When the transformation stabilized, what stood before the siblings was no longer quite human, not fully elven, but something that existed between categories, a weapon forged by bloodline and enhanced by the essence of forty engineered warriors, powered by magic that stretched back to when gods walked the earth.

A Berserk Lord, reborn in the modern age.

Jorghan smiled, and the expression promised death.

"My turn," he said, his voice carrying harmonics that seemed to bypass ears and strike directly at the hindbrain, triggering primal fear responses that even the siblings' conditioning couldn't fully suppress.

He moved, and the speed was impossible.

One moment, he was standing forty feet away; the next, his clawed hand was around Caden's throat, blood essence and physical strength combining to lift the armored warrior like he weighed nothing. The suit's defensive systems engaged, trying to create separation, but Jorghan's grip was unbreakable.

His free hand came up, claws raking across the chest plate with force that tore through advanced materials like they were paper. Sparks flew, internal systems were exposed, and Caden felt real fear for the first time in his enhanced life.

Constance's blade came around in a strike aimed at Jorghan's extended arm, the molecular edge that could unmake matter positioned to sever the limb entirely.

The blade struck.

And stopped.

Jorghan's skin had changed, no longer just enhanced flesh but something closer to the blood essence itself, existing in a state between liquid and solid, between matter and energy. The molecular edge that could erase normal tissue simply couldn't find purchase on a substance that wasn't quite physical anymore.

His head turned to look at Constance, and in his eyes she saw her death approaching.

His clawed hand opened, releasing Caden, who stumbled backward, coughing and trying to restore his suit's damaged systems.

But Jorghan wasn't focused on him anymore.

He was focused on her.

She brought her blade up in a guard position, her suit's remaining power channeling into defensive matrices, every system redlining as it prepared for impact.

Jorghan's fist came forward in a straight punch—no technique, no finesse, just overwhelming power concentrated into a single strike.

It hit her blade, the immovable defense she'd created.

And shattered it.

The enchanted weapon, forged from materials that existed at the cutting edge of Imperial innovation, broke like glass under the impact. Shards of metal and crystallized magic scattered across the desert, and Constance was left holding a hilt attached to nothing.

His follow-up strike caught her chest plate, and the armor crumpled, sophisticated engineering failing under forces it was never designed to withstand. She was thrown backward, tumbling across the sand, systems failing, bones broken despite the suit's protection, and consciousness threatening to flee from pain and shock.

Caden screamed—rage and fear and desperate determination—and threw himself at Jorghan with everything he had left. His blade came down in an overhead strike that carried all his suit's remaining power, all his enhanced strength, everything he could bring to bear.

Jorghan caught the blade in his hand.

The spatial-distortion edge cut into his palm, reality-warping effects trying to erase the flesh they touched. Blood flowed, dark and smoking, and pain registered at the edges of Jorghan's consciousness.

But he held on.

His fingers closed around the blade, blood essence flowing from the wound, coating the weapon, invading its structure. The spatial distortions began to fail as supernatural matter interfered with the carefully calibrated effects.

"You hurt my family," Jorghan said, his voice carrying that same inhuman quality.

"You came here to kill those I've sworn to protect. Did you really think you'd walk away?"

His other hand shot forward, bypassing Caden's guard entirely, and closed around the suit's energy core. Claws pierced the advanced housing, finding the crystallized essence matrix within, and with a savage twist, he ripped it free.

The suit died instantly, all power failing, becoming nothing but a dead weight encasing Caden's enhanced body.

Jorghan threw him aside like a broken toy, the commander landing near where his sister lay struggling to breathe through broken ribs and a punctured lung.

The Berserk Lord stood over them, nine feet of transformed power, blood dripping from his clawed hands, his eyes blazing with light that seemed to pierce into their souls.

He could kill them.

Should kill them, by any tactical measure.

They were enemies; they'd come here to slaughter elves, and leaving them alive risked future retaliation.

But as he stood there, looking down at them—broken, defeated, helpless—something shifted in his expression.

The cold calculation that had driven him through the transformation began to fade, humanity reasserting itself, the part of him that was still Jorghan rather than just Berserk Lord remembering why he fought.

Not for slaughter.

Not for revenge.

For protection.

Jorghan stood in the center of the battlefield, his chest heaving with exhaustion, watching as Caden and Constance struggled to rise from where he'd thrown them. Their suits were broken, their bodies damaged, but still they moved with the determination of those who'd rather die than accept defeat.

"Just scram," Jorghan said, genuine weariness in his voice. He felt like he was seeing himself in both of them. When their father killed Ser'gu, his father, he was just as helpless as they were. He knew exactly what they were feeling, and the need for revenge burned brightly in Constance's eyes.

"You've lost. Your Haelves are dead, your suits are broken, and your army is ready to retreat. You can come again when you have enough strength to fight me."

Caden spat blood onto the sand, his enhanced body already working to heal internal injuries despite the severity of the damage.

"Go back?" His laugh was bitter and broken.

"You don't understand the Empire. We don't get to fail. We don't get to lose. Especially not to—" he gestured at Jorghan with contempt, "—to half-blood filth who murdered our father."

"Your father betrayed the family and killed his own brother," Jorghan replied, his voice hardening. "He got what he deserved."

"He started all of this."

"And you'll get what you deserve," Constance said, pulling herself upright despite her broken ribs, despite the pain that had to be overwhelming even for her enhanced physiology.

She activated her suit's communication system, her voice broadcasting to the entire Imperial force.

"All units! Full-scale assault! Advance on the target! Retreat means execution for cowardice! Attack or die!"

The army, which had been on the verge of breaking, hesitated. The soldiers looked at each other, weighing the terror of attacking the elf warrior who'd just destroyed forty Haelves against the certainty of Imperial justice if they fled.

The fear of their own command structure won.

The army began to advance, thousands of soldiers moving forward with the grim determination of those who had no other choice.

Jorghan shook his head slowly, something like regret crossing his features.

"I gave you a way out. I tried not to become the killing machine my bloodline wants me to be. But you won't listen. None of you will listen."

"We don't negotiate with monsters," Caden said, reaching into a concealed compartment in his damaged suit. His hand emerged holding something small—a vial filled with liquid that seemed to absorb light, its color a purple so dark it was almost black.

Constance's eyes went wide with horror. "Caden, no! That's not approved for field use! The side effects—"

"Don't matter," Caden interrupted, his voice carrying a finality that suggested he'd already made peace with whatever consequences were coming.

"If we're going to die anyway, at least we'll take him with us."

He pressed the vial against his neck, a mechanism in its side activating automatically. There was a hiss as the contents were injected directly into his carotid artery, bypassing his digestive system entirely and entering his bloodstream with immediate effect.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then the foam appeared.

Dark purple energy erupted from Caden's body, not as visible light but as something darker—anti-light, shadows given physical form. It rotated around him in spirals, moving with liquid grace, coating his skin, seeping into his pores, and invading every cell of his body.

"Venomous Detri," Constance whispered, her voice carrying equal parts horror and recognition. "The forbidden ritual awakening. Caden, you'll die from this!"

"Better than living with failure," Caden managed through gritted teeth as his body began to change.

The transformation was violent and wrong in ways that made Jorghan's bloodline evolution look gentle by comparison. Caden's veins bulged beneath his skin, becoming visible as dark purple lines that spread across his body like a web. His muscles expanded, not with the natural growth of proper enhancement but with tumorous speed, tearing fibers and rebuilding stronger, denser, and harder.

His bones thickened audibly, calcium deposits forming so rapidly they created sounds like cracking wood. His spine arched backward as vertebrae fused and separated and fused again, optimizing his skeletal structure for combat at the cost of everything else.

His eyes bled from the pressure as his skull reshaped itself, accommodating brain tissue that was being forcibly enhanced beyond safe parameters. The purple foam seeped into his eye sockets, and when his eyes opened again, they glowed with that same dark anti-light, pupils dilated so wide there was no iris visible—just black orbs rimmed with purple energy.

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