The ruins of the Academy were still smoldering behind him.
But Asura had no time for ashes.
The System's map pulsed in the corner of his vision, revealing a hidden route —
a blackened staircase sealed beneath layers of old wards.
A place even the teachers had feared.
A place no student was ever meant to see.
[Secret Facility Detected: Sigil Mutation Laboratory.]
[Warning: Unknown Anomalies Active Below.]
Asura smiled coldly.
Unknown?
Good.
Maybe something down there would finally entertain him.
He descended the cracked stairs, shadows coiling tighter around his body with every step.
The deeper he went,
the colder it became.
The walls themselves seemed to weep.
Sigil runes — ancient, unstable — pulsed sickly along the ceiling.
The air smelled of blood, burnt magic, and rot.
At the bottom, a massive vault door stood waiting.
Sealed with a dying barrier.
He pressed one hand to it —
and the corrupted energy in his veins screamed in hunger.
The door dissolved under his touch,
disintegrating into black ash.
Inside…
Madness.
Tubes lined the walls, filled with what used to be people —
their bodies twisted, fused with Sigil fragments that writhed under their pale, torn skin.
Some still moved weakly, twitching inside their glass prisons.
Others had given up long ago.
The horror was suffocating.
The corruption was pure.
And Asura loved it.
This was the truth the Academy had hidden.
The truth the world above still clung to illusions to avoid.
They didn't nurture talent here.
They manufactured monsters.
Just like him.
At the center of the room,
a single containment pod stood —
larger than the rest, its interior shrouded in swirling black mist.
Something inside pounded weakly against the glass.
The System flared warning after warning:
[Mutation Specimen: Type Ω Detected.]
[Warning: Unstable Sigil Fusion.]
[Estimated Threat Level: Unknown.]
The pod cracked.
The thing inside moved.
And then…
it screamed.
A roar of broken magic shattered the glass.
The creature emerged —
a hulking, misshapen being stitched together from countless Sigil powers.
One arm pulsed with molten fire.
The other buzzed with raw electricity.
Its chest bore a shattered regeneration core that pumped black ichor instead of blood.
Its face was human once.
Now… it was a mask of agony.
It attacked the moment it saw Asura.
A blast of corrupted lightning and fire fused together into a twisting spear of destruction.
Asura moved like a ghost.
The spear tore through the floor where he'd stood —
but Asura was already behind it, Blood Tide writhing in his hands.
He struck —
only to recoil as the monster's body absorbed the impact and mutated again, growing thicker plates of armor over the wound.
It could adapt.
Just like him.
The fight was chaos.
Blood.
Shadow.
Fire.
Corrupted sigil flashes painting the broken lab in nightmare colors.
The creature was strong.
Insanely strong.
But it had no mind left.
Only rage.
Only hunger.
Asura had something else.
Purpose.
He let the creature's next attack hit —
absorbing the energy through his Abyssal Bloodline.
Then, in a single breath,
he released it back, amplified a hundredfold by the hunger inside him.
The creature exploded backward, smashing into the far wall.
Before it could recover,
Asura crossed the distance between them.
His hand plunged into the beast's chest —
into the shattered core —
and ripped free a pulsing mass of raw mutated Sigil energy.
The monster convulsed violently —
then fell still.
The System glitched violently —
then stabilized:
[Core Extraction Complete.]
[Abyss Evolution Path Expanded.]
[New Ability Unlocked: Chimera Fusion (Dormant).]
Chimera Fusion.
The ability to merge and evolve Sigils…
creating entirely new powers.
No longer just copying.
No longer just stealing.
Now…
he could CREATE.
Asura rose slowly, black mist rising from his shoulders.
The lab lay silent around him.
The dead experiments watched from their shattered pods with empty, grateful eyes.
He did not pity them.
They were proof of the world's hypocrisy.
Proof that monsters like him were never the mistake.
They were the future.
Above him, the System whispered:
[New Title Unlocked: The Abyss Architect.]
Asura smiled.
The world had spent years trying to control Sigil power.
He would master it.
And he would burn their future with their own mistakes.
The darkness whispered his name again.
And this time,
the whole world would listen.