Morning bled into gray.
Fog drifted through the ruins like ghosts unwilling to leave. The world smelled of ash and metal, of rain that never quite reached the ground.
We moved in silence.
The mission was simple — trace the pulse that had been detected beneath the old transit station. But everyone knew that in this world, simple never meant safe.
Captain Iver led the way, her steps soundless against the cracked pavement. Her rifle rested across her back, but her presence alone was a weapon. Every movement she made carried an unspoken weight — like even the air thought twice before touching her.
The others followed in formation.
Reid adjusted the dials on his gauntlet, muttering under his breath. Sera's eyes kept shifting colors, scanning distortions I couldn't see. Barel walked last, his living blade humming faintly, hungry for motion.
And me? I just tried to keep up.
The ruins stretched endlessly, drowned in silence. The city's skeleton was half-swallowed by blackened vines and shifting glass. Machines lay dead on the streets, fused with the bones of what they once protected.
Every now and then, something moved in the mist.
We never looked long enough to see what.
It wasn't long before we reached the entrance to the station — a vast hollow wound in the ground, half-collapsed, its walls covered in strange, pulsating veins.
Reid frowned. "This place feels wrong."
"It is wrong," Iver replied quietly. "Keep your voices low."
We descended.
The air grew colder with each step. I could hear it — that low, rhythmic hum. Like something enormous was sleeping beneath us.
Then the noise changed.
It wasn't a hum anymore. It was breathing.
"Contact," Sera whispered.
Shapes moved in the dark — dozens of them, crawling across the ceiling. Parasites.
Before anyone could react, the ceiling collapsed.
Everything became chaos — screaming metal, dust, light. I barely managed to roll aside before a talon struck the ground where I'd stood.
Reid's gauntlet roared to life, releasing bursts of fire that lit up the entire cavern. Sera bent light around her, creating flickering copies of herself that darted in every direction. Barel charged forward, his blade cutting arcs of red through the dark.
I tried to reach Iver — but she was already there.
Her violet hair burned against the shadows as she unsheathed her sword, eyes cold, precise. And then…
That pressure again.
It hit me like a wave — invisible, crushing. My knees almost buckled.
Around her, the monsters froze.
The weaker ones trembled, their bodies convulsing under an unseen force. Their limbs quivered as if something deep within them was breaking.
That was Bloodlust.
Not magic. Not energy. Pure, distilled will — strong enough to make the world itself hesitate.
"Stay behind me," she ordered, her voice steady amid the storm.
The air warped as she moved. Every swing of her blade left a wake of silence. When her sword cleaved through a Parasite, the cut itself glowed, as though her killing intent had burned the creature from the inside.
Even the team fell quiet — fighting, yes, but slower, their eyes following her.
In that moment, I understood why she was the captain.
Not because of orders or rank. But because her existence demanded obedience.
When the last creature fell, the world returned to stillness.
Steam rose from the carcasses, their bodies melting back into oily residue. The pulse beneath the floor had gone silent.
Reid was the first to break the silence. "Every time you do that, Cap, I forget how terrifying you actually are."
Iver wiped her blade clean. "Good. That means it's working."
Sera crouched beside one of the corpses, her mirrored eyes reflecting faint lines running through its flesh. "These weren't normal Parasites. They were… adapting."
"Adapting to what?" I asked.
She looked up at me. "To us."
The words lingered.
Iver sheathed her weapon, her expression unreadable. "We'll report back. Whatever's sleeping down here… isn't asleep anymore."
As we climbed back to the surface, I kept glancing at her.
That Bloodlust — it wasn't something anyone could just learn. It felt ancient, like something born out of too much survival, too much killing, too much will.
Maybe that's why she hid it. Because people feared what they couldn't explain.
And deep down, part of me wondered… if I could ever feel something like that. That pure, focused intent that bends the world around it.
Not yet.
But someday.