The morning sun tore through Berlin’s gray clouds, casting pale beams of light through the grimy windows of an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district of Marzahn. This was one of Erik’s old contingency hideouts, a place untouched by the CIA’s claws for more than a decade.
Inside, the silence was broken only by the rapid tapping of Erik’s fingers against the keyboard of an encrypted laptop.
Arthur leaned against the exposed brick wall, holding a bottle of water. He closed his eyes, still adjusting to the drastic change in his physiology. The jump to Rank A- in Agility and Perception had completely altered the way he experienced reality.
To test his new limits, he tossed the water bottle into the air.
To a normal person, the bottle would fall in a fraction of a second. To Arthur’s enhanced senses, the object seemed to float in slow motion. He could read its exact trajectory, the slight rotation of the plastic, and even the droplets of condensation breaking away from its surface. With a casual movement, his hand whipped through the air, catching the bottle before it had descended two centimeters.
A familiar sound echoed inside his mind.
[Instant Reflex Action Detected.]
[1000x Multiplier Applied!]
[Kinetic Control Proficiency: +1000 EXP. Progressing Toward Advanced Mastery.]
Arthur smirked. The 100x multiplier had already transformed him into a tactical monster in just a few weeks. With the 1000x multiplier, simply breathing in a hostile environment or practicing basic movements would allow him to evolve at a speed that defied divine logic itself.
“You’re different,” Hanna’s voice sounded beside him. She had approached without making the slightest noise, but Arthur already knew she was there.
With the new Wolf Link ability, it was as if an invisible cord connected the two of them. He could sense her state of alertness, the rhythm of her breathing, and even the absence of hostile intent. It was a mutual perception; Hanna also looked at him with fascinated curiosity, sensing that her survival instincts were now perfectly intertwined with his.
“Just adapting,” Arthur replied, offering her the bottle. “I feel like we could fight blindfolded now and still never miss a strike.”
Hanna took the bottle, her fingers brushing against his. An almost imperceptible but genuine smile appeared on her lips.
“I’d like to test that later.”
The bubble of tranquility was shattered by a heavy sigh from Erik. The former agent turned the laptop screen toward them. What appeared on the screen was not the victory report they had expected.
“We destroyed Marissa Wiegler’s operations center, yes,” Erik began, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. “But the data we extracted... it paints a much darker picture. Wiegler wasn’t the architect of Utrax. She was merely the caretaker of something much bigger.”
Arthur stepped closer to the table, his Rank A- eyes scanning and instantly memorizing the encrypted documents on the screen.
“Phase Two...” Arthur murmured, reading the header of a confidential file.
“Exactly,” Erik confirmed, pointing to a world map covered in red dots. “We were Phase One. Hanna was the proof of concept. But while I was running through the forest with her, the program wasn’t shut down like Marissa made me believe. It evolved. The CIA outsourced Utrax to a private military consortium. There are dozens of other girls. Trained not in official bases, but in clandestine, off-the-books facilities.”
Hanna froze, her blue eyes shining with a mixture of shock and cold fury.
“More of me? Imprisoned?”
“Worse than imprisoned, Hanna. Turned into perfect weapons. And according to this, the main facility, known as the Nursery, is located in an isolated valley in the mountains of Romania.”
Arthur crossed his arms, his tactical mind already processing the next move. The hunt wasn’t over; they had merely cut off one of the Hydra’s heads.
“Marissa Wiegler survived the fire in Berlin,” Arthur said, deducing it from the woman’s modus operandi. “She’ll try to clean up the loose ends. She’ll retreat to Romania and activate the Phase Two girls against us.”
Erik nodded, his expression grim.
“If we go there, we won’t be facing mercenaries or men in suits. We’ll be facing an army of Hannas.”
Hanna looked at her hands, then at Arthur. The fear that might once have paralyzed her was gone. The Wolf Link pulsed in resonance with the boy’s unwavering confidence.
“Then we’re going to Romania,” Hanna declared, her voice sharp as steel. “And we’re going to free them. Or burn the Nursery to the ground.”
Arthur placed a hand on Erik’s shoulder, his eyes fixed on the map dotted with red points on the laptop screen.
“Get us forged passports and armored transportation, Erik. The game has changed. We’re no longer prey running through the forest.”
Erik shut the laptop with a sharp snap. The veteran’s face was marked by deep lines of exhaustion, but there was a dangerous spark of determination in his eyes that hadn’t been there for years.
“I have old contacts operating on the black market in Vienna. We can get new identities, heavy weapons, and a ghost route to the Romanian border within forty-eight hours,” he said, stowing the computer in his backpack. “But until we cross the border, we’re the most wanted ghosts in Europe. Wiegler will mobilize everything she has.”
“Let her try,” Hanna muttered, her voice cold and cutting.
Over the next forty-eight hours, the trio plunged into a routine of shadows. They traveled along secondary routes, changing vehicles three times before finally reaching a clandestine warehouse in Vienna, where Erik secured a reinforced transport van and an arsenal that would make a small army blush.
For Arthur, however, that downtime was anything but rest.
The 1000x Multiplier had transformed his existence into a nuclear reactor of learning. He no longer needed constant life-or-death combat to evolve; simply existing and focusing his mind was enough.
In the back of the moving van, as they crossed the frozen plains of Eastern Europe, Arthur spent hours reading stolen CIA tactical manuals and performing high-tension isometric exercises. Every repetition and every mental simulation of an infiltration that he processed was amplified exponentially by the system.
[System Warning]
[Mountainous Terrain Tactical Analysis Complete.]
[1000x Multiplier Applied!]
[Proficiency: Tactical Empathy / Behavioral Reading increased to Rank B-.]
Arthur opened his eyes in the darkness of the vehicle, feeling his muscles grow denser and his mind sharpen like a razor. He looked to the side. Hanna was sitting in the opposite seat, cleaning and calibrating a Glock 19 with mechanical and silent efficiency.
He didn’t need to say a word. Through the Wolf Link ability, Arthur sensed the change in her breathing the moment he awakened from his tactical meditation. She raised her blue eyes, meeting his in the interior rearview mirror.
The connection was almost frightening in its fluidity. If Arthur moved his left hand toward his holster, he instinctively knew Hanna would already be covering his right flank before the thought had even fully formed in his mind. The trauma and murderous programming the CIA had tried to implant in her had been replaced by something far stronger: absolute trust in her partner.
“You’re very quiet,” Arthur remarked, his voice low so as not to wake Erik, who was sleeping in the driver’s seat after Arthur himself had taken over driving duty a few hours earlier. The van was on autopilot while Arthur monitored the road.
Hanna finished assembling the weapon with a satisfying click.
“I’m thinking about the others. The Phase Two girls.”
“Afraid to face them?”
“No,” she answered quickly, shaking her head. “I’m afraid of what I would have done if I hadn’t found my father. And if I hadn’t found you. Wiegler molded them into something... empty. Are we going to have to kill them, Arthur?”
Arthur watched the snowy landscape rushing past the window. Morality in his old world had been gray, but in the world of Utrax, it was a dark abyss.
“We’re going to try to save them, Hanna. We’ll give them the same choice you had,” Arthur said, his tone grave, without making false promises. “But if they try to kill us to protect the people who enslaved them... we won’t hesitate. Do you understand?”
Hanna looked down at the weapon in her hands, its metallic reflection gleaming in her eyes, before slowly nodding.
“Survival first.”
“Always.”
Several hours later, the van began climbing a winding, ice-covered road. The air grew thinner, and the temperature on the dashboard plummeted sharply.
They had crossed the border.
The Carpathians rose around them like sleeping giants of stone and snow. Somewhere in the heart of those isolated mountains, hidden from satellite surveillance and international law, stood the Nursery.
Erik woke in the front seat, stretching before looking through the windshield. The tension immediately returned to his shoulders.
“We’re less than twenty kilometers from the central valley coordinates,” the former agent informed them, checking the encrypted GPS. “From here on, any unauthorized vehicle will be detected by thermal and seismic sensors. We’ll have to continue on foot.”
Arthur switched off the van’s engine and concealed it beneath a dense curtain of pine trees. He put on his winter tactical coat, checked the magazines, and felt the latent power of his Rank A- Attributes humming beneath his skin.
The heart of the Hydra was still beating, but he had the right blade to cut it.
“All right,” Arthur said, his breath forming mist in the freezing air as he opened the van’s rear door. “Let’s hunt.”