Mutation

Following Draco's triumph in the Ahmar Cage, Draco fell into unconsciousness.

This couldn't be helped, for his body had taken severe damage during his fight.

Draco had his left eye completely destroyed, his foot incapacitated, and his shoulder pierced through with a harpoon.

To top it off, the harpoon was at least a standard-grade artifact capable of imbuing poison into a target.

This meant that Draco was injected with a dose of poison meant for killing powered beasts!

Draco was now in some unknown room within the endless walls of the Ḥāmin Tower.

He was inside of a pristine white room, and was laying on a hard, metallic hospital bed.

As Draco's body went into a state of recovery, it struggled to fight off the poison.

However, while this was ongoing something inexplicable was happening within him.

Before Draco had succumbed to unconsciousness he had ripped open the throat of his opponent. If Draco had let go after biting this would not have been a problem, except that he didn't!

This resulted in vast quantities of blood erupting from the man's throat, straight down into Draco's.

The other man was a powered individual, and his body coursed with the blood of progenitors.

As a Ḥāmin, the man was subject to a number of pro-serum injections since birth. As such his blood was a highly volatile and flammable substance.

This is to say that if one were to put a flame against the man's blood, it would catch fire!

Draco's blood in comparison was much more tame and pure, having only received a single pro-serum injection.

However, this did not stop a hole from burning into Draco's throat as the man's blood ran through it.

When the blood hit Draco's stomach it combined with his stomach acids, causing it to start violently boiling.

As Draco was unconscious, his stomach attempted to absorb the volatile compounds within the man's blood.

This continued for long hours, all the while the poison in his shoulder continued to spread to the rest of his body.

After a while the poison had spread to his right chest area, giving his entire body's right side a sickening purple appearance.

Draco's body sweated furiously and shuddered with convulsions as it fought off the poison.

Fortunately, after another few hours, something within Draco's body changed!

His stomach had finally settled, and all of the compounds within it were somehow absorbed.

These various compounds were rich in the energy that fueled progenitors.

It was a wonder that Draco's body could handle even the small amount contained within the mouthful he had swallowed.

Once his body completed this absorption, it started to go through a cumulative change.

Draco cells did not simply take in the energy contained within these compounds, but were instead mutated by them.

The mutation caused Draco's cells to swell up with energy, evolving them into something entirely different!

The mitochondria within his cells evolved completely, becoming some unknown contraption that could fuel them a hundred times better!

These newly super-charged cells worked overtime as they began to rapidly reproduce within Draco's body.

The new cells multiplied at such a rapid rate that Draco's old cells couldn't keep up.

All of Draco's old cells were slowly absorbed and devoured by the new ones, or pushed out of his body through his pores. This is a process that would have been excruciating if Draco were conscious!

Once these cells had replicated to a sufficient degree, and occupied most of Dracos body, they began their work.

Draco's newly mutated white blood cells went into action, targeting the poison attacking his cardiovascular system.

These new cells made short work of the poison, and Draco's evolved red blood cells arrived in short order to replace the old ones damaged by the poison.

As all of this was happening disgusting black and brown substances were being excreted from Draco's pores.

These substances were mixtures of Draco's old cells and poison that sizzled when it made contact with the air.

Miraculously, this horrifying process was soon done.

The bubbling chemicals eventually hardened around Draco's skin and coated it in a layer of filth.

Watching this process, a perturbed man wrinkled his nose in disgust.

If anyone who knew this man were to see him, they would recognize him as the 'Mr. Williams' that frequently gambled on the Ahmar Cage.

Mr. Williams watched Draco's recovery with surprise.

After all, Draco had absorbed the blood of a powered individual directly through his mouth!

In the powered community this was tantamount to suicide, and Mr. Williams was initially positive that his new prized horse was doomed to suffer an excruciating death.

However, these recent developments brought a smile to his lips.

'#227's constitution is simply astounding.' he thought to himself, making up his mind.

He then activated a console built into the room's wall, creating a projection screen in front of him.

The screen seemed to contain an assorted list of items, and Mr. Williams shook his head as he scrolled through the options.

"No.. no, maybe, no, no." he mumbled, before suddenly stopping on a certain item.

"Hmm. This one should do." he said, stopping on an item named, 'TITANIUM INDUSTRIES PROELIUM OCULUS MK. IV'.

After selecting the item, the projection screen disappeared back into the wall.

A few seconds later a hole in the room's ceiling opened up, and a disturbing contraption floated down from within it.

Horrifyingly, this contraption seemed to be a floating skull with long, spindly arms!

The contraption's numerous arms were all made of metal and misshapen. Attached to the end of these arms were various medical devices and sharp blades.

It seemed to be propelled by anti-grav thrusters lodged within the skull, and it floated ominously above Draco's face.

"𝘐𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘤𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘳𝘦." the skull said in a robotic voice from a built-in speaker.

After saying this, the contraption's saw blades kicked into action.

With a noise reminiscent of an angle grinder, the blades cut into Draco's face.

The sounds of flesh being sliced open and bones being crushed reverberated throughout the room.

Satisfied, Mr. Williams took his leave, letting the room's door close behind him.

***

While Draco went through a disturbing surgery inside the Ḥāmin Tower, important events were unfolding within the rest of the royal palace.

Within the walls of another of the palace's towers sat a single white-robed Ḥāmin.

This Ḥāmin was sitting in front of a large console, and several screens displayed long lists of information that his trained eyes went over.

Behind this Ḥāmin stood another white-robed figure.

Interestingly, this figure had a red and white checkered cloth atop his head, marking them as a prince of the Khalid Dynasty.

The prince smiled to himself, 'Father sent second brother away aboard the Qaleat Eayima, this means he is alone up there with third sister.' he thought to himself.

Indeed, this was the very same sixth prince that was spying on Amira inside the Gravis Chamber!

The sixth prince's goal was simple. He was to intercept the fifth prince's message, and depending on what it said he would either delete it or change it.

This was all so that the second prince could have free reign to enact his plan aboard the Qaleat Eayima.

'Second brother thinks I am a fool, but meanwhile I continue to do the lion's share of the work.' the sixth prince thought to himself with annoyance.

However, his train of thought was interrupted by a sudden flash of light on one of the Ḥāmin's screens.

A long string of encrypted text appeared on this monitor, and the Ḥāmin seated at the console began to decrypt it.

After a short while the text could be read, and it was evidently a message.

The message was from Muhammed, the fifth prince of the Khalid Dynasty.

The sixth prince smiled sinisterly when he saw the contents of the message, "Muhammed, it's time you were taken out of the equation." he mumbled to himself.

The prince then walked up behind the seated Ḥāmin and swiftly grabbed his neck and snapped it.

The Ḥāmin slumped against the chair, and the prince proceeded to push it out of the way.

The sixth prince promptly typed something into the console, erasing the message completely from the Dynasty's systems.

Looking at the body next to him, the prince shook his head, "I certainly can't leave this here." he said.

Flicking his wrist, a bright golden light could be seen coming from a bracelet that the prince wore.

This golden light spread from the bracelet and covered the body of the Ḥāmin. Once it covered the dead man's entire figure, the light began to dim.

Surprisingly, once the light dispersed, the body was gone!

Nodding his head in satisfaction, the sixth prince turned to leave.

"Time to go." he said, a wicked smile showing on his lips.