Danny pulled back and inspected the damage.

The ground around them was cracked. A crater had formed with them in the centre. Fighter was missing half of its head, but it wasn’t dead. The rapid healing of its face proved its continued vitality. Its body was unmoving though. Danny grunted and got up to his feet. He grabbed Fighter's leg and dragged the incapacitated monster over to a certain section of the ground.

Danny then triggered the spell he had been building across the battle. The ground gave way to a large pit which swallowed the super zombie. As it fell, spears of earth shot out of the walls and connected into holes opposite them. Fighter was turned into a pincushion, dozens of spears which contained no mana pierced its body and pinned it in place. Mana then rushed along the spears, reinforcing them.

This was Danny's grand plan. A punji pit of sorts. He had spent a considerable amount of time using his mana to gently condense the earth beneath them into hardened spears that contained no mana of their own. He then dug out the hole and spent far too long arranging all of the spears in position. He then devised a spell to reinforce the spears once they had penetrated Fighter's body, so he’d struggle to break them.

Now, Danny looked down into the pit with an empty feeling. His mind was elsewhere as he looked at his work dispassionately. Something was different about his body, again. There was something even more alien than ever before lurking within him. There was something hiding in him that refused to become assimilated, it was its own conscious being. Danny couldn’t identify it though, it refused to be dragged into the light.

The feeling unnerved Danny more so than anything he had experienced so far. He had died and become something more than human, but he still felt like himself at the end of the day. Now? Now he had changed again, but something different had emerged from the change. Something that refused to be seen.

Fighter roared in the pit but was completely unable to move. There were so many spears pinning it in place that it couldn’t muster any strength to break free. Danny sighed and focused on finishing the fight. Part of him was deeply tired. A strange new energy coursed through him, different from his inhuman mana. This new energy wasn’t entirely his and he felt the need to keep it in check with his mana. He had the feeling that it would consume him if he didn’t carefully guard himself against it.

Danny picked up a large rock he had prepared and jumped down into the pit. Both he and Fighter were resistant to anything created or reinforced by mana, so a mundane rock would have to do the job. Danny raised the rock above his head and looked the snarling monster in the eyes.

“It’s you or me.” Danny sighed. He took no pleasure in what he was about to do.

He swung the rock down into the head of the Fighter. It screamed in pain.

Danny raised the rock again. Fighter’s entire body was as hard as stone itself. This wasn’t going to be a quick process.

Just as Danny was about to swing the rock down again he felt something in the air above him. He had a split second to react to the faintly familiar occurrence and threw himself to the side. He saw a familiar stone device launch itself from the ceiling of the tunnel and narrowly miss him. “Ah rats,” Danny cursed. He was stuck down in a pit with a super zombie and now Tamm decided to make her move. Of course she did.

Dozens of the mana-disrupting devices appeared in the air and flew toward both Danny and Fighter. The devices easily latched onto the restrained zombie and the pained howls that followed showed just how nasty a device they were. Danny summoned a wall of mana above him but it wobbled and popped out of existence when the devices came into contact with it.

Danny was like a fish in a barrel and it wasn’t long until the first device latched around one of his limbs. It was soon followed by many more. Danny’s mana was sent haywire. After the initial shock, which he had been prepared for, a horrifying realisation struck him. The new energy inside him was completely unaffected by the disruptors. Now that his mana wasn’t constraining it, it was free to move around his body.

Panic set into him and he tore at the devices that constrained him. He had no understanding of what this energy would do to him but his instincts told him to be afraid of it. Danny heard shouts and people appeared around the pit, looking down on him and Fighter. The super zombie was on the floor, thrashing about. The devices had weakened the restraining spears and its flails had torn through them.

Danny’s body was wracked by pain and exhaustion but he recognised the existential threat and he found the fortitude to remain standing. Spells were chanted and the earth around them sloped out, turning the deep pit into a gently sloped crater. People cautiously surrounded the two of them, eyes pinned mainly on Danny.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“How’s he still standing?” One of them asked.

Danny charged at the man, at least he tried to. His body refused to properly respond to his intentions and it was more of a messy shamble. The man yelped in panic and fell on his ass. Danny still closed the distance quickly and kicked the man’s head. Danny paused. The world froze for a second.

The man’s head had offered the resistance of a wet paper bag and Danny’s foot removed it from existence.

The group screamed and spells poured onto Danny. He was burnt by magical fire, crushed beneath magical earth, assaulted by magical wind, and blasted by magical water. All of it having little to no effect on him.

Danny’s weary mind struggled to grapple with what he had just done. He had wanted to hurt the man, knock him out, not kill him. Danny ignored the spells peppering him and looked at his still outstretched foot and the body slumped beneath it. Huh? Danny knew he was strong, far stronger than a human, but this still came as a shock.

Then he was knocked from his feet. A gunshot rang through the air. Danny felt the cold bite of metal wrap around his arms and legs. A boot pressed itself onto the side of Danny’s head and smushed his face into the loose dirt of the floor. Danny didn’t need to guess who it was, but she spoke anyway.

“Welcome to the tunnels.” Tamm spat.

Danny couldn’t move his arms or legs, so he didn’t bother trying to resist. A bag was thrown over his head and he felt a needle stab into his arm. An icy sensation spread from his arm into his body. He felt his mana weaken and slow like it had been put to sleep. Pain exploded across his body as his mana died down. The wounds and injuries he had accumulated across the fight were no longer being healed. His body had been held together by mana at this point and now that mana wasn’t doing its job.

Danny couldn’t stop a pained moan from escaping his lips. He hadn’t felt this bad in years. It was a similar sensation to the morning after a tough fight, everything hurt and ached. The metal restraints weighed a ton on his weakened body and as he was dragged up to his feet that weight only increased.

“Get them both into the lab,” Tamm ordered. “Someone deal with Deacon’s body.”

Danny was dragged across the dirt. The dirt soon became concrete and concrete then became polished floor. The lighting changed as well, getting brighter and more intense. The smell of sterile disinfectant filled his nose and almost made him gag. Danny was then awkwardly hoisted up and placed onto a cold surface which seemed to mold around him as he touched it. There were many grunts and complaints by the people moving him.

Danny kept a close eye on what was happening within his body. The strange energy wasn’t acting suspiciously, yet. It was coursing around his body, following a set path of its own direction. It had yet to seep into his body in the way his mana did, but Danny suspected it would eventually. Danny was pulled from his thoughts when the bag was unceremoniously ripped from his head. His eyes were immediately assaulted by bright white light.

Danny recoiled from the light and as his eyes adjusted he recoiled again. A small Asian man was standing before him with his face inches from Danny’s. The man hummed to himself before turning and looking at the creature strapped to a table across from Danny, Fighter. The super zombie looked completely out of it, orange liquid dripping from its mouth. Its muscles spasmed periodically and its entire body twitched.

“Kuhh,” the Asian man in a lab coat exclaimed. “What now, is the difference between the two of you?” The man asked no one in particular.

Danny didn’t attempt to answer the man, instead, he began to take stock of the situation. He started with himself. He still had multiple mana-disrupting devices strapped around him, which were making him feel nauseous. For some reason, it felt more manageable than the last time he had experienced it. His mana had flatlined, whatever he had been injected with had put his mana into a dormant state. It left him feeling weak and anaemic. His arms and legs were bound in a strange silvery metal that looked too smooth to have been made in the shape it was in now. It connected to the table he was on seamlessly. It has to be magic.

Then there was the new energy inside him. It moved around his body completely unphased by the injection or the disruptors. Not mana? Danny mused. He wasn’t sure but his gut told him to be wary of it. His mind briefly returned to what had happened to him. He barely remembered it, but he knew that Fighter had gotten on top of him and had begun tearing him apart. He had lost mana as his flesh was taken from him, further weakening him. In the midst of the attack, he had felt something within him rupture. He tried to focus on what he had felt, but drew a blank. What had ruptured? Where had it ruptured? Danny couldn’t answer those questions. Moving on, he searched for what happened next.

The new energy had appeared, racing around his body and flooding into his head. Then everything went dark for a moment. All he could remember was emotions. Fury and strength, distinct from the hunger and malice that his mana had come with. Then there was an image, a presence. He couldn’t remember details, but he could remember the awe of the sheer magnitude of the image. In his mind, it had felt larger than the world itself.