EchoWomb

#PostApocalyptic #SciFi #Adventure #HybridWar #Mythic #Biopunk


Before the fall, there was a choice. Before the monsters, there was a man.

In the shadow of Mount Banahaw, deep beneath the soil, Dr. Rhane Wu—last in the bloodline of Dr. Henry Wu—awakens a system that was never meant to be touched.

The Codex Prime was designed to archive life.
Rhane rewires it to replace evolution.

Buried in sealed tanks are hybrids, twisted fusions of predator and anomaly. Among them lies XENOVORAX, still sleeping—still dreaming.

But the jungle remembers.
And so does JIRUUN—a Warden-class entity born not from man, but from something older. Something watching.

As global systems blink out, genetic failsafes rupture, and ARKHIVE prepares for a new host, Rhane records one final Codex entry.

“We tried to resurrect the past. But the future had teeth.”

This is not a tale of redemption.
This is the prelude to extinction.


“The world didn’t end with man. It began after him.”

After Man: Age of Hybrids

Chapter 23: The Beast in the Cliffs

Fog veiled the gorge like draped skin. The wind moaned between the rocks, low and hollow—like breath drawn from a dying god.

Torchlight cracked and flickered as the Nullborn caravan crept along the winding pass—two dozen slaves, heads bowed, wrists bloodied, blindfolded. Hybrid forms, some young, some barely breathing, all bound. Between each pair, a slaver walked, glyph-pikes drawn, helmets sealed.

"Quiet," one barked. "The cliffs remember sound."

The lead slaver, a sub-lieutenant clad in iron-threaded robes and scalded glyph-armor, turned slowly. His Codex-enhanced eye hummed beneath a black visor.

The caravan froze. Even the slaves sensed it—air turning thick. Cold.

"Is it him?" a junior Nullborn whispered.

One of the guards keeled over, throat flayed open from behind. Another followed—spine twisted in silence. The third reached for a flare—

Etuun fell like judgment.

He hit the cliffside in a blur, claws glowing with reverse-pulse glyphs—ink scars turned searing runes. He didn't roar. Didn't speak. Just moved.

The Hollow Kin emerged from the mists—leaner hybrids, scarred and wreathed in roots and bone. They struck from the trees, from under stone, from silence itself.

He ripped the pike from one Nullborn, used it to pin two more against the stone. He tore a glyph-binder in half, then silenced a command drone with a single swing.

The sub-lieutenant did not flinch.

He raised his Codex breaker-staff and fired.

The blast struck Etuun in the ribs. Codex static flared across his chest—shatter pulse. Etuun reeled.

Another hit. Then a glyph-null wave collapsed from the sub-lieutenant's chestplate—anti-resonant. The Hollow Kin screamed as their hybrid channels twisted inward.

"You are a fossil wearing vengeance. Nothing more."

He raised his weapon. Glyphs spun.

Flame thundered through the gorge like a god's heartbeat. Gold-white fire lanced downward—controlled, deadly, and aimed true.

The lieutenant turned—only to be seared from existence mid-turn.

A column of flame swallowed him whole, leaving nothing but silence and a single smoking mark in the earth.

Behind him: VyrmClaw, Whisper-Vow, and Zhaer, all weapons drawn.

He walked toward Etuun, who now stood—shaking, bloodied, but unbroken.

"I didn't come to save you, Etuun. You already did that."

"I came to make sure no one chains you again."

Then Etuun looked past him—to the Hollow Kin, to the freed slaves, to the trembling ones still rising from ash and chain.

"You speak like a Warden who lost his crown."

The Hollow Kin said nothing, watching their leader.

He stepped to the cliff wall and carved a symbol into the stone with one claw.

"Your Bastion still breathes like a Warden. Let it learn to listen. Then I'll return."

"Not to lead you. Just to walk beside you."

Next: Chapter 24 – Sanctuary in Ash and Vine