The walls of Jack's room were too clean.
Too white.
Too quiet.
He sat on the edge of his bed, shirtless, still covered in blood and bruises from the fight. The cracked edge of his mask stared back at him from the corner. It was the only thing in the room more broken than him.
He didn't move.
He listened.
> "You let him walk away."
"He was on the ground."
"Weak. Coward."
"KILL HIM NEXT TIME."
The voices screamed from inside his skull, overlapping and endless, some sharp and loud, others low and venomous. They tore at his thoughts like wolves.
Jack's fists clenched, knuckles white.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to tear the walls apart. He wanted Rael's throat under his boot.
But instead—
He exhaled.
Inhaled.
Counted.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
The voices didn't stop. But they stepped back.
He stood, slowly, walked across the room, and opened the drawer beside his bed.
Ave.
His black box. Still warm from the fight. Silent now, resting.
And next to it—his notebook.
He grabbed them both.
Then, barefoot and quiet, he stepped into the hallway.
2:07 a.m.
Perfect. No one would be in the training room.
---
Sublevel 3 – Training Hall
The door hissed open and closed behind him.
Cold lights flickered overhead. Scorched marks from past trials still painted the walls. Training dummies and metal drone targets lined the far end of the hall. The whole place was his now.
Jack dropped his notebook and Ave onto the bench near the wall. He stretched out one arm. Veins glowed red as three long, flesh-whips tore from his skin with a wet rip.
They hissed and twitched in the air, like eels hungry for blood.
Jack didn't hesitate.
He charged the nearest target.
WHIP—CRACK!
The first clawed strand slashed the dummy in half.
The second one grabbed another and flung it into the ceiling.
The third missed—but came back even harder, like it was angry too.
Jack moved fast. Precision. Anger. Control.
He didn't stop for almost thirty minutes—until his body trembled and blood ran down his fingers.
He leaned over, panting, and grabbed the notebook.
He flipped to a fresh page, his hands smearing the paper red.
At the top, he scrawled a name in thick black ink:
Crasher.
Then, beneath it, he began to draw:
A massive humanoid figure, hunched over from the weight of its head—a giant hammer-shaped skull, wide and flat with thick, jagged bone ridges like armor. Its body was dense, bulky, like a walking bunker. Its arms were long, ending in twisted, spiked limbs, designed to pierce and pulverize. Its legs were thick stumps built for charging forward—not speed, just raw impact.
And at the center of its chest—a hollow core, where Jack imagined a boiling light, pulsing with the fury that made this thing real.
Under the drawing, Jack wrote:
> "Born to break walls.
Born to crush enemies.
Born from failure.
Next time… he dies."
He stared at the drawing for a long time.
The voices didn't mock him now.
They whispered approval.
> "Yes."
"That one will kill him."
"Make more."
Jack didn't smile—but a part of him felt better.
He looked up at the destruction in the room.
Target drones ripped open. Dummies scattered like corpses.
He looked back down at Crasher.
"…let's test you next."