The sole of his boot flapped against the pavement—slap, slap, slap—sounding like a death countdown in the heavy morning silence.

  Kael didn't have time to fix it. Behind him, more boots joined the rhythm. Louder. Closer. Too many for this hour. Someone was following. Had been for a while.

  He'd emptied their pockets. This time the haul was big enough that the original owner wouldn't let it go easy.

  Sector Four didn't have a sky. It had a ceiling—gray smog that came from the factories where Outer Circle workers spent their lives for cheap pay. It was the best place for business owners to run their operations. No regulations. No inspections. No one cared what went into the air.

  The alleys twisted around him. Wet stone. Jagged metal. Rusting tech. Steam hissed from ruptured pipes like the breath of a dying beast. The metallic tang of blood drifted from darker corners—leftovers from "disagreements" the night before. Rats scuttled across broken crates, their claws clicking against metal.

  "Small city, smaller life," he muttered, stepping over a puddle of oily rainwater.

  He kept his head down, pulling his collar higher so no one would recognize him later. He knew every loose tile, every blind spot, every dumpster that might hold something worth eating.

  The city was a pyramid. And every pyramid had tiers.

  At the bottom was the Outer Circle. Eight sectors of filth and desperation. Kael was the best example of what that looked like.

  At the top was the Inner Circle. It took sixty percent of the city's land. It provided its residents with clean air, real food, and modern technology. A paradise for those with power.

  Kael lived near the bottom. Sector Four. Not the worst sector—some were worse. He could see the walls every day. That was as close as he'd ever get.

  A flash of flickering neon caught his eye. Cracked holographic billboard. Recruitment poster. Some other hunt team, probably. Kael couldn't read the words, but he knew what they meant. Another group of desperate people chasing the same dream.

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  'Awakening.'

  He watched a scrawny boy sneak past with hollow, hopeful eyes.

  'Everyone dreams of it here. It trades lives for opportunity.'

  'What a fair trade.'

  He knew the math. To Awaken, you had to be the one to finish the monster. The final blow. That was the rule. The monster's rank didn't determine everything—but it determined your first skill. What kind of power you'd start your journey with.

  People in the Outer Circle used the same numbers for humans and monsters. Seven ranks. The higher you went, the stronger they became.

  Rank Ones were fast. Stronger than any normal human had a right to be. Vicious when they needed to be. Still predictable, if you knew what to look for. Most hunters never made it past this rank. They died in the attempt, meat for the grinder before they could climb higher.

  Rank Three was the threshold. This was where things changed. Monsters started thinking at this level. Setting traps. Waiting for the right moment. Exploiting hesitation. Only the clever walked away from a Rank Three fight. Or the lucky. Sometimes there was no difference.

  Rank Four were walking disasters. They didn't just fight—they reshaped battlefields. One could level an entire district on a whim.

  Rank Five were calamities. There were only a few in the human domains. Monsters at this level were even rarer. The kind of creatures that could erase entire settlements.

  Rank Six and Seven existed only in rumors. No confirmed sightings in any human domain. But the capital had information the rest of them didn't. They knew the Great Beasts were real.

  'That's what people in the Outer Circle say, anyway.'

  'I heard the Awakened have real names for them. Something other than numbers.'

  'Same for monsters. But we don't interact with those people. So we use our own ranking. One simple for our heads.'

  He glanced toward the tallest spire in the distance.

  "The King" of this cage? A Rank Four.

  He whispered it aloud, the words tasting like ash.

  "We aren't citizens to him. We're just numbers that justify his budget."

  He reached a vendor's stall. Jagged corrugated metal. A man with one eye sold rotten protein bars that tasted like wet cardboard.

  'For some reason, this vendor fills me with awe whenever I see him. I can't even think about stealing from him.'

  Kael slid a stolen credit across the counter. His eyes locked onto a crumpled flyer tucked under the scale.

  A contract. "Regulars" hunting team.

  'No matter what, I'll survive today.'

  A wry smile tugged at his lips.

  "I'll buy something that won't kill me, find a bigger hole to hide in, ignore the fact that destiny is sharpening its teeth outside the gates—and get to the Inner Circle one day."

  The rules of the Outer Circle were etched into the smog: Nobody gives you anything for free. Not bread. Not air. Not a chance.

  'At least I know my place.'

  He vanished into the smog. Behind him, shouts echoed off the walls.

  The people in the Inner Circle? They were living in a dream.

  And dreams always ended with a wake-up call.