The silence after the last attack was worse than the fighting.
Even the lake below the Anchor had gone still, its black surface unbroken, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Kaelen stood by the white marble interface, staring at the golden text that pulsed with an insistent, hungry rhythm.
[ SYSTEM REQUIREMENT ] [ POPULATION REQUIRED: 1+ ] [ CURRENT POPULATION: 0 ]
He looked across the platform. Elara lay motionless atop the pile of vests, her breathing shallow. The gold beneath her skin flickered weakly, like a dying filament, and Kaelen couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a god look so close to breaking.
Renna was sitting at the edge of the causeway, rifle across her lap, watching the dark tunnel entrance.
"They're waiting for us to starve," Renna said, her voice tight. "Or for the barrier to fail."
"The barrier holds as long as I have Authority," Kaelen said, rubbing his temple. The headache was back—a dull throb of maintaining a territory against a world that wanted it erased. "But we can't upgrade it. We can't unlock the defenses without a subject."
"A subject?" Renna scoffed. "Kaelen, we are miles underground in a forgotten bunker. There is no one here but monsters."
"There's someone," Kaelen said.
He turned to face the tunnel they had come from.
"I heard footsteps," he reminded her. "Back in the armory. Heavy ones. Steady ones."
"I thought that was a monster."
"Monsters prowl," Kaelen said, checking the charge on the railgun. "This thing was searching."
He made a decision.
"Stay here. Watch Elara. If the barrier flickers, wake her up."
"Where are you going?"
"To recruit," Kaelen said grimly. "Or to die trying."
Kaelen stepped off the causeway and back into the darkness.
The moment he left the [Anchor Territory], the weight returned. The air grew stale. The subtle 'lag' of the broken world tugged at his movements.
He didn't need a tracker to find the footsteps. He needed to listen to the stone.
He placed his hand on the wall. He closed his eyes.
Thump. Thump.
Faint. Distant. Coming from a side tunnel near the armory node.
Kaelen moved. He stalked through the shadows, moving with the silence of a man who had spent weeks being hunted.
He reached the armory junction. The crushed corpse of the Scrap-Wolf was still there.
But something was feeding on it.
It wasn't a Hollowed. It was a person.
A figure, wrapped in layers of tattered, scavenged synth-leather, was kneeling over the dead wolf, carving strips of meat with a serrated knife. They wore a heavy, rusty rebreather mask that hissed with every breath.
Thump.
The sound came from the figure's boots. They were massive—magnetic exo-boots, likely salvaged from a dead mining mech.
Kaelen stepped into the light of the glowing moss.
"That meat is tainted," Kaelen said.
The scavenger spun around with terrifying speed, dropping the knife and raising a jagged spear made from rebar.
"Back!" a voice rasped through the rebreather. Muffled. Terrified. "My kill. Mine."
"I killed it," Kaelen said calmly, hands visible but near the Obsidian Edge. "And the corruption in that meat will turn your gut into black sludge in an hour."
The scavenger hesitated. They looked at the wolf. They looked at Kaelen.
"Hungry," the scavenger croaked.
"I know," Kaelen said. He tossed a sealed military ration bar from his pack.
The scavenger caught it in mid-air, staring at the shiny wrapper like it was a gold bar.
"I have water, too," Kaelen said. "Clean water. And a place where the shadows don't scream."
The scavenger froze. The rebreather hissed—ksshh, ksshh.
"No such place," the scavenger whispered. "I've seen people fade. Standing still. Talking. Breathing. One second they're there… then the dark closes like they were never written."
"Not where I am," Kaelen said.
He tapped the side of his face. The blue flare in his right eye ignited.
"I'm not an Admin," Kaelen said. "I'm a Glitch. Just like you."
The scavenger stared at the blue light. The spear tip lowered, but the tension didn't leave his shoulders.
"The Blue Eye," the scavenger murmured, a tremor in his voice. "The stories say you burn what you touch."
"The stories are written by the people trying to kill us," Kaelen said.
Suddenly, the tunnel shook. A high-pitched shriek echoed from the darkness behind them.
[ WARNING: HOLLOWED SWARM APPROACHING ]
The scavenger panicked. "They come! Run!"
"No," Kaelen said. He drew the black glass sword. "We don't run."
He held out his hand.
"Come with me. Step into my territory. If you do, you live. If you stay here, you are meat."
The scavenger looked at the swarm of red eyes in the gloom. He looked at Kaelen's hand.
He grabbed it.
"Name?" Kaelen demanded.
"Jax," the scavenger wheezed.
"Jax," Kaelen said. "Move."
They burst into the Anchor cavern just as the swarm hit the tunnel entrance.
Renna was waiting, rifle aimed. "Cross the causeway!" Kaelen shouted.
Jax stumbled across the floating stones, eyes wide behind the mask as he saw the massive obsidian fortress.
"What... what is this?" Jax gasped.
"Survival," Kaelen said.
They reached the platform. The swarm was spilling onto the causeway, shrieking as they smelled fresh blood.
Kaelen shoved Jax toward the white marble interface.
"Stand there," Kaelen ordered. "Don't move."
Kaelen slammed his hand onto the slab.
[ SYSTEM SCAN ] [ LIFEFORM DETECTED ]
The text flashed.
Then it turned Red.
[ ERROR: SUBJECT UNREGISTERED ] [ PROCESSING... ]
The Anchor hummed violently. The light didn't stabilize. It flickered.
"It's not working!" Renna shouted, firing into the mass of Hollowed. "Kaelen, they're crossing!"
Kaelen gritted his teeth. He felt the System trying to reject Jax, trying to label him as garbage data to be discarded.
"Accept him!" Kaelen roared, pouring his Authority into the stone. He didn't ask the System; he ordered it. "He is mine!"
The interface whined. The red text trembled, fought... and then shattered into Gold.
[ OVERRIDE SUCCESSFUL ] [ SUBJECT ACCEPTED: JAX ]
A pulse of white light swept over Jax.
The scavenger flinched, curling into a ball.
But there was no pain.
The pressure in Jax's chest eased. Not relief—something stranger. The constant need to listen, to brace, to flinch... it went quiet. His hands stopped shaking, and he realized he hadn't heard his own heartbeat in days until now.
[ POPULATION UPDATE: 1 ] [ DEFENSE SLOT 1: UNLOCKED ]
Kaelen didn't hesitate. "Turrets. Kinetic."
[ FABRICATION INITIATED ]
Four heavy stone-and-metal turrets rose from the corners of the platform. They swiveled with a sharp hiss.
THOOM-THOOM-THOOM.
Condensed bolts of mana-force tore into the tunnel entrance. The Hollowed were vaporized before they could touch the platform.
The swarm broke. The survivors fled.
Silence returned.
Kaelen slumped against the interface.
Jax ripped off his rebreather mask to reveal a scarred, dirt-streaked face. He stared at the turrets. He stared at the golden barrier humming overhead.
Then he looked at Kaelen.
Jax realized something terrifying. The silence, the safety, the air in his lungs—it was all tied to the man bleeding onto the white stone.
"You hold the walls up," Jax whispered, his eyes wide. "If you drop... the noise comes back."
"Then make sure I don't drop," Kaelen rasped.
He looked at the interface.
[ TERRITORY: THE ANCHOR ] [ POPULATION: 1 ] [ DEFENSE RATING: LOW ]
The interface pulsed once more.
[ NOTICE: TERRITORY HAS ATTRACTED OBSERVATION ]
Kaelen felt the weight return—heavier than before.
Someone had noticed the population count change.