The climb began without warning.

The trench was gone behind me, swallowed by its own dark. The water changed weight. Each breath came easier, each movement lighter. I rose with slow kicks, letting the current decide direction.

The plates along my flanks creaked. The armour had been built for the deep. It bent now with the pressure drop, flexing like lungs after too long underwater.

The System woke with a low pulse through the skull.

[Environmental Change: Major]

[Density -15%]

[Visibility +300%]

[Pressure Variance Stable]

Light entered from above. Not colour at first, but heat. The sea itself began to glow. The faint shimmer spread, coating every fin and scale in soft silver.

I pushed through old debris, bones, shells, the slow wreckage of things long dead. Some cracked against the armour. Others drifted upward, drawn toward the thin warmth. I did not follow them with my eyes.

Currents widened. The cold taste of the trench faded, replaced by open salt. Every vibration stretched further before returning. The hum in my ribs adjusted to the new space, slower but cleaner.

A pulse of plankton moved past. The cloud shone faint red as my resonance hit it. I breathed through it, filtering as I swam. Tiny shapes brushed against the gills, flickered, and disappeared.

Then came movement, shadows gliding inside the plankton storm. Discs the size of ships, translucent, their skin lined with long ribbons that trailed behind like tails. They pulsed as they fed, their mouths opening and closing like slow drums.

The water trembled with each rhythm. My body answered without meaning to. Every instinct said feed.

The System broke in.

[Advisory: Massive Biomass Zone Ahead]

[Predator-Class Energy Signatures Present]

[Recommendation: Observe Only.]

I forced the hum low. The discs weren’t prey. They were the sea’s new heartbeat.

I swam closer. The nearest disc brushed the tip of my fin. Its surface rippled like fabric, soundless. Then it released a burst of dust, tiny sparks glowing white as they spread. The water lit around me.

[Sample Acquired.]

[Biomass +0.4 Units.]

[Organism Logged: Lumen Microfauna.]

The dust sank. The disc moved on. My hunger faded with it.

The light above grew stronger. The black turned blue. I could see further than ever before. The walls of the trench were gone, replaced by open depth in every direction.

The System updated again, voice flat and factual.

[Oxygen Density Increasing.]

[Thermal Gradient Stable.]

[Integrity: Full.]

Schools of mirror-fish appeared. They swam in huge patterns, silver bodies flashing like signals. I moved through them and felt the wake of their motion, small but precise, as if each fin knew its role. They parted, then sealed behind me.

I kept climbing. The current lifted now instead of dragging. The water had weight still, but less purpose. It didn’t push, it allowed.

A haze waited above, bright and distant. Sunlight bent through the ocean in weak ribbons. I had forgotten what real light felt like.

[Surface Light Detected.]

[Distance Unknown.]

The System’s lines flickered against the back of my eyes. It sounded calm, almost cautious.

I passed another field of plankton. The gills worked without thought, absorbing trace nutrients. The body knew the work before I did.

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[Nutrient Intake: Passive.]

[Efficiency 87%.]

The climb continued. The hum in my ribs synced to my tail strokes. The deeper notes that once shook stone now travelled clean through open space. Every pulse echoed further before fading.

The blue darkened again, not from shadow but from scale. I was entering the deep midwater, the space where nothing hides because there’s nothing to hide behind.

The System gave one line.

[Entering Mid-Zone.]

A shape crossed the distance ahead, massive, slow, wide as a ridge. Then another followed it, and another. They glided together, hundreds of metres above. Their bellies glowed faintly with biolight, a slow heartbeat of silver and red.

They were predators like me, but older, larger. Their tails could split rock. The sound of their passing rolled through the water like thunder wrapped in velvet.

I stopped swimming. My hum went flat.

[Signal Detected: Multiple Apex-Class Entities.]

[Classification: Equivalent Lineage – Unknown Variant.]

[Recommendation: Hold Position.]

I obeyed. The water around me stilled.

The closest one turned slightly, the light under its ribs flaring brighter as it exhaled. I felt the pressure wave roll down and hit my armour. The plates groaned. My own hum reacted, a smaller echo trying to keep up.

For a moment, we were tuned. Its note filled my skull and bones until I couldn’t tell which sound belonged to which body.

When it passed, the water felt empty again.

I kept staring at the shadows fading into the haze. Each one dwarfed me by lengths that felt impossible.

Will I ever be that size?

The thought came without reason, but once formed, it stayed.

The trench had forced growth through hunger. The sea above offered it through scale. If they were the measure, I was still small.

The System spoke again, tone clipped.

[Tier 1 Growth Potential: 14%.]

[Higher Forms Detected Beyond Current Classification.]

So yes, there were bigger things. Much bigger. The question was how many I could survive meeting before becoming one.

I followed their wake until the sound of them faded. The water behind them shimmered with warmth. I tasted it and stored it in the lungs.

The System broke the silence with new metrics.

[Pressure Normalising.]

[Thermal Increase +5°C.]

[Integrity Holding.]

It didn’t sound proud, just accurate. The way it always was.

The climb continued. The blue around me softened. The weight of the deep fell away. The current felt like breathing in reverse.

Below, I could see the faint glow of what I’d left, the trenches, vents, the graveyard of the eel. They were far now, almost peaceful. The sea had closed over them, same as it always does.

My body shifted with every metre gained. The gills opened wider. The plates adjusted their grip. I could feel the armour moving like muscle. The tail beat slower but drove further. Every action took less effort.

The System listed the numbers, keeping track like a heartbeat.

[Energy Output -12%.]

[Speed +21%.]

[Oxygen Conversion Efficiency +18%.]

I rose through a field of translucent coils, long, gelatinous creatures that twisted slowly. Their bodies glowed pale yellow. When I passed, they closed, folding around the heat I carried. I brushed one off with a flick of the fin.

[Minor Contact: No Threat Detected.]

The sea felt huge again, but not endless. There was direction here. Every pulse of the tail lifted me toward brightness.

I thought again of the giants. How many years had shaped them? How many seas had they eaten? If the sea measured worth by what it consumed, then they were its gods.

The System interrupted the thought.

[Tier 1 Evolution: Stable.]

[Minor Growth Cycle Active.]

[Next Threshold: 8 000 Biomass Units.]

The reminder sat cold in my head. Numbers, not myths. The sea might not count souls, but it counted mass.

I angled upward. The shimmer grew sharper, no longer a blur but a defined layer of pale light.

The System continued its steady report.

[Thermal Pressure Equilibrium Achieved.]

[Visibility Maximum Range.]

[Integrity: Full.]

Then silence. For the first time, the System had nothing to measure.

The climb became quiet work again, movement, breath, nothing else.

The water turned from deep blue to a brighter tone, clearer, almost white. The shimmer above looked close enough to touch. The armour reflected it, silver bleeding into the black.

My hum changed with it. The sound no longer carried threat. It simply marked existence. The resonance drifted upward and faded.

I stopped moving for a while, just floated. The sea held me steady.

The System finally spoke.

[Surface Light Reached.]

[Temperature Stable.]

[Environmental Threat Level: Low.]

That was all. No warnings. No orders. Just fact.

I looked upward again. The silver layer shifted like a mirror. Something beyond it moved, currents shaped by wind, not gravity. The idea of it made the mind ache.

Below me, the deep stretched into blue shadow. No fear. No noise. Only distance.

For a long moment, I didn’t move. The armour cooled. The gills filled slow. The hum stayed quiet.

The System broke the stillness one final time.

[Evolution Stage: Tier 1 Complete.]

[Next Directive: Survey Upper Layers.]

[Status: Self-Sustaining Entity.]

Self-sustaining. The phrase hit harder than it should have. It meant I wasn’t something’s meal anymore.

I turned in the water, looking down once more toward the dark that had made me. The trench wasn’t visible anymore, only faint red heat at the bottom of forever.

I wasn’t sure if I missed it.

“If I keep climbing,” I said, “will I get that big?”

The System waited before answering.

[Unknown.]

[Growth Potential Dependent on Biomass Acquisition and Time.]

That was all. Honest, simple.

The answer was enough.

I kicked once, hard, and rose through the last field of plankton. They burst into light as I passed. The shimmer widened above. Sunlight broke into the water in threads, wrapping around me.

For the first time since dying, I felt warm.

The System ended the log.

[Cycle 1 Complete.]

[Awaiting New Parameters.]

The light spread across the plates, soft and steady. The water vibrated faintly with distant sound. The sea above me was alive and huge and still waiting.

I angled my body toward it and swam on.

End Arc 1