Dark Parasyte

The laboratory pulsed with a low, steady hum. Arcane lamps flickering across steel tables and rune scribed slabs. Crystalline tanks cast warped reflections against basalt walls, filled with dormant shapes submerged in faint blue liquid. The scent of blood, salt, and burning bone ash clung to the air.

Corvin stood over a massive Bearkin body, its dark fur shaved along the shoulders to reveal muscle like carved marble. The creature two and a half meters tall and broad as a siege door lay still under necromantic stasis. It had taken three of his summons to lift the corpse onto the arrayed slab, and five separate runes to stabilize its returning essence.

But this one wasn’t just another test subject.

Corvin had named him Bob.

There was something in the Bearkin’s wide set, almost gentle eyes. Even when dulled by death and return, it was still in it’s gaze. That, sparked a memory from another life. A face that belonged to another war. Another world.

Bob, back then, had been a legend within his SAS unit. He was a titan among men. Tall, wide, and terrifying to look at under full gear, but among the kindest human beings Corvin had ever met. Bob always carried a bag of candy in his vest pocket. Gummy bears, mints, chocolate drops. Anything to offer to the local children in operational zones. Corvin could still remember the grin on Bob’s face as he gave a lemon chew to a nervous boy in a bombed out village outside Al Khazir, Iraq.

He was gentle to the innocent. Always careful not to trample a garden or knock over an old market stall. But to targets, to enemies? Bob was an animal. A force of nature. He tore through fortified rooms like a wrecking ball wrapped in soft laughter.

Corvin couldn’t help but chuckle under his breath as he gazed down at the Bearkin. "You’d look hilarious in tactical gear," he murmured. "HK36 slung across the chest, ... you’d snap the sling in one step."

There was more than memory in his amusement. There was an odd sense of comfort. Bob wasn’t just a specimen. He was a connection to who Corvin had been.

And he was a milestone.

Among the dozens of failed arcane viral trials, this Bearkin was the first genuine success. The infused strain had bonded with his body completely. Raw physical strength had increased more than fivefold, and health regeneration had risen beyond even Corvin’s upper expectations. Wounds that should’ve required sutures and spells vanished in seconds. Bone regrew faster than natural limits. No sign of feedback surge. No organ rupture. No affinity collapse.