Jonah was mentally exhausted from making his fourth Progeny slot, so he rested for two days. He felt… bigger on the inside, like a room in his mind had been expanded, but the process had left him deeply drained. He was finally starting to feel like himself again when Seraph's summons came.

It wasn't a casual request. It was a coded message delivered by a stern-faced senior student. Secure Briefing Room 7. Immediately. Come along with Vanessa.

Jonah felt a cold fear in his stomach. This wasn't about his training. This was something else.

They found Seraph waiting for them in an empty grey room deep in the Academy's military wing. The only furniture was a large, black table and several chairs. The air was cold, and the walls seemed designed to absorb sound.

Seraph looked grim. Her usual sharp teacher look was gone, replaced by a soldier's hard face, as if she faced a fight she hated.

"Sit," she commanded, her voice low. "What's said in this room is classified. Understood?"

Jonah and Vanessa nodded, taking their seats.

Without another word, Seraph tapped the surface of the table. A holographic display shimmered to life, showing a series of reconnaissance photos. The first picture showed a small, remote farm in the northern hills. It was a few simple buildings made of stone and wood, surrounded by windy hills.

"This is the town of Greyfell," Seraph said. "Or it was. Two days ago, it went silent."

She swiped to the next image. It was a ground-level shot of the same town. The buildings were torn apart, but not in the way a normal beast would do it. Parts of the stone walls looked melted, as if splashed with a powerful acid..

"No survivors," Seraph stated, her voice flat. "Livestock are all dead. But it's what they left behind that's the problem."

The next photos were close-ups of the ground. They showed a chaotic mess of tracks in the mud. Jonah leaned in, his eyes narrowing.

"These tracks… they don't make sense," Vanessa murmured. Her smart mind couldn't figure them out. She pointed a shaking finger at the hologram. "This one looks like a wolf. But the one next to it is like a bug, with too many joints. And this one..." Her voice faded as she pointed to a third, three-toed print that looked like a lizard.

They were all from the same creature.

Jonah felt a chill that had nothing to do with the room's temperature. He knew those tracks. He had seen them before, in the sterile corridors of a failed research lab.

"Station Chimera," he said, his voice barely a whisper.

Seraph's eyes met his, her expression grim confirmation. "Exactly."

She tapped the table again, and the photos were replaced by an audio player. "This is the last transmission from the local militia before they were overrun."

She pressed play. The room filled with the crackle of a cheap radio, punctuated by the sounds of panic and screams. Then a terrified voice, young and desperate, cut through the noise.

"They're not real! They move weird and their spit, it melts anything! It melts - AARGH!"

The transmission ended with a tearing sound, followed by a high-pitched shriek that was a horrific mix of an animal's roar and metal scraping stone.

The silence that followed was deafening.

"The evidence is undeniable," Seraph said, her voice cold. "The Chimeric beasts from the government's failed experiment didn't all die in that lab. Some of them got out. They've escaped into the wild, they've survived… and they're possibly breeding."

Vanessa looked horrified. "But that's impossible! They were just failed experiments. They shouldn't be able to reproduce.

"Shouldn't," Seraph repeated, the word hanging heavy in the air. "But they're doing something. This wasn't a random beast attack. This was a coordinated hunt."

As she spoke, a new light appeared at the head of the table. A holographic projector came to life, and the stern face of the Headmaster appeared in the air before them. His presence, even as a projection, filled the room with an immense pressure.

His eyes settled on Jonah.

"Things just got much worse," the headmaster boomed, his voice deep. "This danger is top secret now. If people found out, it would be a disaster. We can't let the nation know that the Elite Bureau started this plague on our own people."

He paused, looking them over. "Our army teams can't fight these changing enemies well. Pure strength won't work against a foe that can shift its very body. We need a unique plan."

His eyes locked onto Jonah again. "Sergeant Seraph, you will form a new unit. A specialist task force. Your main job will be to study, trap, and kill these strange creatures, before they can spread more."

Seraph stood at full attention. "Understood, sir."

"This will not be a standard military unit," the Headmaster continued. "It requires a unique tool for a unique threat." His holographic eyes seemed to pierce right through Jonah. Jonah. Your ability to analyze and understand the essences of your defeated foes makes you the only one who can truly comprehend what these creatures are. You will be this unit's central field agent. Your primary role will be to acquire a clean essence sample, analyze the target's nature, and then deploy your Progeny to exploit any weakness you find."

Jonah's heart hammered against his chest. This was it. The weight of his unique power had just become a formal duty. He wasn't just a student under evaluation anymore

"Yes, Headmaster," Jonah said, his voice coming out stronger than he expected.

The Headmaster gave a single, slow nod. The fate of the northern highlands, and perhaps the entire nation, had just been placed squarely on the shoulders of a boy from the mines.

"Good," the Headmaster said, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Begin assembling your team, Sergeant. You have full authority."

The hologram went out, leaving them again in the cold, deep silence of the room.