Veil of Corruption

Malo's vision was a storm of static—colors bleeding into one another, shapes warped like glass under pressure. He felt the world as if underwater, the edges of things smeared, the sounds distant and distorted.

But then—A voice.Sharp. Human. Familiar.

"Malo, Malo, are you there? Answer me, damn it! Kid, don't lose yourself. You can do this. I'm right here with you..."

The words cut through the fog like a flare. Each syllable pulled him back—anchored him. His mind, fractured and howling inside a body no longer his, clawed its way upward.

He blinked.

Once. Twice.

The blur gave way to shadowed walls, low red lighting, the metallic scent of ozone and burning oil. His body ached, but not from pain—from something worse. Something alien, reorganized.

His vision cleared enough to see the silhouette kneeling beside him. A familiar lean figure, breathless but grinning through exhaustion.

Seth.

Malo's jaw barely moved, its structure now stiff with blackened, ridged flesh. His once-human mouth had been replaced with a faint, jagged seam, glowing dull red, like an old scar trying to smile.

"What happened to... name... Miles?"

His voice was a whisper—gravel layered over static, distorted and half-shattered. But it was his.

Seth exhaled. Relief washed over his face like someone who'd been holding his breath for hours.

"Sure, kid. Whatever you want. You nearly gave me a heart attack.""You're something else."

The monstrous form Malo had become twitched beneath him—spines quivering along his back, claws twitching involuntarily. But inside, somewhere beneath the horror, a boy named Malo was still reaching out.

Still human.For now.

Malo no longer looked like a child.

What had once been skin was now replaced by obsidian-black armor, its texture somewhere between scorched bone and insect carapace, glossy in places, cracked and matte in others. It didn't simply cover him—it had grown from within, fused into his frame like a second skeleton sculpted in fury.

His limbs were elongated—unnaturally proportioned, with joints that bent a few degrees too far, just enough to provoke unease. Fingers had become talons, long and serrated, dragging trails on the floor even at rest. Each movement of his hand was accompanied by a whisper of metal against metal—like claws on sheet steel.

A crown of jagged bone protruded from the back of his skull, not decorative but evolved, branching like the ribs of some forgotten deep-sea leviathan. Between the ridges, faint red light pulsed softly, as if his thoughts were flickering beneath the armor.

His face…If it could still be called a face.

There was no mouth, not in the traditional sense. Just a cruel, sealed scar of glowing red, twitching faintly as though it could tear open at any moment. His lower jaw had split subtly, the bones widened, giving his head a stretched, vaguely serpentine shape. His eyes—if they were eyes—were twin, hollow sockets of burning crimson, set deep into the armored skull, like coals left to smolder in ash.

And along his spine, the transformation had crowned itself in full. Ridges like vertebrae carved from obsidian jutted out, layered and mobile, twitching independently like the limbs of an insect sensing the world behind him. In between them, soft vents opened and closed—breathing, perhaps, or leaking pressure from some unnatural system now pulsing within him.

There were no wings, no tail, no cartoonish monstrosity—only the refined horror of a body remade with brutal intention. A weapon sculpted from a once-human soul. Every detail was precise. Elegant, even.

But it was in the stillness where the terror truly bloomed.

"Can you control your body?"

"Yeah, it's a little hard, but it can be done."

Malo moved his hand, and it followed his will. He turned his head slowly to look at Seth.

"Look, I can move my..." Before finishing his sentence, he froze in surprise. Seth was staring up at him, dwarfed by Malo's towering figure. Seth looked tiny, barely reaching up to Malo's knee.

Seth laughed, "Don't mind me, just try to get used to your new body."

Malo gave a slow nod, the movement stiff and alien, the armored plates along his neck clicking faintly as they shifted.

This monstrous body was vast—towering, almost sculptural in its design. Power radiated from within, not just strength, but something far more ancient and viler. His limbs felt indestructible, every movement precise and fluid, like the body remembered its own purpose better than he did.

And yet, beneath that stability, something surged.

It wasn't just power. It was a pulse, deep in the marrow of this new form—a corrupted rhythm that thrummed through his blood, urging him to release, to burn, to rend.

He gave in.

A low hum began to resonate from the jagged crown of bone rising from his back. The protrusions lit up, one by one, glowing a deep crimson, their light growing brighter with each second—then sharper, darker, until it wasn't red anymore, but a void-infused hue that devoured light around it.

Then it fired.

A beam of dark crimson energy tore through the room. It was so dense, so potent, that the surrounding white dimmed—not from shadow, but from something deeper, a momentary absence of color, of light, of truth.

The blast struck the far wall.A crack bloomed instantly.

Seth flinched.

He stared at the damage, breath caught. The white walls of this room—mirror-smooth, reflective, reinforced beyond normal means—were fractured, their polished surfaces now distorted like broken water.

Not scratched.Not scorched.Shattered.

Seth's mind raced.

'Did that beam reverse the reflective property into absorbance?'

It made sense, horrifying sense.

If so, then the beam didn't bounce, it consumed. Every ounce of its energy had been poured into one place. No dispersion. Just... annihilation.

Malo was fading again.

The glow from his jagged crown flickered once… twice… then died out completely. The room fell silent, save for the faint hiss of cooling air. His monstrous form began to unravel—not violently, but like smoke unraveling from a dying flame.

A ghostly black vapor rose from his limbs as the armored mass shrank inward. The claws withdrew. The obsidian plating cracked like old stone and flaked away, disintegrating into dust that vanished before it touched the floor. In seconds, what remained was only a boy—small, pale, fragile.

His hair was still damp with sweat. His chest rose and fell with shallow, ragged breaths.

Then he collapsed.

Seth moved instinctively, catching him just before he hit the ground. Malo's body was light—too light—like the strength had been wrung out of him completely. His eyelids fluttered once, then closed.

Finally… he was asleep.

Seth let out a quiet breath, cradling the boy against his chest.

"Kid… you're really something else."

He glanced at the cracked wall—the sole remnant of what had just unfolded.

In room 8A, behind the monitor, someone typed furiously, their fingers flying across the keyboard at a dizzying pace. Emily was completely absorbed in finishing her report.

The title of the report read, "Crimson Crown."