The auction house's VIP room was a broken temple of luxury, its walls stained with blood and its marble floors slick with the remnants of life. The bodies of those who had defied Savan lay sprawled in grotesque positions, their ears punctured, their eyes wide in their final moments of agony. The silence was a heavy one, broken only by the occasional drip of blood from shattered ceilings and the creaking of the crumbling structure.
Amidst the wreckage, Savan sat in perfect stillness. His thin, gaunt figure was bathed in the fractured light from chandeliers that barely clung to their mounts. His clothes were pristine—unmarked by the carnage surrounding him—and his grey hair shimmered with a strange, unnatural glow. He raised his long fingers delicately around a glass of Fraigan wine, its deep crimson liquid swilling as he took a long, deliberate sip.
He was unbothered. Unhurried.
His eyes glinted coldly as they scanned the wreckage, appreciating the quiet aftermath of his wrath. The bodies were nothing more than discarded tools now.
The door creaked open.
A figure, clad in mechanical plating and hunched with fear, entered the room. It was one of Savan's assistants—an alien with a robotic body. The assistant's movements were stiff, almost jerky, its metal joints creaking with every step. One of its eyes was a polished, cold lens, while the other flickered with a sickly, yellow hue, a mechanical aberration.
"My Lord…" The assistant's voice trembled as it approached, its words faltering under Savan's intense gaze. "I-I bring news."
Savan did not look at it immediately. Instead, his eyes stayed fixed on the glass in his hand, the thin, pale fingers lightly swirling the wine. He took another sip, letting the bitterness linger before he spoke, his voice cold as ice.
"Well?"
The assistant hesitated, its voice trembling. "D-D-David… the experiment… He's d-dead, my Lord."
For a moment, Savan was silent. The world seemed to hold its breath as his eyes, dark and unblinking, met the assistant's mechanical one. His expression remained stoic, emotionless. He brought the glass to his lips once more, and with a soft, almost imperceptible hum, he shattered it.
"SHATTER"
A single echoing and twisted word, pure and piercing. A force so refined, so sharp, it shattered the glass into a thousand jagged shards that shot through the air. Some of the fragments found their mark in the assistant's ruined eye. The assistant's scream was cut off in an instant, replaced by the sound of electricity crackling as its mechanical body fell apart.
Savan looked at the ruined body, his gaze never wavering.
"You are telling me…" He began, his voice as low as a growl, "…that I have failed?"
The assistant's remaining eye flickered desperately, trying to comprehend its own dying state. "Y-yes, my Lord."
Without another word, Savan drew his gun. The sharp report of the shot echoed through the room, and the assistant's head vanished in an instant, reduced to a cloud of mist and metal.
Savan stood slowly, his long, slender frame unfolding like a predator preparing for the hunt. His blue skin shimmered in the dim light, glowing faintly with unnatural energy. His eyes locked onto the two towering figures that now approached from the shadows—Shaltrin and Altrin.
Shaltrin, the larger of the two, stood like a hulking shadow. His insectoid body gleamed, chitinous armor clicking as he moved, his muscles rippling beneath the surface. Altrin, though slightly smaller, was no less formidable, his body a perfect blend of power and agility. Both were draped in a harsh, gleaming blue that reflected the dim light, their presence enough to make the very air vibrate with tension.
"Shaltrin. Altrin." Savan's voice cut through the air like a blade. "Go to the site where David and the intruder fought. Retrieve their bodies. Inform the auctioneer that by day's end, there will be a bio-human on the product list."
"Understood, Master," they responded in unison, their voices low and guttural, a perfect harmony of obedience.
They turned without a second glance and began to leave, their footsteps thudding in the silence, as if the ground itself trembled in their wake.
Savan remained standing in the wreckage, his fingers tracing the faint outline of the shattered glass on the floor. His thoughts were a quiet murmur, his gaze distant as his mind wandered to the wounded man, Adam, and the curious, once-living experiment that had died on his watch.
"All this… over a damn hoverbike?" he murmured, a chuckle escaping his lips, dry and humorless. "This one interests me. I'll make him mine. But first, we'll need a new toy…"
With that, he turned and left the room, his footsteps eerily calm amidst the chaos.
The site of the battle was silent now, the echoes of violence long gone. Shaltrin and Altrin arrived to find the aftermath—Adam, alive but wounded beyond measure, his body still healing slowly, and David, lifeless and scarred beyond recognition. The bodies lay side by side, as though the world had momentarily paused around them.
Altrin's eyes, cold and calculating, scanned the scene. His sharp mandibles clicked together in observation
"So that bastard really is dead,huh?" Altrin couldn't believe it.
They were strong but David was stronger than them individually. Much stronger and he didn't even have any special training.
"It doesn't matter," Shaltrin replied, his voice deep and resonant. "We obey. We do not question.We can rebuild him again anyway."
With care, Shaltrin lifted David's broken body, his arms like steel bands around the fragile form. The body felt cold and empty, like a shell that had been hollowed out long ago.
Altrin gently scooped Adam up, his muscles rippling beneath his armor as he moved with the practiced ease of a predator. Adam's chest rose and fell, his body already beginning to heal itself, the wounds knitting closed, though slowly.
They took the bodies back to the auction house, their movements as fluid as the shadows they cast.
_______________________
The lab was cold, clinical. The sharp scent of chemicals and sterilized metal hung in the air.
David's body was laid out on a cold, steel slab. His chest was empty, his skin torn open by the precision of cruel hands. The room hummed with the sound of machines—drones with sharpened instruments hovered over him, cutting, analyzing, and extracting. The doctors—creatures of twisted form, their eyes filled with greed—watched in satisfaction as their tools dug deeper into David's flesh, seeking to extract whatever could be harvested. His body was not truly dead, not yet.
Altrin and Shaltrin, their figures looming, placed Adam into a separate chamber, a clear pod filled with a viscous green liquid. The pod closed with a soft hiss, sealing him in as his wounds continued to heal. Wires and needles connected his body to various machines, pumping fluids, monitoring his vitals.
As the procedure on David continued, his skin was sliced open, the organs removed with clinical precision, and then replaced with synthetic replacements, stronger, faster, more resilient. His body was a perfect specimen for reconstruction.
Savan entered the lab, his eyes glimmering with fascination as he surveyed the scene. His presence filled the room like a heavy fog, a sense of inevitability hanging in the air.
His fingers brushed lightly against the glass of Adam's pod.
"All this… over a damn hoverbike?" He chuckled again, the sound low and dangerous. His fingers traced the outline of the pod. "Interesting… yes, you will serve me soon enough."
He turned to the doctors and scientists.
"What about that Energy Saber." he asked to the scientist,a bug like alien with a stupidly massive head.
"It's....fascinating to say the least,the Renon Energy in this is very strong and not a steady,calculated flow like normal energy weapons like these,but it isn't sloppy either..."
The scientist said his eyes glowing with greed and potential for new research material
"Good,add that to the list too,and about the tatoo on his back,you think it's related to the sunkit squad?"Savan asked Shaltrin and Altrin. The statement of adding the Energy Saber to the product list made the scientist sulk.
"Most likely,but I didn't hear Maria The Crimson's adopted son being a bio-human though...." Shaltrin said.
"That must be why he could kill David!" Altrin added.
"Heh,this means we have The Grand Prince of The Dune here,make sure to treat him..kindly and send a message to Maria that unless she listens to all my wishes...her son dies,haha!" Savan laughed. A deep,chilling laughter that echoes through the lab.
...
Back at The Sunlit Squads base-
Maria is sipping a coffee like beverage when suddenly she sneezes. A strange reaction since she hasn't gotten sick since the day she was born.
Her race was a war mongering race after all.
"Everything okay,Mistress?" one of her subordinates ask.
This was a weird sight. All of The Sunlit Squads top tier members were among the strongest outlaws around so seeing their leader even sneezing was a wild sight.
"No,no,it's just..I feel like Adam is going to cause a lot of trouble...."
End of Chapter