I drifted far enough from the migratory column that the water finally quietened. The haze thinned. The pulses from the other hunters faded. For the first time since entering the Blue Horizon, I sensed clear water in every direction.

I worked in small circles to find the currents. One stream carried warm water up from deeper layers. One dropped cold against my flanks like a warning. Another carried plankton blooms in slow veils. A fourth held fast prey, slipping like darts through the dark. A fifth was dead and still, no movement at all.

I slid between them again and again until they began to feel like parts of a single route. A loop. A circuit. The sea had carved a path for me without asking.

The System watched my pattern settle.

[Pattern Detected: Rotational Hunt Cycle]

[Efficiency: Moderate]

I had not meant to form a routine. It simply happened. The currents were the ground, and I had walked the same trail enough times to wear it in. The loop would not give me anything unless I fed. So I began hunting again.

A smaller vibration drifted across my senses. Not as massive as the great column from before. Faster. Tighter. Less density but more precision. A small migratory stream.

I moved toward it.

Fish packed together in a narrow flow appeared as a silver band twisting through the blue. They were quick. Their turns were sharp. Their awareness was sharp too. When I drifted too close, they bent away before I even pulsed.

I studied them.

One approach. They scattered before I reached striking distance.

Another. The angle of my pulse was wrong, and it pushed them too wide to catch.

Another. A predator from above shot through the band and took the only stunned prey before I got there.

I did not count the attempts. They blurred into a line of trial and error. I learned by doing. I learned by failing.

I trailed them for a long stretch, matching speed. I waited until their turns slowed against a cross-current. Then I hummed a low, cutting note across their flank.

Only three were stunned.

Enough.

I surged in and took them before they drifted apart.

The System kept track of the small gain.

[Biomass +X Units]

[Growth Cycle: 180 → 186]

The progress was slow, but it was movement. I stayed with the small stream until it dipped into colder water and vanished into its own path.

During another pass through the small stream, a predator cut across my path so fast my plates lifted from the pressure. Sleek. Silver. Crescent-bodied. It moved like a blade drawn across stone. A sickle shape.

It took two of my stunned kills before I even closed my jaws.

I sent a warning pulse. A clean, sharp tone. Authority, not threat.

The sickle shape answered with a higher pitch, steady and confident.

Not a challenge.

Not retreat.

A statement.

This lane is mine.

The System explained it without emotion.

[Signal Class: Predator C]

[Intent: Territorial Assertion]

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[Threat: Moderate]

I held still. Fighting meant injury. Injury meant lost cycles. Backing away meant losing food. Either way, I lost.

This was the first test of the Dominion that could not be solved with teeth.

I cut the hum and withdrew from the lane. The sickle shape returned to its kills without even looking at me.

The System logged the small scraps I took from the fleeing prey.

[Biomass +X Units]

[Growth Cycle: 186 → 190]

The frustration settled low in my ribs. Out here, efficiency was not just hunger and precision. It was a hierarchy.

I began experimenting with angles of attack. The small stream was fast and alert, but predictable once I studied it long enough. I tried coming from below. Then from above. Then diagonally. I matched their speed instead of cutting across. I tried low hums. Sharp pulses. Soft pulses. Sudden bursts.

The sea gave me a sequence of partial wins and near misses.

Some hunts worked. A short pulse and a clean surge.

Some hunts failed. The stream scattered too early.

Sometimes another predator would appear and undo all my work.

Sometimes I chased so hard the prey outran me completely.

Once or twice, I hit the angle just right and ate well.

The System noticed.

[Adaptation Detected]

[Hunting Efficiency +3%]

My gains came in small handfuls.

[Biomass +X Units]

[Growth Cycle: 190 → 195]

[Biomass +X Units]

[Growth Cycle: 195 → 204]

No feasts. No leaps. Just the grind of learning.

My hunger sharpened across these runs. The sea had its lessons, and none of them cared for how I felt about them.

During one attempt to feed, a new pulse rolled across the water.

Slow.

Heavy.

Precise.

My fins locked.

I knew this signal. A high amplitude resonance. I had felt a similar pattern back in the earlier part of the Dominion. A predator that did not fight. That did not claim lanes. One that simply measured.

The presence lingered behind the water like a long shadow.

The System flagged it at once.

[High-Amplitude Resonance Detected]

[Intention: Unknown]

[Recommendation: Maintain Position]

I kept still. I kept quiet. I let the prey drift past me. I could not hide. I could not challenge. All I could do was keep working and accept that it was watching.

My pulse slowed in my chest. The System kept its voice even.

Hunting under that gaze changed the yield.

[Growth Cycle: 204 → 206]

Barely a step.

It hit me then. Not every predator hunted flesh. Some hunted information. Some kept the patterns. Some tracked the numbers. I was not only learning in this place. Something in this place was learning me.

The pressure shifted. The watcher withdrew. The water evened out. I let out the breath I had been holding.

I fed again.

The cold current thickened. Something outside my senses pushed prey toward my loop. Not panic. Not collapse. Just a flow change.

Soft-bodied prey drifted into the route. Their movements were slow, their bodies heavy with nutrients. They clung to cooler water, but they were easy to catch.

I took the first one in a single motion. Pulse, surge, bite. The second came after a short turn, its skin tearing easily. The third drifted so slowly that I barely needed to stun it.

The System counted in short bursts as the small feast continued.

[Assimilation Logged]

[Growth Cycle: 206 → 218]

[Assimilation Logged]

[Growth Cycle: 218 → 220]

A proper spike. Not huge, but enough to remind me why I was here.

The System approved in its usual dry tone.

[Assimilation Rate Acceptable]

The prey thinned. I swallowed the last scraps and let the current wash the blood away.

After the small feasts, I tested the edges of my route again. I pushed a slow pulse outward across the Blue. The hum travelled further than before. It carried weight now. Enough to push smaller predators away from my circuit. Not enough to claim anything new, but enough to hold what I had.

The System marked the growth.

[Dominion Integration: Early Stage]

[Territorial Influence: Minor]

Minor, but present. The first sign of a real position in the Dominion. The sea around me had changed. My resonances shaped the water instead of dissolving inside it.

I drifted along the route I had carved. The small flows and warm bends shifted around me like a road I had walked enough to trust.

Not dominance.

Not power.

Just presence.

A start.

I completed the rotation again. The same warm current. The same cold layer. The same plankton bloom. The same small migratory stream. The same predators stealing kills or yielding lanes. A system of routes and rhythms.

The Blue Horizon looked massive when I first reached it. Now it felt organised. Predictable. Patterned.

I felt something tighten inside me as the realisation spread.

Predictability on this scale meant control.

This was not a wild place.

It was a structure.

Someone else had shaped the migrations.

Someone else had shaped the flows.

Someone else set the rules long before I arrived.

A pulse rolled across the far Blue. Slow. Calm. Deliberate. Nothing like the column pulses or the chatter of small hunters. Something larger. Something that claimed without speaking.

The System pushed a line across my mind.

[Next Advisory: Monitor High-Amplitude Signals]

I breathed the current in and let it settle into my gills. The pulse faded. The realisation did not.

I was not the only predator shaping these waters.

Someone else had already claimed the entire sea.

I was just one more body trying to survive inside their design.

I turned back toward the feeding lane with sharper focus and a dull weight under my plates.

Suspicion and hunger mixing in the same place.

I swam forward.