The basement, once a sanctuary of cold concrete and silence, had become a tomb. Kael stood paralyzed for a heartbeat, his back pressed against the buckled steel pillar he had just deformed. The metallic tang of the Runic discharge still hung heavy in the air, a glowing signature that, to the sensors of the Bloodline clans, was as bright as a flare in a midnight sky.
Above him, the heavy thud of boots on the street level sent dust raining down in thin, ghostly veils. These weren't the erratic, scraping sounds of a Calamity Beast. These were synchronized. Disciplined. The sound of a specialized retrieval unit.
"Search the perimeter. If he's Genetic, kill him. If he's Runic... bring me his arms."
The voice from above belonged to someone who had never known the hunger of the lower districts. It was refined, sharp, and carried the effortless arrogance of the House of Azure—one of the three major Bloodline families that governed the sector. They claimed their power came from the "Blue Star" that had appeared during the First Calamity, giving their descendants the ability to manipulate kinetic friction. To them, a scavenger like Kael was less than a resource; he was a glitch in their organized world.
[WARNING: BIOMETRIC SENSORS DETECTED] [THERMAL SCANNING IN PROGRESS...] [ADVICE: ACTIVATE ARIES TRAIT 3 — SOVEREIGN EGO]
The Protocol's voice echoed in his mind, devoid of emotion but filled with strategic necessity. Kael didn't hesitate. He willed the crimson energy to settle. Suddenly, the frantic pounding of his heart slowed. The cold sweat on his neck seemed to evaporate. The fear—that jagged, paralyzing instinct that had kept him alive in the gutters—didn't vanish, but it was moved. It was as if the Protocol had taken his emotions and filed them away in a cabinet, leaving his mind as clear and cold as a winter morning.
He looked at the basement's only exit: a rusted iron door leading to a service tunnel. It was too loud to open. He looked at the high, narrow window where the shadow had passed. Too small.
He was trapped.
"Thermal lock-on confirmed," a voice called out from directly above the ceiling. "Target is stationary. Energy signature is... fluctuating. Sir, the resonance doesn't match the local Runic registries. It's... older."
"Then don't damage the marrow," the refined voice replied. "Blow the seal."
Kael's eyes widened. He didn't move toward the door; he moved toward the buckled pillar. He knew the structural integrity of this pre-Fracture building better than the aristocrats above. If they used a localized explosive on the street-level seal, the pressure wave would collapse the ceiling directly onto the basement floor.
He dropped to his knees, crawling into the narrow crawlspace beneath a heavy, lead-lined workbench he had salvaged from a medical clinic years ago. He pulled a discarded carbon-fiber sheet over his body, holding his breath.
BOOM.
The world turned into white noise and grey powder. The ceiling didn't just crack; it disintegrated. Slabs of ancient asphalt and reinforced rebar crashed into the basement, crushing the haptic interface Kael had spent months building. The shockwave slammed into the lead workbench, threatening to flatten it, but the buckled pillar Kael had struck earlier held. It took the brunt of the weight, groaning as the steel twisted under the sudden mass of the street collapsing into the room.
Through the settling dust and the ringing in his ears, Kael saw light. Real light—not the violet glow of the Fracture, but the harsh, artificial white of military-grade floodlights.
Two figures descended into the crater. They wore sleek, azure-tinted combat suits made of reactive polymer. Their helmets were faceless, displaying only a single, glowing blue horizontal line for vision. These were Azure Enforcers. On their shoulders, the crest of a falcon clutching a lightning bolt shimmered—the mark of a Tier-2 Bloodline.
"Target buried?" one of the enforcers asked, his voice modulated through a speaker. He raised a hand, and the dust in the air seemed to freeze in place, suspended by a localized friction field.
"Unlikely. The energy signature moved just before detonation," the other replied. He stepped over the ruins of Kael's haptic interface, crushing a glowing vacuum tube under his boot. "Scavenger rats have a knack for finding holes."
Kael watched them from beneath the lead workbench. His Aries runes were screaming at him to strike. The "Unyielding Charge" trait was humming in his legs, a restless vibration that demanded he lunges forward. But he was outgunned. The Enforcers carried friction-rifles—weapons that could stop a man's heart by freezing the blood in his veins through sheer kinetic dampening.
[CALCULATING SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 14%] [RECOMMENDATION: UTILIZE 'ARIES FORCE-BASH' ON STRUCTURAL WEAK POINT 'B-7']
The Protocol highlighted a specific section of the remaining ceiling—a jagged piece of rebar holding up a massive slab of concrete directly above the Enforcers.
Kael felt the crimson glow beneath his cloak. He didn't have enough energy for a full-scale battle, but he had enough for one "First Strike." He gripped the Runic Capacitor Bhy Khay had given him. It was nearly empty, buzzing with a dying spark.
Flow. Construct. Ignite.
He didn't stand up. He didn't reveal himself. He reached out from under the workbench and pressed his glowing red fist against the base of the lead table. He didn't punch it; he vibrated it. He channeled the Aries energy through the metal, using the table as a conductor.
The force traveled through the floor, up the buckled pillar, and slammed into the "B-7" weak point the Protocol had identified.
CRACK.
The rebar snapped like a dry twig. The concrete slab, weighing at least three tons, tilted.
The Enforcers reacted with superhuman speed. One of them threw up a hand, a blue friction-shield shimmering into existence to catch the falling debris. The slab hit the shield with a screech of protesting physics, the blue light flaring as it absorbed the kinetic energy.
"There!" the other Enforcer shouted, pointing toward the workbench. He leveled his rifle.
But Kael was already gone.
The moment the slab hit their shield, he had used the "Unyielding Charge" to roll out of the crawlspace and into the service tunnel door. He didn't use a key; he used his shoulder. With the Aries aura acting as a battering ram, he shattered the rusted lock and tumbled into the darkness of the tunnels just as a bolt of blue energy hissed through the air where his head had been a second before.
The service tunnels were a labyrinth of forgotten sewage pipes and fiber-optic casings. It was pitch black, but to Kael's Aries-enhanced vision, the world was a map of heat and resonance. He ran. He didn't look back. He could hear the Enforcers shouting behind him, their heavy boots splashing through the oily water on the tunnel floor.
[ENERGY LEVELS: 12%] [WARNING: SCENT LEAKAGE INCREASING] [ZODIAC SYNC: 13.1%]
"Shut up," Kael hissed at the Protocol. "I know I'm leaking. I know I'm dying. Just give me a way out."
The tunnel opened into a wider junction—a massive hub where four different sectors met. In the center of the hub sat a derelict subway car, half-submerged in sludge.
Kael climbed onto the roof of the car, his lungs burning. He could see the blue floodlights of the Enforcers entering the junction from the tunnel he had just left. They were moving with terrifying grace, jumping from pipe to pipe, closing the gap.
"Stop, scavenger!" the leader commanded. He had descended into the hub now. He wasn't wearing a helmet. He was a young man, perhaps five years older than Kael, with pale skin and hair the color of frost. This was the Azure noble. He didn't look angry; he looked curious. "That energy you're using... it's not Runic. Not really. It's too pure. It's too old. Tell me where you found the relic, and I might let you keep your tongue."
Kael stood on the roof of the subway car, the crimson runes on his arms casting long, flickering shadows against the tunnel walls. He felt the "Sovereign Ego" deepening. The fear was gone. In its place was a cold, regal disdain.
"You talk about 'purity' like it's something you inherited," Kael said, his voice echoing through the hub. "But you're just a parasite living off the scraps of a dead star. You want the relic? Come and take it."
The Azure noble smirked. He raised a single finger. "Kill him. But leave the arms intact."
The two Enforcers raised their rifles.
[CRITICAL MOMENT DETECTED] [EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: ZODIAC OVERLOAD] [TEMPORARY ACCESS GRANTED: ARIES TRAIT — 'THE EMPEROR'S MARCH']
Kael didn't wait for the rifles to fire. He didn't hide. He stepped off the roof of the subway car and walked through the air.
It wasn't flight. It was a bridge of solid red light, a series of Runic platforms that manifested beneath his feet with every step. The Aries energy had reached a fever pitch, turning the air around him into a pressurized zone of destruction.
The Enforcers fired. The blue friction bolts hit the red aura around Kael and simply... stopped. They didn't explode; they lost their momentum and fell into the sludge below like dead stones.
Kael reached the first Enforcer in three strides. He didn't use a knife. He didn't use a punch. He simply placed a hand on the Enforcer's faceless helmet.
"Flow," Kael whispered.
The Aries energy poured into the Enforcer's suit. The reactive polymer, designed to absorb impact, couldn't handle the internal pressure of the Red Star. The suit began to hiss, then glow, then—
Crrrk-BOOM.
The Enforcer was thrown backward, his armor shattered from the inside out. He hit the tunnel wall and didn't get up.
Kael turned toward the Azure noble. The red light in his eyes was so bright it drowned out the violet glow of the Fracture.
"Who's the scavenger now?" Kael asked.
But the effort had pushed him too far. The "Emperor's March" flickered and died. Kael fell from the air, crashing into the shallow sludge of the hub. His vision blurred. The red runes on his arms went dark, replaced by a searing, blackened pain.
The Azure noble stood there, his eyes wide with a mixture of terror and intense greed. He looked at his fallen Enforcer, then back at Kael, who was struggling to stand.
"Magnificent," the noble whispered, drawing a thin, crystalline rapier from his belt. The blade hummed with a high-frequency blue vibration. "A lost Zodiac. Do you have any idea what the House of Azure will pay for your heart?"
Kael looked at his wrist. The countdown was a blur.
[22:01:45]
He reached for the rusted knife in the sludge. He wasn't done. He was the Aries. He was the first. And he would be the last thing this noble ever saw.
________