Yuri stayed still long after the voices stopped sounding human.
Mud soaked through one sleeve of his coat while cold river water dripped steadily from his fingers. His shoulder throbbed every time he breathed too deeply. Somewhere above the canopy, metal groaned through the sky like distant thunder.
The Damocles.
Even hidden beneath layers of vines and broken towers, he could still feel it moving overhead.
Watching.
Branches shifted nearby.
"…swear it landed around here."
"Then find it before somebody else does."
Yuri slowly lowered himself deeper behind the exposed river roots, trying to ignore the ache spreading through his arm. Wet earth pressed against his chest. Rotting leaves stuck to his gloves.
Footsteps approached carelessly through the undergrowth.
Not cautious.
Confident.
That bothered him more than weapons would have.
Two figures emerged through the hanging vines beside the riverbank.
Young.
About his age.
The first wore dark gray combat fabric reinforced with thin armor plating along the chest and thighs. A narrow visor covered her eyes, glowing faintly blue beneath strands of silver hair tied unevenly behind her head. The second carried a long hooked blade strapped casually across his shoulders while chewing something lazily.
Neither of them looked frightened.
"Fresh blood," the boy muttered, staring at the river. "Told you."
The girl crouched near the water, touching the drifting red streaks with gloved fingers.
"Not enough." She glanced deeper into the trees. "Probably survived."
"Unfortunate."
Yuri frowned slightly.
Unfortunate?
The boy sighed dramatically. "I hate hunting in Greenveil."
So the district had a name.
The girl stood again. "You hate hunting everywhere."
"Not true."
"You complained in Furnace too."
"That place smelled dead."
"It is dead."
"Exactly."
They continued talking while scanning the forest casually, like students discussing weather during a walk home.
Yuri's stomach tightened.
Something about their behavior felt wrong. Not cruel exactly.
Normal.
That was worse.
The boy suddenly stopped moving.
Yuri froze instinctively.
The visor girl tilted her head slightly. "What?"
"…Thought I heard breathing."
Yuri held his breath so hard his ribs hurt.
Silence stretched.
Wind moved softly through the flooded district overhead. Somewhere deeper in the forest, metal creaked beneath shifting vines.
Then the boy shrugged.
"Probably another corpse."
They walked away.
Just like that.
Yuri remained hidden several seconds longer before finally exhaling shakily.
"…What the hell is this place?"
No answer came.
Only the distant hum of the fortress overhead.
Yuri slowly crawled away from the riverbank and forced himself upright against a tree wrapped in thick black vines. Pain shot through his shoulder immediately.
Definitely dislocated.
"Great."
He pressed his forehead briefly against the bark, breathing slowly while trying not to panic.
Think.
The Damocles had teleported them somehow.
Separated them.
Those two clearly knew what was happening.
Which meant:
either this was normal—
—or they were insane.
Neither possibility helped.
Yuri looked upward through the gaps in the canopy.
Above the ruined district, parts of the fortress moved behind drifting clouds. Massive structures rotated slowly overhead while suspended bridges connected sections together like veins inside a giant machine.
Too large.
His brain still struggled to process the scale.
A low automated voice suddenly crackled somewhere nearby.
"…district rotation stable…"
Static interrupted the rest.
Yuri turned toward the sound carefully.
Hidden between layers of vines stood an old transit terminal half-swallowed by roots and moss. Broken glass covered the entrance while faded symbols glowed weakly above rusted doors.
Inside, dim lights still flickered.
The district wasn't abandoned.
Not completely.
Yuri stepped cautiously through the shattered entrance.
Humidity wrapped around him instantly.
The air smelled like wet concrete and plant rot. Thick roots split the flooring apart while hanging moss dripped from the ceiling in long strands. Old benches sat overturned near cracked display screens still flashing distorted symbols.
One monitor flickered repeatedly:
PH--- ---IVE
Then static swallowed the message.
Yuri approached slowly.
A faint metallic click stopped him.
He looked down.
Something black circled his wrist.
Yuri stared.
"…What?"
A narrow metallic band had locked itself around his right arm just beneath the glove line. Smooth black metal. No seams. No visible mechanism.
He yanked at it instinctively.
Nothing.
The surface briefly flickered blue beneath his touch.
"How long was that there…?"
"You seriously didn't notice?"
Yuri spun instantly.
A boy sat slumped against the far wall beneath hanging vines.
Thin.
Dark-skinned.
Maybe sixteen.
Blood soaked the side of his jacket while one pant leg was wrapped tightly with torn cloth already stained deep red. A compact blade rested loosely beside him.
Yuri hadn't even sensed him.
The injured boy watched him with tired eyes.
"Fresh drop," he muttered.
Yuri hesitated. "You're hurt."
"No shit."
The boy coughed hard into his sleeve before continuing.
"You alone?"
Yuri immediately thought of Kain.
"…Yeah."
Not technically true.
But close enough.
The stranger nodded weakly like he expected that answer.
"Happens a lot."
Yuri frowned. "What happens a lot?"
"Getting separated."
The boy gestured weakly toward Yuri's wrist.
"You should cover the bracelet."
Yuri looked down again. "What is this thing?"
The stranger stared at him several seconds.
Then laughed once under his breath.
Not mockingly.
More disbelief.
"You really are fresh."
Yuri's patience thinned immediately. "Can somebody explain what that means?"
The injured boy shifted painfully against the wall.
"The Damocles pulls candidates from the surface every few years. Different settlements. Different regions." He wiped blood from his mouth. "Some volunteer. Some don't."
Yuri felt cold suddenly.
"Candidates for what?"
The boy looked confused by the question itself.
"The evaluation."
"What evaluation?"
Silence.
Then:
"…You actually don't know."
Yuri's chest tightened.
The stranger studied him carefully now, eyes narrowing slightly.
"That's bad."
"What is?"
Before the boy answered, movement echoed faintly outside the terminal.
Footsteps.
Yuri stiffened immediately.
The injured boy's expression changed instantly too.
Fear.
Real fear this time.
"They tracked me."
He tried standing too quickly and nearly collapsed.
Yuri moved instinctively to help him.
"Wait—"
"Don't touch me."
The response came sharp enough to stop him.
The stranger grabbed his blade with shaking fingers.
"You need to leave."
"What's going on?"
The boy stared toward the entrance desperately.
"You don't understand how this works yet."
The footsteps outside grew louder.
Three people maybe.
Laughing.
The injured boy suddenly looked at Yuri's untouched bracelet again.
0000 glowed faintly across its surface.
His eyes hardened instantly.
Something changed.
Yuri noticed it immediately.
"What?"
The boy swallowed once.
Then moved.
Fast.
His blade shot upward toward Yuri's throat with desperate precision.
Yuri barely reacted in time.
Ice burst violently across his forearm instinctively, freezing the weapon mid-strike with a sharp crack. Frost exploded across the blade and the stranger's hand simultaneously.
The injured boy cursed and stumbled backward.
"You idiot!" he shouted. "Do you know what happens if your count stays at zero?!"
Yuri froze.
"…Count?"
The bracelet pulsed faintly again.
0000
Outside the terminal, footsteps stopped.
One of the voices laughed softly.
"Well. That answers that."
The stranger's face drained instantly.
"They found us."
Glass shattered.
A hooked blade slammed through the terminal window beside Yuri's head hard enough to bury itself in concrete.
The silver-haired girl stepped calmly through the broken entrance.
Behind her came two others.
One carried twin pistols.
The other wore a cracked metal mask stained dark around the mouth.
All three looked at Yuri's bracelet first.
Then smiled slightly.
"Fresh drops," the masked one murmured.
The injured boy lunged suddenly with his frozen blade, screaming wordlessly.
He never reached them.
Gunfire cracked once.
Then again.
The stranger collapsed mid-step, body hitting the flooded floor heavily.
Still.
Yuri stared.
The visor girl sighed softly. "That was mine."
"Too slow," said the masked student.
The bracelet on the corpse flickered.
0003
Then disappeared entirely.
Not faded.
Gone.
Like it had never existed.
Yuri stepped backward slowly.
The students looked relaxed.
Bored, almost.
The masked one tilted his head.
"You really don't know the rules, do you?"
Yuri's pulse hammered painfully.
The dead boy's blood spread slowly through shallow water near his boots.
"Stay back," Yuri said quietly.
The students exchanged glances.
Then laughed.
Not loudly.
Just enough.
The visor girl rested one hand against the hooked blade still buried in the wall.
"You're injured," she said calmly. "Your stance is uneven. Your right shoulder's damaged. And your bracelet's untouched."
Her visor glowed faintly.
"You won't survive Greenveil long."
Something about the way she said it bothered Yuri deeply.
Not threatening.
Observational.
Like she was discussing weather again.
The masked student stepped forward.
"So give us the easy points."
Yuri's fear finally sharpened into anger.
Ice spread instantly beneath his boots.
Cold surged violently through the flooded terminal floor.
The students reacted immediately—
too late.
Frozen water erupted upward in jagged spikes across the room, forcing them apart violently as ice consumed the shallow flooding beneath them.
The pistol user cursed and leapt sideways.
Yuri ran.
Not toward the exit.
Upward.
Ice formed beneath his feet in rapid bursts as he launched himself toward the broken upper walkways above the terminal.
Gunfire exploded behind him.
Concrete shattered beside his head.
Yuri vaulted over a collapsed railing while pain screamed through his injured shoulder. Frost spread wildly along the metal structures around him as panic destabilized his control.
The students followed instantly.
Fast.
Far too fast.
These weren't scavengers.
They were experienced.
Yuri crashed through hanging vines into the upper levels of the district while footsteps thundered behind him.
Below the canopy, Greenveil stretched endlessly through fog and ruined towers.
And somewhere above it all—
the Damocles moved silently through the clouds.
—
Kain pressed one hand against his ribs while moving slowly through the industrial district.
Every breath hurt now.
Steam drifted endlessly through the corridors surrounding him, illuminated by rotating red emergency lights overhead. The entire district groaned constantly around him—pipes shuddering, vents hissing, distant machinery pulsing somewhere beneath the walls.
No voices.
No crowds.
Just the fortress breathing around him.
Kain hated it already.
He paused near an intersection of suspended walkways and listened carefully.
Far away—
metal footsteps.
Then screaming.
Brief.
Cut short.
Silence returned immediately afterward.
Kain frowned.
No alarms followed.
Nobody reacted.
The district accepted violence too easily.
His eyes shifted toward movement overhead.
Cameras.
Small rotating lenses mounted along the ceiling tracked him quietly as he moved beneath them.
Watching.
Always watching.
Kain kept walking.
The industrial corridors gradually widened into massive vertical chambers layered with catwalks and moving freight elevators disappearing into darkness above and below.
Some platforms still carried bodies.
Not fresh.
Not old either.
One corpse hung partially over a railing several floors above him, unmoving except for one hand slowly twitching in the steam.
Kain stopped.
Watched.
The body twitched again.
Still alive.
Before he could react, something moved behind it.
Fast.
A figure emerged from the steam and drove a blade directly into the hanging survivor's neck.
The twitching stopped instantly.
The killer looked down.
Straight at Kain.
Young.
Brown coat.
Short dark hair.
One mechanical eye glowing dim orange through the haze.
Neither moved.
Then Kain noticed the bracelet.
0007
The stranger smiled slightly.
"You're new."