Chapter 6: The Thirteenth Host

The cryogenic pod hissed as its ancient mechanisms groaned to life, releasing plumes of icy mist that curled against the cold, metallic floor. Frost cracked along the reinforced glass, the temperature differential creating tiny fractures that spread outward like spiderwebs. The entire chamber seemed to hold its breath.

L-13 did not.

She staggered back, a violent pulse hammering through her chest, her instincts screaming wrong. Every nerve in her body recoiled from the thing emerging from the cryopod, but she couldn't tear her eyes away.

Then, she opened her eyes.

It was like staring into a mirror warped by time, a reflection fractured at its edges, distorted yet unmistakable.

The face was her own—down to the last delicate curve of her jaw, the same high cheekbones, the same shape of her lips, as if some unseen sculptor had chiseled her likeness into flesh and bone. But it was wrong.

L-0 was not human.

A thin layer of frost still clung to her skin, glistening in the dim light, cracking in fine, web-like fractures as the warmth of the room began to thaw her body. The eerie stillness of cryostasis had not yet faded; there was something uncanny in the way her chest barely rose, as if she were considering whether to take that first breath. And beneath that frozen exterior, something stirred.

Her veins pulsed—not with blood, but with something darker, something that moved like ink beneath glass, shifting and coiling as though alive. The black tendrils snaked through the translucent skin of her wrists and throat, pulsating in unnatural rhythm. A slow, deliberate awakening.

The wolf king stepped forward, his broad frame taut with instinctive tension. His claws flexed at his sides, not in open aggression, but in preparation—for what, even he was unsure. His golden eyes were sharp, calculating, his breath controlled, but there was a flicker of something else beneath the surface.

Recognition.

Not of her, but of the thing inside the pod.

The three-clawed insignia on the control panel pulsed faintly, responding to some unseen command, its ancient circuitry humming to life. A deep mechanical hiss echoed through the chamber as the pod's final sequence disengaged, expelling freezing vapor into the air in dense, curling tendrils.

The locks released with a final, decisive click.

The restraints that had bound L-0—thick, reinforced bands designed to withstand the force of a berserk predator—snapped apart like brittle ice.

Then, she moved.

It was not the slow, dazed motion of someone roused from centuries of sleep. There was no confusion, no hesitation.

It was instantaneous.

One moment, she was seated within the frozen tomb of her containment unit. The next, she was standing, her bare feet pressing into the icy metal floor without a sound.

The shift was too fluid, too precise, as if she had simply stepped into existence rather than risen at all. Her head tilted slightly, her expression unreadable. Her pupils expanded, scanning, adjusting—not to the light, not to her surroundings, but to something far less tangible. This timeline. This body.

Then, the first convulsion struck.

Her back arched, her spine cracking audibly as if her very bones were rejecting the form they had been assigned. Her hands clenched into fists at her sides, and then her veins ignited, turning black, branching out beneath her skin in jagged, fractal lines.

Her mouth parted, but no sound came—only a sharp, breathless exhale, as if something inside her had just been ripped open.

The containment monitors surrounding the chamber screamed their warnings, their red lights flashing in rhythmic urgency, but the system's alarms were already too late.

The thing inside her had awakened.

L-0 arched backward, spine cracking audibly, a violent seizure overtaking her. Her veins blackened in jagged, unnatural patterns, pulsing like a dying star collapsing inward before detonating outward in a supernova of uncontrolled mutation. Her fingers twitched, nails lengthening into something closer to claws, her pupils dilating until only the faintest rings of white remained.

The containment monitors screamed in warning.

L-13 gasped as a shockwave of pain lanced through her own chest—not hers, but shared.

A pulse of heat flared under her skin, alien yet familiar, like an echo she couldn't understand. Then the world fractured around her.

It wasn't the facility anymore.

It was somewhere else.

A sacrificial altar.

The air was thick with smoke and jasmine. The scent should have been pleasant, but it was wrong—too strong, too unnatural. It clung to everything, the genetic marker of the royal bloodline. And in the center of the altar, she saw her.

Lena.

She was bound in chains of light, her delicate frame trembling as the elders circled her, their cloaks heavy with symbols etched in dried blood. The wolf king was there too—younger, wilder, his right eye already ruined from battle.

He was screaming. Struggling against restraints that shattered under his rage.

But he wasn't fast enough.

The high priest raised a blade.

And plunged it into her chest.

L-13 felt it—the sharp, blinding snap of the blade sinking through flesh, the sudden rush of warmth as blood spilled over pale skin, mixing with the scent of jasmine. The wolf king's roar tore through the void, shaking the altar, the three-clawed sigil burning against the temple walls.

The connection snapped, and L-13 slammed back into her body with the force of a dying star collapsing inward.

She stumbled, gasping, the ghost of that blade's pain still lingering in her ribs.

L-0 had stopped convulsing.

She was smiling.

Then she moved.

Faster than thought, her fingers lashed outward, claws shredding through the last remnants of her restraints. The pod's shattered remains skidded across the floor as the laboratory shuddered.

Then, the system spoke.

"OMNILITH PROTOCOL ENGAGED. COMMENCING TOTAL PURGE."

The lights flickered as the walls themselves came alive with deadly geometric patterns. Blades of pure energy ignited along Fibonacci spirals, the mathematical execution sequence designed to eliminate every anomaly within the facility.

L-0's head tilted, analyzing the attack patterns with inhuman precision.

Then she lunged.

Her mutated form twisted midair, dodging the first burst of energy as the plasma grid activated. L-13 barely had time to react before the wolf king grabbed her, his grip ironclad as he spun them away from the next pulse.

Then fire bloomed inside her.

Her veins burned, the fire spreading like molten metal coursing through her bloodstream, every nerve igniting in agonizing heat. It wasn't just pain—it was consumption, the virus searing through her cells, devouring her from the inside out.

She let out a strangled gasp, her breath hitching as her knees buckled beneath her, the strength draining from her limbs like sand slipping through fingers. Her vision blurred, the world tilting as dark spots crept in at the edges, expanding with each erratic pulse of her heart. A cold sweat broke across her skin, but it did nothing to cool the fire raging inside her. Her body was losing the fight—fast.

The wolf king didn't hesitate.

His arms locked around her, a predatory motion—not gentle, not careful, but absolute. His breath was hot against her skin for only a fraction of a second before—

His fangs sank into her neck.

There was no warning. No hesitation. No choice.

The sharp, brutal pierce of his canines tore through flesh, sending a shockwave through her body. A violent surge of pain ripped through her, but beneath it came something else—cold, sharp and unnatural. The antibody flooded into her veins, spreading like ice chasing fire, colliding in a war of extremes.

It surged into her bloodstream, moving like liquid ice, a violent counterforce to the virus's molten burn. Fire and frost collided, spreading through her in a war of opposites, her own body the battlefield.

The system fired again.

A blinding pillar of energy surged downward, raw power crackling as it ripped through the air, distorting the space around it. The very air trembled, bending under the sheer force of annihilation.

The wolf king turned, and something ancient stirred within him.

It was not instinct. It was not rage.

It was legacy—a force woven into the marrow of his bloodline, slumbering for generations, waiting for the moment it would be called upon again.

The energy blast descended upon them, white-hot plasma roaring toward flesh and bone, designed to erase every anomaly within the facility.

But he didn't flinch.

His scarred eye flashed—a sliver of molten gold burning beneath the ruin of old wounds. The pain of the past had never fully left him. Now, it would be weaponized.

Along his spine, a sigil ignited, lines of searing red light unfurling like a forgotten scripture written into his very being. The room darkened, shadows bending toward him as if drawn by the awakening of something older than the purge system itself.

Then, he moved.

With a snarl that shook the walls, the wolf king ripped through the descending plasma field, his claws carving into pure energy as if it were nothing more than mist. The force of his strike shattered the geometry of the execution grid, disrupting its flawless Fibonacci collapse, rendering its perfect sequence imperfect, unpredictable.

The system hesitated.

It was a machine—a god of logic, of precision. And yet, in the face of something unquantifiable, it stuttered, unable to process the sheer impossibility of a force outside its calculations.

But L-0 was still moving.

She did not flinch, did not hesitate. Her body folded, twisted, her joints bending in ways that should have been impossible, her limbs adjusting mid-air as she slipped through each failed strike like liquid shadow.

Then, she did something unexpected.

She reached out.

Her fingertips brushed the mainframe, a barely-there contact—but it was enough.

The facility groaned.

A deep, grinding shudder rippled through the walls, as if the structure itself had drawn breath for the first time in centuries.

The monitors flickered. One by one, their dormant screens snapped to life, flooding the chamber with a sickly blue glow. Lines of corrupted code raced across their surfaces, rewritten in real-time, responding to an override command that had never been spoken.

Then, the lights changed.

Thousands of stasis pods illuminated the darkness.

Row upon row of L-series clones.

Their breath frosted the glass, their bodies suspended in the cold embrace of artificial slumber, identical faces locked in timeless stillness.

L-13's pulse staggered, her breath shallow as the sheer scale of it finally registered. This wasn't an experiment.

This was manufacturing.

The emergency logs overrode the system. The facility itself had spoken.

A single entry blinked on the central screen, stark against the pulsing red of the security breach warnings.

"L-0 DESIGNATED AS 13TH HOST. GENETIC MATCH WITH CURRENT ALPHA: ██%."

Then—

The final image.

A recorded feed, captured from the depths of the facility.

A prison.

And inside—

Not dozens.

Not hundreds.

Thousands.

Thousands of L-series clones, locked away, waiting. Waiting for what?

The wolf king's grip on L-13 tightened, his claws pressing into her flesh as his breath came ragged and low.

Something far worse than the virus had just been unleashed.

The monitor flickered:

MATCHING RATE WITH CURRENT ALPHA - ██%.