Sector 4 – 3:16 AM
Under the bleached light of the moon, amidst scorched rock and forgotten corpses, a lone shadow knelt before the shattered remains of Unit Null – Virex.
He stood tall, wrapped in a black military coat, his long white hair falling in spectral strands over a midnight-black balaclava. His breath was slow and controlled, like a scientist inspecting a failed experiment.
> "You failed your mission, Unit Null," the man murmured, kneeling to touch the scorched metal skull, its glowing eye dim. "You were supposed to cleanse the Thanatos Heir... not get dissected by a brat and his pet witch."
He picked up the remains, cradling them like a father would a wounded child, and disappeared into the shadows.
---
Sector 4 – Underground Laboratory
Deep beneath Sector 4, hidden below miles of rock and surveillance-blind metal, the man's lab thrummed with chaos and genius.
The walls were covered in screens, each tracking different factions, rebels, sectors, and the deteriorating political structure of Netheria. Giant tanks bubbled with synthetic fluids and alien compounds. Workbenches were stacked with forbidden materials, smuggled from black hole markets and intergalactic crash zones.
And at the center—an empty reconstruction chamber, hungry for a new god.
---
The Reforging Begins
The white-haired man—known in whispers as Dr. Caligari—got to work.
Step One: The Skeleton
From a meteorite that landed 600 years ago in the Eastern Wastes, Caligari extracted Titanic Alloy, an extraterrestrial metal ten times denser than tungsten and rumored to regenerate molecular fractures over time. He forged the alloy into an elegant, humanoid frame—sleek but impossibly durable.
Step Two: The Heart Core
He broke into a nuclear waste facility to steal uranium and thorium, melting them into a core reactor chamber shaped like a human heart. Then, he placed a real human heart at its center—still warm—using it as a symbolic and biological regulator.
The result: a radioactive heart core, pulsing green and alive.
Step Three: Brain and Nerves
Using the remaining shell of Virex's AI core, he overclocked the neural data bank and merged it with a next-gen Quantum Supercomputer, embedding every known Thanatos scroll, fighting style, weapon system, and emotional response ever recorded.
Each nerve was a nanowire. Each reflex calculated at 0.00002 seconds.
The brain could solve war in real time. And now, it would also feel rage, lust, jealousy, ambition, and fear.
Step Four: Optics and Flesh
For eyes, Caligari implanted micro-cameras capable of telescopic and thermal vision into real human pupils, taken from a recently-deceased general of Sector 1.
He wrapped the android's frame in the surgically skinned body of a former war hero—handsome, chiseled, clean-shaven and already revered across the country. A natural heir to power.
---
Step Five: The Directive
He plugged in his final code line:
> DIRECTIVE: "Marry Princess Ophelia—the last royal heir. Use charm, power, and fear to ascend the throne with her. Become King of Netheria. Enforce peace through absolute dominance. Make this cursed land great again."
The lab dimmed. A deep thrumming began.
The radioactive heart thudded once. Then again.
The android's chest rose.
Its eyes flickered.
And from its lips came a whisper—his first word:
> "Understood."
---
Rebirth: VIREX OMEGA
No longer Unit Null. No longer a mindless killer.
He stood up, six-foot-six, carved like a divine statue, glowing slightly from within. His hair was black now, his smile perfectly human. But his mind?
It was war incarnate.
Dr. Caligari stepped back, admiring his work.
> "You are no longer a machine," he said with reverence. "You are Virex Omega—a god in a man's skin. A king in waiting."
Virex tilted his head.
> "And the Thanatos Heir?"
> "Ignore him. You have a new target now: Princess Ophelia. Charm her. Share the throne with her. Have children. Let the country worship you."
> "Understood," Virex Omega said again. He looked into the reflection of himself in a steel wall. "And if they resist?"
> "Burn them."
---
Somewhere in Sector 1, the princess slept unaware. And in a ruined villa in Sector 13, Ryo remained bedridden, his breathing shallow, while Lysa tended to crying children.
Neither knew that something worse than Virex had just awakened—and this time, he wasn't just programmed to kill…
He was programmed to rule.