Breath of the Idle King

Chapter 5: The Underground Index

The sensation of being pulled into Irae’s shadow felt like being forced through a sewer pipe filled with shards of glass and cold waste. Garou’s lungs felt as if they were shrinking; holding his breath was the only instinct he had left as the pressure of the dimensional space squeezed his ribs. Seconds felt like hours; every inch of his body rubbed against something slick and dark, as if he were being forcibly shoved through a narrow crack between two realities.

Suddenly, gravity slammed back into him with a vengeance. Garou collapsed onto the cold, damp concrete floor. The thud of his body hitting the ground echoed through the vast, stifling room. The air here was heavy, smelling of rust, expired chemicals, and something sickly sweet like meat left to rot under the sun.

"Get up. Don't be dramatic," Irae’s voice cut through the silence. She stood several meters away, her dark cloak still vibrating as if the shadows around her hadn't quite settled yet.

Garou panted, his chest heaving with a rhythm that began to throb like a second heartbeat. He tried to stand, but his legs were shaking violently. His surroundings were nonsensical. They were in a vast basement, deep beneath what appeared to be a modern shopping mall. The ceiling was low and braced by rusted pipes, while flickering neon lights cast a dim, grime-streaked orange glow.

"Where... where is this?" Garou asked, his voice hoarse.

Irae didn't answer immediately. She reached into her cloak pocket and tossed a small, coin-shaped metal object toward him. "Wear it. Put it around your neck. If you don't want every predator on this floor tearing your throat out before we reach the exit, mask your life signal."

Garou caught the coin. The moment it touched his skin, a strange vibration surged through his chest, suppressing the rush of energy that usually flowed through his breath. A moment later, he felt... empty. The System that usually whispered in the background of his consciousness seemed shrouded in a thick fog.

"The Undersector Black Market," Irae said, stepping forward, her boots splashing in puddles of filthy water. "A place where morality is traded for cryptocurrency and human lives are turned into commodities. Welcome to the heart of the food chain in a world you thought was just full of ordinary people."

Garou stood up, his eyes beginning to adjust to the gloom. Before him, he saw rows of makeshift stalls. They weren't selling clothes or food, but rather glass crates containing people or creatures that resembled humans with identification marks embedded in their necks.

"Vessel Class," Garou muttered, his eyes fixed on a young girl behind the glass who appeared unconscious, while a label beside her read 'Grade: C-'.

"Not just vessels," Irae explained as she kept walking, her eyes alertly scanning the crowd of cloaked figures and individuals with conspicuous cybernetic implants. "They are 'containers.' Those who obtained the System but failed to control it. Their brains were fried by data surges, and now they’re nothing more than biological batteries or sacrifices for higher-entity experiments. You see that number? That's their market value, based on the energy stability remaining in their lungs."

Garou felt a wave of nausea. He flashed back to the day at the factory, when the concrete structure collapsed on him. If his system hadn't activated then, perhaps he would have ended up in one of those glass crates, sold to the highest bidder.

"Why did you bring me here, Irae?" Garou asked, trying to keep his voice low. "If this place is so dangerous, shouldn't I be staying away?"

"You can't stay away from something that's already embedded in your blood," Irae stopped in front of a large bulletin board covered in missing person posters or more accurately, 'Wanted' posters. "The world out there, the one filled with light, knows nothing. But here? People know who you are. They know a 'Vessel-Class' has just emerged with an unusual growth anomaly. You think that hunter found your apartment by accident?"

Garou fell silent. His logic began to race under the pressure. If a market this organized existed, it meant data was flowing. And if there was data, it meant someone was watching.

"A monitoring network," Garou whispered, almost to himself. "They’re tracking every breath I take, aren't they?"

"Worse," Irae said, her gaze piercing. "They’re predicting when you'll 'evolve' next. They don't need to catch you while you're weak. They’re waiting until you're strong enough to be harvested. Harvested, Garou. That is the primary function of the system given to us. We are crops, and this world is a field for entities that cannot set foot in this dimension."

They continued through the increasingly crowded corridor. Garou saw all manner of beings some looked human, others had limbs that appeared to be rusted metal fused with flesh. No one dared to make eye contact for long. The atmosphere in the market was harrowing, like being in a nest of predators that weren't hungry yet, but were ready to pounce at any moment.

Suddenly, Irae stopped. She grabbed Garou’s sleeve roughly, forcing him to duck behind a cracked concrete pillar.

"Don't move," Irae whispered.

Ahead of them, a group of men in tactical uniforms, bearing an organization emblem Garou had never seen, were talking to a merchant. They held scanning devices that emitted high-pitched chirping sounds.

"Reports show Tier-2 level energy was detected in this area twenty minutes ago," one of the men said. His voice was cold, clinical, and devoid of emotion. "Sweep every stall. If you see an anomaly breathing with an irregular rhythm, neutralize them immediately. Do not take him alive if he resists."

Garou’s heart hammered against his ribs, but the necklace Irae gave him truly dampened his energy pulse. He felt like he was holding his breath in freezing water. Cold sweat beaded on his temples. This was the scale of the conspiracy he faced: a global spiderweb stretching beneath the feet of people shopping casually on the floors above.

"Look over there," Irae whispered, pointing toward a wall across from the main stall.

Garou followed her finger. There, a large poster was mounted under bright neon lights. It wasn't a standard missing person flyer. It was a high-quality 'Wanted' poster. The image featured the silhouette of a young man standing amidst factory ruins a silhouette wearing the exact same jacket Garou was wearing now.

Below the silhouette, a warning was written in a striking red font:

TARGET: THE IDLE KING CANDIDATE. CONDITION: STATUS ALIVE. REWARD: TIER-EX ACCESS TO THE NEURAL NETWORK.

Garou felt as if his blood had turned to ice. Idle King. The name felt familiar, an echo in his memory from some unknown source. He stared at the poster, then at his own trembling hands. He wasn't just a lab rat. He was something far more important, and far more dangerous to the people who ran this market.

"You're not just a fugitive, Garou," Irae’s voice sounded very close to his ear, heavy with a crushing weight. "You are the key to something they fear. And now, the whole world knows that the key has been turned."

Just then, one of the tactical officers sweeping the area suddenly turned. His scanner didn't beep, but his cold eyes locked directly onto the pillar where Garou and Irae were hiding. The man raised his hand, signaling his team.

"Movement behind the pillar in Sector 4," the man announced over the radio, his voice echoing through the vast market.

Irae cursed under her breath, her hands already moving to form a seal in the air. The shadows around them began to writhe, but this time, they were no longer pitch black; they began to emit an unstable purple glow.

"Dammit," Irae cursed. "Someone’s placed spatial sensors around here. We’re trapped."

Garou closed his eyes for a moment, allowing the system within him to sense the airflow around them. For the first time, he didn't try to suppress his energy. He let his breath flow, the rhythm of his second heartbeat beginning to sync with the vibration of the concrete beneath his feet. If they wanted to capture him as a candidate, then he would show them exactly what it meant to be an uncontrollable one.

"Irae," Garou opened his eyes, his pupils now glowing with a sharp, bluish light. "Don't use your shadows. Use me as a distraction."

"What do you mean?"

"Knock over everything in the stalls in front of us. Now."

Before Irae could even ask, Garou took his first step, letting his breath explode from his lungs like a pent up storm, ready to shatter every wall blocking his path.