The blood wouldn't wash off.
Blaine knelt by a shallow runoff channel in the stone floor, cupping dark water in his palm. Not clean. But enough. He scrubbed the creature's blood from his forearm and watched the wound beneath. Shallow. Already clotting. The warmth in his chest had receded but not vanished.
Still there. Watching. Waiting.
He flexed his hand. Steady. No tremors. No loss of control. The bloodline had answered when he needed it, and the system had recorded the response. Dormant. Fragile. A weapon still learning its shape.
Something that old doesn't wake gently. It tests.
He stood. Five hours since the elite kill. Three since the hunter in the crevice. His ribs still ached, but the sharpness had dulled to a manageable throb. Not healed. Earning their keep.
The system pulsed.
[Strength: 17]
Seven points in one zone. The streets would have taken weeks.
He moved through the corridor, retracing his path toward the main chamber. The pipe hung at his side. The sounds of Sector 9 had quieted—the predators keeping distance, the scavengers waiting for scraps. Then the scan flickered.
Three signatures. Approaching. Not hostile. Not hiding. Above each head:
[Strength: 14]
[Strength: 16]
[Strength: 19]
Hunters. Armed. Coordinated.
Blaine stopped. Waited.
They emerged from a side passage. Two men, one woman. The woman led—Strength 19, her posture relaxed but her eyes sharp. The men flanked, hands resting on weapons. A short blade. A reinforced club. They moved like people who had survived together long enough to read each other's silences.
The woman stopped a few meters away. Her gaze swept over Blaine—the blood on his sleeve, the pipe in his grip, the faint tension in his stance that said he'd already measured all three of them and reached his conclusions.
"You're the one."
Blaine said nothing.
"New arrival. Two days, maybe three. Already killed the tank beast in the east chamber." She glanced at his ribs. "And whatever else you found since."
One of the men shifted his weight. The other stayed still. The woman kept talking.
"We tracked the fight. The tank beast is a wall for most. Strength twenty, armored, fast. People hit it and bounce. You hit it and put it down." She tilted her head. "Then we caught your energy signature an hour ago. Something different. Not strength. Something underneath."
The bloodline. They'd sensed it.
"How?"
The woman almost smiled. "We have a sensor user. Picks up anomalies. You lit up like a flare."
Blaine filed that. Sensor users exist. Energy can be tracked. I need to learn how to mask it.
"You're not here to fight."
"We're not here to fight," she agreed. "We're here to tell you that Sector 9 is about to become too small for you. Not today. Not this week. But soon. The way you're climbing—" She shook her head. "It draws attention. The wrong kind."
"Define wrong."
"There are gates," she said. "Old ones. Broken ones. Some say they were built. Others say they were torn open. Doesn't matter. What comes through them—that's what matters." She paused. "Stronger creatures. Smarter ones. And people who hunt them. People who've been climbing longer than any of us."
The man with the club spoke for the first time. "Sector 9's a filter. You passed it. Stay too long and you'll attract things that don't filter."
Blaine absorbed the information. Gates. Other worlds or other zones. Scaling threats. This is the ladder. Sector 9 is the first rung.
"Why warn me?"
The woman shrugged. "Because someone warned us. The strong stay strong by sharing information." A familiar phrase. Kade's words, recycled. The code of survivors. "Also, you're not a threat yet. When you are, we'd rather you remember this conversation."
Smart. Pragmatic. Blaine respected both.
"Gates. Where?"
"Deeper in. Past the inner wall. You'll know when you find one. Reality doesn't sit right near them." She stepped back, the men falling in behind her. "One more thing. Your energy—that flare we caught—it's unstable. Not dangerous yet. But if you don't learn to control it, it will control you."
"Noted."
She nodded once. Then they were gone, retreating into the black stone corridors.
Blaine stood alone. The pipe was cold in his hand. The warmth in his chest pulsed once. Acknowledging. Testing.
Control it before it controls me. That's the second time someone's warned me about what's inside.
He turned and walked deeper into Sector 9. Toward the inner wall. Toward the gates.