Somewhere across the MIT compound—far from the sterile hum of Rin’s scan chamber—a different kind of chaos unfolded.

  The medbay reeked of scorched stone and antiseptic. Alarms still echoed faintly down the corridor, and two broken gargoyle corpses smoldered on the floor just outside the reinforced gates. Shattered talons, burnt wings, and fragments of corrupted runes littered the hall.

  Inside the medbay, a boy lay writhing on a scorched medical bed, his chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow gasps. His skin was charred at the edges, but radiant gold light pulsed beneath the surface—like a furnace beneath flesh.

  Doctors shouted over each other as techs tried stabilizing him. But the real battle wasn’t physical.

  It was spiritual.

  Inside his soul, something had been awakened.

  A storm of fire. A chariot racing through the stars. A scream torn from ancient legend.

  The roar of a child-god who defied fate itself.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Protocol Activation Detected — Codename: NEZHA.”

  The system AI announced it with a mix of awe and alarm.

  One of the healers stumbled back as flaming rings formed around the boy’s ankles, lifting his body off the table. His limbs spread out, suspended midair, as if pulled by invisible threads. Golden fire etched celestial script into the walls. His hair burned at the tips, rising upward as heat danced around him.

  “He's synchronizing with it mid-trauma?”

  One of the nurses gasped.

  “That’s impossible! He should be dead!”

  But Protocols didn’t always play by the rules. Not when their Hosts were chosen.

  The boy gasped sharply—and everything went still.

  A single blazing eye opened, glowing with radiant red fire. The rings vanished, and he dropped to the bed, panting.

  He was alive.

  Barely.

  But something in him had changed forever.

  ---

  [

  ---

  Dr. Mensah arrived ten minutes later, flanked by a team of elite guards.

  He glanced at the boy, then at the burn marks scorched into the ceiling.

  “We just gained a Nezha. Hah,” he muttered, half-impressed.

  “That’s a rare one. Fire, rebellion, reincarnation. One of the few divine Protocols with self-resurrection woven into its code.”

  Raj stepped in beside him, checking the footage.

  “Gargoyle patrol breached containment. Boy got hit. Heart stopped for eleven seconds.”

  Mensah raised an eyebrow.

  “And then lit up like a sun. Sounds like Nezha to me.”

  ---

  Back in his bed, Jin Xuan opened both eyes now—burning gold and wild red. He blinked slowly, disoriented.

  “…What the hell just happened to me?”

  A faint echo of drums thundered in his head.

  A war chariot riding across the heavens.

  A boy born three times.

  Nezha had chosen.

  ...........

  Name: Jin Xuan

  Age: 17

  Protocol: Nezha (Divinity-Type, A– Rank on activation, unstable)

  Affiliation: Undetermined

  Status: Newly awakened. Potentially unstable. Watchlist candidate.