Elara's expression shifted the moment she turned back to the samples, her eyes narrowing with sharp, laser-focused intensity. Everything else around her faded into static. Her entire world now revolved around the contents of those syringes.

Her fingers danced over them with surgical precision, plucking three specific samples from the crate.

"One enhancer… one suppressant… and this," she murmured, holding up the last syringe with a grin that bordered on manic, "This must be that TEMP Z I've heard so much about."

There was a glimmer in her eyes that rivalled the one she'd worn while staring at Kai earlier, and for a second, it was hard to tell which fascinated her more - the blood demon or the mutant drugs.

Elara didn't care about the sigils stamped on the side of each syringe, nor did she ask how they'd got their hands on them. Whether they stole them, bartered them, or ripped them from a corpse made no difference to her.

All that mattered… was what was inside.

There was a series of murmurs under her breath as all kinds of theories and possibilities bounced around her head.

"Come along, but don't break anything," she eventually said, her tone casual but dangerous, like a teacher leading a bunch of toddlers into a high-tech science lab.

And her lab was a minefield. Half the surfaces looked like they'd come from an alien spaceship - glowing panels, vials bubbling with fluorescent liquid, wires that hummed faintly with energy. Strange-looking monitors blinked with data they couldn't even begin to understand. And then, there were the cats - everywhere. Some with extra tails. One with scales. Another with bioluminescent whiskers that glowed like fairy lights.

Isaac nearly stepped on a one-eyed kitten and received a death glare from Elara that made him freeze mid-step.

Lenny hovered awkwardly near the door, trying his best not to touch anything.

Even Shadow gave the entire setup a wide berth, his gaze flicking around warily.

Kai followed silently, eyes scanning the lab but head clearly elsewhere.

Elara moved like she owned every inch of the space, which, to be fair, she did. She approached a large cylindrical device in the corner and slotted the three syringes into a separate rotating intake chamber.

"What's that do?" Sven asked, eyebrows raised.

"It breaks the serums down into their component parts," she said without looking up, fingers dancing across the glowing screen. "Then I analyse each part, track what it targets genetically, and map it out. In Layman's terms: it reverse-engineers them."

"So… it un-makes the drugs?" Nadya asked, trying to keep up.

"Kind of," Elara replied, turning a dial with a click. "More like dissects them chemically so I can understand their individual effects. After that, I see how each compound interacts with mutant genes."

The machine hissed softly as it powered up, its inner mechanisms whirring to life with a low hum. Lights pulsed. Fluids separated into tubes, colours swirling and splitting like an oil painting on fast forward. The lab was soon filled with a faint mechanical melody - strange yet mesmerising.

The others watched in quiet awe, heads craned toward the shifting displays and digital graphs forming across the monitors. Screens flashed with genome structures and weird mutant markers.

But Kai wasn't looking at the screens.

He was frozen in place, his pupils dilated.

His gaze had locked onto a transparent vial on the left-hand side of the machine. Red. Viscous. Familiar.

'Th-That's… my blood!?'

The realisation slammed into him like a freight train. The colour. The consistency. The energy it radiated. It wasn't just a guess. He knew. That was his.

His blood was in there.

Elara, noticing his expression, was confused and asked, "What's up?"

Kai didn't respond at first. His mind was spinning.

But then he said, "You said you wanted some of my blood. There it is."

The revelation stumped them, but Elara had caught on, considering Kai's reaction. It left the red-eyed man stuck in his own thoughts.

Even after all the blood he'd used in battle… even after staining entire battlegrounds with it… there shouldn't be enough to mass-produce these drugs. Not even if Nyx had scraped every last drop of it.

That kind of volume was unnatural.

"He must have some way of duplicating or reproducing my blood…" Kai muttered aloud, voice low.

"Very likely," Elara nodded, not even looking up from her screen. "I doubt it's as potent as the real thing, but it doesn't have to be. If he can isolate the stabilising properties of your blood - well, he's basically holding a mutant elixir."

Kai clenched his jaw. The thought of that man, Nyx, using his blood to push his twisted experiments even further, to birth more monsters like the ones Kai had barely survived… It made his skin crawl.

It wasn't just disturbing.

It was violating.

And worse, even Elara, smart, eccentric, supposedly on their side, was eyeing his blood like it was some holy grail. That same glint of obsession was in her eyes now, too.

What if she wasn't any better?

Whatever Kai's body had developed to survive Nyx's serum, whatever resistance he'd gained through sheer hell and mutation, it had made him into something entirely new. A stable artificial mutant. The first one.

And now his blood was the key.

The blueprint.

With enough time, enough samples, and enough test subjects, Nyx could recreate the very conditions that birthed Kai. He could perfect the formula, mass-produce it, and use Kai's blood to create an army of engineered mutants.

Twisted, loyal… controllable.

All he'd need was a mind control method. A leash. Or a kill switch.

Kai's fingers curled into fists.

That was what Nyx wanted.

Not just a single weapon. Not a pet project.

A legion of Kai-like monsters with none of his free will and all of his killing potential. A walking army with bombs in their heads and Nyx's voice in their skulls.

The mere thought made Kai's blood boil.

And somewhere in the back of his mind, he heard Nyx laughing.

Again.

-

The very idea of what Nyx was capable of sent a chill down their spines. A man who'd crossed every ethical line, twisted science into something monstrous, and wielded genius like a scalpel - sharp enough to reshape the world.

It was horrifying.

Terrifying.

But at least… they had someone who could keep up. Kind of.

Elara.

As eccentric and unpredictable as she was, she was one of the only people alive who could even somewhat match Nyx's brilliance. If anyone could understand his work or attempt to counter it, it was her. She might not be able to stop him outright, but she could slow him down, develop something to protect them, maybe even expose a flaw in his twisted creations.

It was a comforting thought.

Hopeful.

But also… painfully optimistic.

Because Nyx wasn't the only nightmare lurking out there.

He was just the most personal one.

All across the world, powerful mutants aligned with the Association had been popping up - many too strong to face head-on. Worse, the Monsters and Beasts outside human control weren't staying stagnant. No, they were evolving. Adapting. Growing. They were showing signs eerily similar to Mutant Maturity. They were becoming stronger, smarter... more dangerous.

And they were as ravenous as ever.

For power. For flesh. For territory.

Survival was becoming a luxury.

For the Mutant Outlaws, it had always been the only goal - just survive. No grand ambitions, no political games. Just stay alive one more day and fight for their freedom.

But now… things had changed.

Now they had Kai.

The blood demon. The first true stable mutant created by Nyx's madness.

And whether he liked it or not, his very existence had shifted the balance.

He wasn't just powerful, though he was growing rapidly, mastering his abilities with frightening speed. No, it was deeper than that. His body was the key. The blueprint. The code.

And whoever cracked the mutant code… would hold the reins of the world.

With that knowledge, they could forge a new age.

A world where everyone was a mutant, just like the one Nyx dreamed of.

Or maybe the opposite.

A world where mutants could be stripped of their powers. Controlled. Overseen by one entity who could give and take abilities at will.

But even those were just surface-level fantasies.

There were real possibilities. Ones that made even the most hardened rebels go quiet in awe.

If Kai's regenerative factor could be replicated, they could revolutionise medicine. Eliminate cancer. Cure every virus. Hell, even stop the ageing process. Death itself could become a relic of the past.

Immortality… might actually be possible.

The plague of Monsterfication? Solved.

The chaos of uncontrolled mutations? Contained.

With enough understanding, they could rewrite biology as they knew it. Go beyond Earth. Explore the stars. It wasn't just fantasy anymore.

Elara stood silently amidst the soft hum of her machines, her eyes reflecting rows of glowing data across the screens. Her mind was a storm of equations, theories, and future blueprints of a world that didn't yet exist.

A world she could help shape.

But then she turned her eyes away from the screens and back toward the true centre of it all.

Kai.

The man who bled power.

The stabilised mutant who had survived Nyx's madness and emerged as something new.

Her gaze lingered on him, not with pity or concern, but with pure scientific obsession.

Her thoughts condensed into a singular, piercing truth.

'I need to get as many samples from him as I can.'

That blood wasn't just red fluid anymore.

It was the catalyst.

The miracle ingredient.

The future.

But…

Her lips curled into a wry smile.

Kai didn't exactly seem like the volunteering type.

He wasn't going to just lie down on an operating table and let her poke and prod him with needles. He didn't trust easily. And considering his past, the horror, the pain, the experiments, she couldn't blame him.

However, she had nothing to lose from asking, and his reaction to her repeated request was far from what she was expecting...

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