Chapter 6: Whispers in the Ashes

Elena's Perspective: Heartbeats Under the Ruins

A crack split the radiation - filled clouds over Crescent City, like a slightly opened eye of God. Elena's wolf claws furiously dug through the concrete fragments. The Nightborne blood congealed into crystals on her burned palms. Three hours ago, Maggie's crystal ball showed that Cain's life signal had vanished in the west - city sewage treatment plant, an old stronghold of the Holy Light Church.

"Sister, there's blood here!" The hybrid girl crouched beside the twisted steel bars, her fingertips stained with silver - blue liquid. "It's werewolf blood and... mechanical lubricant?"

Elena's pupils shrank suddenly. She recognized this synthetic blood. Lane had used it to transform demon hunter corpses. When she kicked aside a slab of rubble with the tip of her boot, a dull rumble of rotating gears came from the underground pipes, mixed with faint whimpers of a wolf.

"Stay up here." She plunged her black umbrella into the ground to form a protective barrier and then leaped into the abyss alone. A stench of decay assaulted her nostrils. Under the eerie green emergency lights, hundreds of glass pods were arranged like a beehive. Inside each pod floated hybrid embryos of werewolves and vampires. Infusion tubes were inserted into their carotid arteries, and the other ends were connected to a dark shadow in the central cylinder, which bore a striking resemblance to the lost wing of Lucifer.

The whimpers came from an iron cage in the corner. Elena's nails fully wolfed due to anger, but she froze when she was about to break the lock chain. Crouched inside the cage was Cain, who should have gone berserk on the full - moon night. His skin was covered with mechanical sutures, and his left eye had been replaced with an artificial one made of Blood Moon Stone.

"Lane's... gift..." He hoarsely lifted his severed wrist, and the exposed cables at the interface suddenly stabbed towards Elena's forehead!

Cain's Perspective: A Caged Beast in the Data Torrent

Cain's consciousness drifted in a sea of blood. Lane's nanoworms danced wildly on his brain nerves, and each tentacle transmitted the same memory: three hundred years ago, when he accidentally killed Lillian, Elena was still a baby in his arms.

"You've died for her in every life," Lane's voice echoed from the abyss of consciousness. "Why not let her die for you this time?"

The boundary between reality and virtuality was crumbling. Cain watched his mechanical arm attack Elena uncontrollably while his werewolf instincts roared in fury. When Elena's fangs pierced the cables in his neck, the intense pain unexpectedly activated a hidden program. His artificial eye projected a holographic map, marking seven Nightborne laboratories of the Holy See around the world.

"Run..." He bit through his tongue to regain half a second of control with the pain. "They're using our blood to create..."

The mechanical arm suddenly choked his own throat, and nanoworms oozed from the corners of his eyes. Cain used his last bit of strength to tear off his left arm and stuffed the artificial eye containing the data chip into Elena's palm.

Selena's Perspective: The New Birth in the Mechanical Womb

When Selena opened her eyes in the liquid - nitrogen chamber, the wound on her abdomen had grown metallic scales. Lane's clone was humming a hymn in front of the console, and the screen showed the real - time battle scene of Cain. When she tried to smash the chamber door, the Holy See chip on the back of her neck suddenly released an electric current.

"Don't be impatient, my dear culture medium." The cloned Lane stroked the chamber wall, his eyes filled with obsession. "The Blood Moon Stone in your body is nurturing the core of Lucifer II. A mechanical angel fed with the blood and bones of your enemies. Isn't it romantic?"

Suddenly, the surveillance screen flickered, showing the image of Elena carrying the unconscious Cain out of the laboratory. Selena's bone spurs grew uncontrollably and pierced through the heart of the cloned Lane.

"Such... perfect mutation..." The clone laughed, spitting out blood foam, and pressed the self - destruct button. "Go and become their nightmare..."

Elena's bat wings burned in the radiation - filled rain. She carried the unconscious Cain and crashed into the subway tunnel. The explosion shockwave from the laboratory behind them toppled the entire street. The barrier set up by the hybrid girl under the black umbrella was tottering. Countless glowing ashes rose from the fire and condensed into a swarm of metal butterflies.

"They're the Holy See's trackers!" Maggie's crow brought anti - radiation medicine. "They'll parasitize living beings—"

Elena's warning was cut off. A metal butterfly landed on the back of her hand, and its scales melted into her Nightborne blood. Cain's mechanical eye suddenly activated on its own and projected a phantom of Lillian.

"My dear daughter, do you like the thorny crown mother gave you?" The phantom tapped Elena's forehead, and a faint crown pattern emerged there. "When the pattern is fully formed, you'll personally offer Cain's heart... to Lucifer."

Howls of wolves came from the depths of the tunnel. The surviving members of the Silver Claw Alliance surrounded them. The leading werewolf elder held up Cain's severed arm, and the tissue at the cut was mechanizing. "You've brought contamination! According to Article 300 of the covenant—"

Suddenly, Maggie crushed her crystal ball. Purple smoke emerged, showing scenes of Cain's childhood: he had been abandoned at the laboratory entrance by the wolf pack, with a bar code brand of the Holy See on his neck.

"Watch this first," the witch sneered. "Then decide who the traitor really is."

In the far - north land thousands of miles away, the phantom of the thorny crown was rising from the ice, resonating with the pattern on Elena's forehead.

Next Chapter:

When the werewolf elder's sharp claws press against Elena's throat, and when Cain's mechanical heart starts reverse - transfusing blood; "The symbiotic anchor protocol has been activated." Lane's voice comes from Cain's chest. "For the next seventy - two hours, every time he breathes, your Nightborne power will decay by 1%."