The hunters did not rush them.
They paced.
Five of them now, perched along ledges and fractured rooftops, moving with unnerving patience. Their silhouettes cut clean against the dim skyline. The district lights had lowered to a sickly twilight, as if the city itself were conserving energy for something more important.
Kael stood slightly ahead of the others, jaw tight.
Lyra's glow was contained now, pulsing just beneath her skin like a restrained heartbeat.
Caelum's gaze moved constantly, not at the hunters, but through them. Mapping angles. Measuring tension. Calculating collapse points.
Arin swallowed hard. "They're waiting for a signal."
One of the hunters tilted their head.
"No," they replied evenly. "We're waiting for you to choose."
Kael frowned. "Choose what?"
The first hunter stepped down from the rooftop and landed in front of them with fluid grace. Up close, the distortion was clearer. Their face looked almost ordinary, but too symmetrical. Too precise. Thin luminous veins traced faint lines along their neck.
"You can come quietly," the hunter said. "The system can still repurpose you."
"Repurpose," Lyra echoed.
"Yes." The hunter's gaze lingered on her. "Your output in particular is valuable."
Kael's hands curled into fists.
"And if we don't?"
The hunter smiled again, softer this time.
"Then the city adapts."
As if on cue, the ground trembled.
Not from below.
From above.
Massive panels slid across the sky between towers, sealing this district in a lattice of shimmering barriers. Transit rails retracted. Bridges detached and withdrew like nervous limbs.
Arin's face went pale. "They're quarantining us."
The hunters spread out, forming a loose perimeter.
Caelum finally spoke. "They're narrowing outcome paths. Forcing a funnel."
The lead hunter glanced at him. "You see it too."
Caelum met their gaze without emotion. "Not clearly enough."
That flicker again. Interest.
"Good," the hunter said. "Then this will be instructive."
They moved.
Not toward Lyra this time.
Toward Caelum.
The shift was subtle but deliberate.
Kael reacted instantly, compressing the air in a crushing wave, but the hunter anticipated it. They pivoted through the distortion, their body bending in ways that felt slightly wrong, slipping through pressure pockets as if they could see the force before it formed.
They reached Caelum.
And stopped.
Just inches away.
Neither struck.
Neither blinked.
"You're the dangerous one," the hunter said quietly.
Caelum's voice was calm. "Statistically speaking, yes."
The hunter lunged.
Not with brute force, but precision. Their hand cut toward Caelum's throat.
Time did not slow.
Probability did.
Caelum shifted one step to the left, a movement so small it should not have mattered. The hunter's hand missed by a fraction. Their balance adjusted too quickly, though. Too intelligently.
They adapted mid-strike.
Caelum's eyes darkened slightly.
A loose fragment of metal from the broken construct behind them slipped free.
Fell.
At the exact wrong angle.
The hunter's heel caught it.
A single miscalculation.
Kael didn't waste the opening.
He drove his palm forward and the street buckled upward in a violent surge. The hunter was launched skyward, smashing through a flickering barrier panel overhead. Sparks rained down.
But the remaining hunters descended.
Two targeted Kael at once. Their movements were synchronized, weaving around his gravitational pulses, forcing him to widen his output. Cracks split the pavement in expanding rings.
Another hunter went for Arin.
Lyra intercepted.
She didn't blast this one.
She stepped into them.
When the hunter grabbed her shoulders, Lyra let her light surge, not outward, but inward through the contact point. Golden energy streamed along the hunter's veins, illuminating their body from within.
The hunter gasped.
Their eyes flickered violently between white and human.
Lyra saw something.
A memory not hers.
A child standing under the broken crown tower.
A hand reaching out.
A promise.
The hunter recoiled, clutching their head. "Stop!"
"I'm not hurting you," Lyra said, voice shaking. "I'm showing you."
The hunter screamed.
Kael slammed one of his opponents into a wall with enough force to collapse part of the structure. Dust and debris exploded into the air.
Arin ducked as fragments rained down.
The sky barriers pulsed brighter.
The system was escalating again.
Caelum stepped back, analyzing rapidly.
Too many variables.
Too little time.
He made a choice.
A risky one.
He reached outward, not toward the hunters, but toward the city.
Toward its systems.
Probability was not just events. It was sequences. Dependencies. Hidden chains.
He tugged at one.
Far above, a stabilizer node in the barrier grid glitched.
Just slightly.
The shimmer overhead stuttered.
The hunters noticed.
The lead hunter, recovering from Kael's strike, looked up sharply.
"You're interfering with infrastructure," they said, almost impressed.
"Yes," Caelum replied.
The barrier failed.
Not completely.
But enough.
A section of the sky lattice shattered like fractured glass, opening a jagged gap.
Light from the fractured heavens poured down in a sharp beam.
Lyra's glow reacted instantly, intensifying.
The hunters hesitated.
Just long enough.
"Run!" Arin shouted.
Kael grabbed Lyra's arm and pulled her toward the nearest vertical access ladder. Caelum followed without looking back.
The hunters pursued, but their movements were less certain now. The flicker of humanity inside them was destabilizing the precision.
They climbed fast, reaching a higher tier of the district as sirens converged below.
From this height, the broken crown tower was clearer.
Closer.
Its jagged spires pierced through layers of floating platforms. Energy pulsed within its fractured center, rhythmic and steady.
Lyra slowed at the edge of the rooftop.
"It's calling," she whispered.
Kael looked at her. "Calling how?"
She placed a hand against her chest. "Like it's incomplete."
Caelum joined them, scanning the shifting skyline.
"The city is reallocating resources toward this sector," he said. "We have a narrowing window."
Arin caught her breath beside them. "You can't seriously be going there."
Kael met her gaze. "You said they hunt people who don't comply."
She nodded.
He glanced at the tower. "That thing is the reason they can."
The wind picked up suddenly, whipping debris across the rooftop.
Below, the hunters regrouped. They did not climb.
They watched.
The lead hunter's voice carried upward, calm and steady.
"You think the crown is the source," they called. "It isn't."
Lyra stiffened.
"It's the lock."
Silence fell.
Kael frowned. "Lock on what?"
The hunter's expression shifted, something almost like regret flickering through.
"On you."
The barriers across the sky began to reform.
The gap Caelum had created was closing.
The city was learning again.
Adapting.
Lyra stepped closer to the rooftop edge, eyes locked on the broken crown.
"If it's a lock," she said softly, "then something is sealed inside."
Caelum's voice was almost a whisper.
"Or sealed out."
The wind roared louder.
The tower pulsed again.
This time, all three of them felt it.
Not a call.
A warning.
And far above, beyond the fractured clouds, the sigil began to assemble once more.