Crowned in Ash

To celebrate every new collection this book receives , I've decided to release two extra chapters the next day 🥳🥳🥳🥳 

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The terminal flickered to life with a shuddering hum, like a ghost taking breath for the first time in centuries.

The display was warped and half-fused to the surrounding stone, its edges cracked by time or heat. But the core still functioned. Barely.

GENUS CORE NODE 3.7 – ACTIVEStatus: Partial Data Integrity (22%)Uplink Access: SeveredPower Source: External (Auxiliary Coil)

Ka'lenna stood behind me, arms crossed, her eyes flicking between the screen and my hands. Her expression hadn't changed, but her stance had shifted—less guarded now. More curious. Or maybe suspicious in a different way.

I plugged in my cracked HUD visor through a spare interface cable I'd stripped from the salvage pile. My helmet might be gone, but the data uplink still worked. Barely.

"Let's see what you're hiding," I muttered, fingers flying across the ancient keys.

The screen shifted, lines of corrupted data crawling across the display like worms. I bypassed the broken security protocol and forced a reconstruction of the last stored logs.

Most were garbage.

But one file blinked at me, stubbornly intact.

PROJECT BABEL: Personnel Logs | Genetic Catalog | Terraform Calibration Report

I froze.

"Babel?"

Ka'lenna tilted her head. "You recognize this name."

"Yeah," I breathed. "Not a name. A warning."

Project BABEL was an experimental initiative launched before Earth's first expansion wave. Terraforming remote systems through biologically enhanced colonist-strains—soldiers, settlers, survivalists.

They weren't just planting crops and building domes.

They were seeding human DNA across alien biospheres.

Altering evolution.

Tuning ecosystems to favor enhanced human physiology.

Weapons and wombs, all at once.

The report showed that this planet—designated CALYX-9—was one of the first sites. But something had gone wrong. The calibration process failed. The survivors went dark.

And the genetic markers they used?

They were still active.

That meant the natives weren't alien at all.

They were descendants.

The Trial of Ash wasn't myth. It was a survival filter. A way to activate latent genetic markers—to find those still compatible with Babel's old imprint.

And the ash-mark?

It wasn't spiritual.

It was a resonance burn.

Something in my blood triggered it when I passed through the fire path. The planet recognized me. Not just as human—but as one of theirs.

Ka'lenna broke the silence.

"You are reading ghosts."

"They're not ghosts," I said. "They're architects. And we're living in the ruins of their ambition."

She didn't answer immediately.

Then: "What does that make us?"

I looked at her.

"Survivors."

The ground trembled.

Just slightly. A ripple in the moss-covered floor.

Ka'lenna's head snapped toward the trees.

"Did you feel—"

The vibration came again. Stronger. This time, accompanied by a low, guttural sound—something between a roar and a grinding exhale.

"Move," she said instantly, grabbing her spear from where it leaned against a nearby stone.

"What is it?"

"Bone-stalker."

"That sounds bad."

"It is."

We barely made it ten meters before the thing hit.

It exploded from the treeline like a nightmare made flesh—twelve feet tall, armored in calcified bone, spines along its back like a living fortress. Its eyes burned gold. Its breath was mist and blood.

The ground shook with its weight.

Ka'lenna didn't hesitate.

She darted forward with terrifying precision, jabbing her spear into the creature's flank and rolling aside before its claws could crush her. The spear didn't pierce deeply—but it left a line of glowing blue sap.

Blood. Or something like it.

I ducked behind a half-buried engine core as the beast roared.

Ka'lenna shouted at me.

"Move, Tarek! You can't fight it like prey!"

I looked around. The salvage yard. Power cells. Coils. Metal.

Tools.

Not weapons.

Unless—

I sprinted toward a collapsed drone chassis, yanking free its broken emitter coil and emergency overcharge node. Sparks flew as I jury-rigged a short circuit.

Ka'lenna shouted again. She was pinned now, dodging swipes, trying to draw the creature toward the ridge where its bulk would be harder to maneuver.

I jammed the coil into a fractured fuel cell, reversed the polarity, and hurled the entire thing toward the beast's open maw.

It hit.

With a bang.

A pulse of blue-white light exploded outward, and the beast shrieked, stumbling sideways as the static overcharge fried its senses.

Ka'lenna didn't miss her opening.

She vaulted up its back, jammed her spear into the base of its skull, and twisted.

The beast collapsed like a crumbling tower.

Silence.

Smoke rose from the corpse.

Ka'lenna landed beside me, breathing hard.

"You fight with fire and tricks."

I coughed. "I fight to stay alive."

She looked at me—really looked—and then gave a sharp nod.

"You'll need to. That was a young one."

My blood chilled. "That was young?"

She didn't smile.

"The old ones sleep beneath the stone. We do not wake them."

I looked down at the creature's corpse.

Its bones were glowing.

Not from decay.

From resonance.

Just like my mark.

Ka'lenna noticed it too.

She whispered, almost to herself:

"Firstborn."