The sky above the ruins was the color of a bruised lung, choked with ash and the lingering smog of a world that had long since given up on breathing. Lucas Wijaya blinked, his eyelashes heavy with grit, and tried to push himself up. His palms scraped against jagged rebar, and the sensation was a white-hot spike through his nerves."Ugh, what the hell?" Lucas groaned, his voice raspy and thin, disappearing into the vast, hollow echo of the crater.He looked around. Nothing but steel skeletons and crumbled concrete. The city—or what was left of it—stretched out like a graveyard for giants. He tried to remember how he’d gotten here, but his brain felt like it had been scrubbed clean with sandpaper."Okay, Lucas, just breathe," he muttered to himself, clutching his abdomen. "Think. Last thing I remember was... the light. And the screen. That damned screen."A holographic notification still hovered in the periphery of his vision, ghostly and translucent.[SYSTEM DEBT INCURRED: 1,000,000 ES

"Deal," Lucas whispered, the word tasting like copper and ash.Valentina didn’t offer a handshake. She simply turned on her heel, her boots making almost no sound on the cracked pavement. "Keep up, Lucas. We don’t have all night, and the shadows here have teeth."Lucas scrambled to his feet, his body protesting every movement. The phantom ache in his forearm from healing her earlier persisted, a dull, rhythmic throb that pulsed in time with his heartbeat. He looked at the holographic display flickering in his peripheral vision—a reminder that he was effectively a walking target for a cosmic debt collector.[SYSTEM DEBT: 999,999 ESSENCE CREDITS REMAINING.]"Are you always this charming, or am I getting the premium treatment?" Lucas muttered, jogging to catch up.Valentina glanced back over her shoulder, her violet eyes cutting through the gloom. "I’m an asset manager, not a tour guide. Don't waste my breath on small talk.""Asset manager," Lucas snorted, hopping over a rusted fuel tank

The recessed light on Valentina’s vest flickered to life, cutting through the absolute darkness. Lucas gasped, not from the sudden illumination, but from the sight it revealed.The pristine white hallway stretched out before them, cold and sterile, a stark contrast to the ruined world they’d just fled. But the floor wasn’t empty. Dozens of sleeping pods lined the walls, sleek metallic sarcophagi, each one housing a still, humanoid figure. Their eyes were open, staring ahead with a hollow, mechanical intensity that sent a chill down Lucas’s spine."This bunker isn't empty," Valentina whispered, her blade igniting with a fierce, violet hum, casting long, flickering shadows against the walls. "And they don't look like they’re waiting for us to join them."Lucas pressed himself further against the cold steel of the hatch. The thundering of the horde outside was a receding echo now, but a new, more immediate threat filled the air. These were not scavengers. These were… something else."Are

The high-pitched scratching against the steel hatch intensified, a sound so sharp it felt like a needle being dragged across Lucas’s eardrums. It wasn’t the blunt, rhythmic thudding of the mindless horde they had encountered earlier. This was surgical. This was patient."What is that?" Lucas whispered, his voice cracking. He tried to scramble backward, but his legs felt like they were made of lead. "Valentina, that doesn't sound like those things from before."Valentina didn’t look back at him. Her eyes were fixed on the door, her hand already gripping the hilt of her blade. "It’s not. Those things outside are just hunger. This? This is a Seeker. It’s a specialized unit designed for one thing: finding high-value essence signatures. In other words, it’s here for you, Lucas.""For me?" Lucas gulped, his heart hammering against his bruised ribs. "I’m in debt for a million credits, and now there’s a bounty hunter monster?""Commander!" Valentina barked, her voice cutting through the risin