The prey flow moved cleanly across my path, a narrow river of bodies I had been tracking for multiple hunts. I had learned its rises and drops, its twists when the current bent, the small pockets where prey clustered more tightly. I entered the flow from below, slipped into the blind angle, and let out a short, low stun pulse. It hit the shoal with the exact force I wanted. No waste. No excess.

The prey shuddered. The nearest layer peeled apart. Several bodies rolled in place, stunned long enough for me to rise in under their bellies.

I struck cleanly.

One snap.

Another.

A third before they even drifted past.

Warmth filled my throat.

The System counted exactly what I already knew.

[Biomass Intake: +312 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 312 / 8000]

[Growth Cycle: 220]

[Efficiency: High]

A sharp, tidy gain. The type this layer rewarded. Not the chaos of column feasts. Not the starving lean of cold water. This was controlled work, and I was learning to enjoy that control.

I angled to take a fourth stunned body when the water split.

A second stun pulse tore in from the opposite side.

Sharper than mine.

Faster.

Aligned perfectly with the fleeing prey.

My stunned bodies scattered before I finished turning. The clean rhythm broke. Some bolted upward. Some sank. A few collided and spun away.

I froze. That pulse had not been a stray vibration. It had been a precision shot aimed into my kill zone. There was no confusion about it.

Someone had interrupted my hunt on purpose.

Two shapes glided out of the blue, sharp-bodied and bright-edged. Their movements matched perfectly. One shadow mirrored the other. They kept the same distance between them with no drift. Even their tail strokes aligned.

Predators.

But not lone hunters.

A pair.

They closed in along the flank of the prey flow, cutting through the edges in a coordinated pattern that made the mass bend like fabric. One pushed from below, driving prey upward. The other carved across the top, harvesting bodies as they rose. Their attack rhythm was flawless.

The System labelled what I was seeing.

[Signal Pattern: Dual Predator Unit]

[Coordination Level: Advanced]

[Threat Rating: Elevated]

They moved like a single creature split into two bodies. Their pulses overlapped in controlled patterns. Their spacing never changed. Everything about their rhythm was deliberate.

I watched from the side, trying to learn their lines. The way one angled its head told the other where the stunned prey were drifting. A hum from one shifted the prey into the exact angle the second needed. One pulse. One lane. One perfect handoff.

Not a duo.

A tactic.

I edged closer, not to challenge, but to understand. If I learned their rhythm, I could take advantage of the gaps they left. But before I closed even half the distance, one of them turned slightly and fired a narrow, direct pulse straight at me.

It stopped short of my skull, a close-range warning. Not enough to stun. Enough to make my plates buzz.

A command, not an invitation.

The System interpreted the message with ease.

[Incoming Pulse Class: Territorial Directive]

[Message: Withdraw]

The precision chilled me more than the force. It was not anger. Not a threat. Just protocol.

They expected me to know the rule.

They expected me to obey it.

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Their hunt resumed the moment they saw me back away. No more attention. No chase. No hostility. Just two hunters following a rulebook I had never been taught.

My instincts flared hot. Pride, old and human, tried to rise. But instinct did not win fights here. Efficiency did. Energy loss did. I had learned by now that injury could strip an entire cycle of gains.

So I backed off.

I drifted along the edges of the flow, watching them carve through it with speed and certainty. Their skill irritated something under my ribs. I had learned the Blue Horizon was full of predators, but this was the first time something made me feel untrained.

I hunted alone.

They hunted as a unit.

In the Dominion, that difference mattered.

The flow thinned as they worked, but scraps remained, and hunger pushed me into their shadow. I circled around and slipped inside their angle to snatch a stunned body they had pushed aside. A clean theft. A harmless one.

The response was immediate.

A stun pulse hit the side of my skull so sharply that my vision snapped into white noise. Not strong enough to disable me. Just hard enough to scramble my balance. My tail kicked without direction.

The System flickered.

[Neural Interference Detected]

[Motor Function: Minor Impairment]

Before I could level myself, the second predator struck from behind. A quick, shallow slash across my flank. Not deep. Not lethal. Enough to bleed warmth and mark me.

The System updated calmly.

[Integrity: 94%]

[Blood Loss: Minimal]

[Biomass Pool Retained]

I turned for a counterstrike, but the two of them moved into a blocking weave. One cut left. One cut right. Their spacing trapped my path. They did not attack again. They simply boxed me out, forcing me backward until I was outside the prey route entirely.

I retreated.

Not because they scared me.

Because they left no options.

For the first time in this layer, I realised two predators acting as one could overpower me without ever biting deep. They did not need to injure me badly. They only needed to break my rhythm.

Cycle gain halted.

The water carried my blood through the flow.

I pulled away into a colder current. It was thinner. Less prey. More space. A wound stung at every tailbeat, a constant drag. I tried to hunt anyway.

But the blood trail ruined my stealth. Small prey darted away as soon as they tasted it. A few tiny scavengers darted at my exposed wound, driving me into sharper motion to shake them.

My stun pulses were uneven. The injury pulled my body slightly off centre. Balance mattered more in this layer than in the trench. Every angle counted.

I worked through several hunts. Some yielded scraps. Some yielded nothing. It took far too long to gather even a modest amount.

The System tallied without sympathy.

[Biomass Intake: +229 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 541 / 8000]

[Growth Cycle: 220]

The numbers crawled. The Blue Horizon had no patience for wounded hunters. I felt the truth bite deeper than the injury itself.

Here, efficiency mattered more than hunger.

Here, injury was punishment.

Here, a solitary predator could lose everything to coordination.

Once my wound clotted and the ache in my flank dulled, I returned to the prey routes. Not hunting. Watching.

The pair were still there.

I stayed far enough back that my hum did not disturb their pulse patterns. They rotated through positions like a practised routine. One took the lead. The other flanked. Their pulses alternated. They herded prey into pockets. They fed. Then they shifted roles.

This was not instinct.

This was training.

This was a structure.

The System added its observation.

[Behaviour Pattern Logged]

[Inference: Cooperative Hunting Strategy]

[Dominance Tier: Higher]

It was not their size that outclassed me. I was larger. Not their strength. I was stronger. It was the way they worked together. I had seen the Lumen Leviat speak in light. I had seen scavengers steal in organised waves. But this was different.

They were part of something.

Something bigger.

Something that gave rules and tactics and expected them to be followed.

I drifted out of their path and returned to my loop.

A pressure pulse rolled across the region before I reached it.

It was deeper than anything I had felt since entering the Blue. So heavy it rattled my plates. So broad it collapsed every lesser hum. My own resonance buckled under it like a body pushed to the floor.

The System surged into focus.

[High-Amplitude Apex Signal Detected]

[Origin: Unknown]

[Intention: Territory Audit]

Not a hunting predator.

Not a territorial challenger.

This was something that observed the entire region at once.

A voice meant to be heard by everything below it.

The pulse swept through the Blue and mapped every vibration it touched. I felt it press through my bones. A slow scan. Evaluation. Confirmation.

I held still until the force moved on.

My biomass pool did not shift. My cycle count remained frozen.

[Biomass Pool: 541 / 8000]

When the pulse ended, the water felt cleaner. Emptier. As if something had just tallied the region and found every predator exactly where it expected.

For the first time since rising into this layer, I felt counted.

Not hunted.

Not threatened.

Counted.

The Blue Horizon had overseers.

Silent ones.

Ones who kept order with a signal alone.

I sank back into the colder water until the ache in my flank eased again. The prey flow circled through the warm bend of my loop. I waited until the pain dulled before slipping back inside.

My movement had a limp to it. A tiny imbalance that prey sensed instantly. The first few kills twisted away from me. The next few dodged wide. I adapted, but the irritation burned.

I felt the pair again somewhere behind the haze. Their synchronised pulses trembled across the water like a heartbeat that was not mine.

I avoided them without hesitation.

Hunger simmered under the plates. It made my hum uneven. The System spoke again in its unbothered tone.

[Status: Injured]

[Efficiency: Reduced]

[Biomass Required for Next Cycle: 7,459]

[Recommendation: Avoid Dual-Unit Predators]

I drifted through the dim blue, letting the currents press against my wound. The pain would fade. The memory would not.

The lesson settled in with the weight of truth:

A lone hunter, no matter how large or strong, was nothing in the Twilight Dominion.

Paired hunters shaped lanes.

Overseers measured everything from above.

The sea ran on coordination and structure.

I was still growing.

But every threat around me was growing too.

And some of them had each other.