The cloning facility's self-destruct alarms wailed like damned souls as Lin Yuan staggered through collapsing corridors. His dragon arm pulsed erratically, obsidian scales retracting and reforming with each corrupted heartbeat. Through the smoke and sparking conduits, he glimpsed fragmented security holograms - endless rows of clone pods containing his own face, each variation more dragonized than the last.
"Move your sentimental ass!" Kael's ghostly phase-blade materialized through a collapsing bulkhead, the Concordance operative's biosuit leaking ethereal fluids. "Reactor breach in ninety seconds!"
Lin's enhanced hearing caught the wet squelch of regenerating tissue behind them. The hybrid dragon prototype's laughter rumbled through crumbling walls, its voice a grotesque blend of mechanical distortion and draconic growl. "We are...inevitable...heir..."
Drakenshard's blade flared weakly in his grip:
"Turn and fight. Let me taste its stolen fire."
Lyra's hologram flickered into existence, her silver hair now streaked with data-static. "Evac shuttle's prepped, but we need the genetic archive key!" Her image gestured toward Lin's scaled arm. "It's in your corruption matrix - buried when you destroyed the core!"
Memory Integration Triggered
The facility's final moments replayed in fractured images:
His dragon claw plunging into Central Core
Golden DNA strands embedding in his scales
The Prime Clone's dying scream becoming his own
System Alert
Genetic Key Detected
Location: Right Carpal Cluster
Extraction Risk: 38% Arm Integrity Loss
Lin didn't hesitate. Drakenshard's edge flashed, carving through corrupted flesh. The glowing genetic key emerged - a crystalline shard humming with stolen dragon essence.
Sacrifice Logged
Dragon Arm Functionality Reduced by 41%
Pain Threshold Exceeded (Mortality Warning)
Kael caught the falling key, his phase-blade arm dissolving into containment gel. "Go! I'll hold that overgrown lizard!" Before Lin could protest, the operative shoved him toward an airlock glowing with Concordance sigils.
The hybrid dragon's shadow engulfed the corridor. Kael turned, smiling grimly as his body began emitting nova-level energy signatures. "Tell the Concordance...my debt's paid."
The explosion shattered reality itself.
Lin awoke strapped to a medical berth aboard the evac shuttle. Lyra's hands moved through holographic diagnostics, her expression grim. "You're 72% dragon now. The corruption's rewriting your DNA." She gestured to a viewing portal where the destroyed facility collapsed into a quantum singularity. "Kael's sacrifice bought us twelve minutes. The Vanguard's already deploying replacement facilities."
Drakenshard lay across Lin's lap, its blade darkened. "You preserved the key," it murmured approvingly. "The bloodlines survive."
Lyra's gaze hardened. "At tremendous cost. We've lost three sectors to clone infiltrators." Her holograms displayed grim reports - Concordance leaders replaced by perfect replicas, entire civilizations unknowingly serving Vanguard puppets.
Lin tried rising, his dragon arm spasming uncontrollably. "We strike back. Expose their lies."
"With what army?" Lyra snapped. "The Nexus is compromised, the Concordance routed. You're becoming exactly what they want - a rage-driven beast they can predict!"
The shuttle shuddered violently. Alarms blared as reality itself tore open, revealing the crimson-sailed Vanguard Dreadnought. Its hull pulsed with captured dragon hearts, each beat syncing with Lin's corruption rhythm.
"Lin Yuan." The comms crackled with a voice that froze his blood - Grand Inquisitor Wu, somehow alive and amplified by dark energy. "You wear my favorite student's face. Come. Let me...improve you."
Drakenshard's roar shook the shuttle:
"Lingering ghost! I'll scatter your atoms!"
Lyra seized navigation controls. "Brace for emergency jump!" Her fingers danced across alien runes as the dreadnought's soul-cannons charged. "We're taking you somewhere even the Vanguard fears."
The last thing Lin saw before quantum engines engaged was the Inquisitor's smile - and the twelve glowing clones standing at attention behind him.