of my own body.
Rise a god!Rise a god!Rise a god!
It’s not a prayer. It’s a command.
It vibrates across dimensions, through worlds, bleedin’ into the roar of the arena, into the mouths of the mutants above me.
The Spark hums in my veins, trying to sync, trying to answer. Trying to understand what it is I’m supposed to become.
I blink?—
