The ache in my flank woke me.

Every kick of my tail reminded me of the paired predators. The cut had sealed, but the surrounding flesh was still raw. Each stroke pulled the wound open a little. My movement leaned to one side. I had to correct for it with every push.

I went back to my route anyway. The sea did not care that I hurt. The currents were the same. The prey flows were the same. Hunger was the same.

I slipped into the first warm seam and sent out a short stun pulse. It lacked its usual weight. The note thinned quicker than I liked. The bodies ahead shivered and scattered rather than freezing.

They now had more time to see me. My speed was off. My balance was off. When I surged at a cluster, they saw the angle early and broke away. I took one by catching its tail between my jaws at the last moment. My teeth scraped its spine instead of crushing it clean.

I swallowed, annoyed.

The System gave its flat view of the situation.

[Integrity: 93%]

[Biomass Pool: 541 / 8000]

[Hunting Output: Suboptimal]

I hunted anyway.

I followed a small line of grazers along the edge of my loop. Their bodies were thin. Their flesh was watery. I had to take several before I even felt the warmth reach my chest. Each time I pulsed, the note came out a shade too weak. Each time I chased, my wounded side dragged, and prey slipped outside my reach.

Competition predators glided through my lanes. Lean, sharp shapes. They were quick enough to steal the ones I managed to stun. One snapped up a fish, that my pulse had just slowed. Another took a stunned body from directly under my nose.

I wanted to lash out. Biting them meant another fight I could not afford.

I kept moving.

By the time the currents cooled around me and the ache spread through my whole side, the System tallied the insult.

[Biomass Intake: +97 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 638 / 8000]

Almost nothing. I had spent more effort keeping my flank level than tearing meat free. I could feel the gap between what I needed and what I had.

I was falling behind.

While I angled toward the next thermal seam, a broad-bodied predator crossed into my path. Dark plates. Thick neck. Jaws made for grinding more than slicing. It did not rush me. It did not flare its fins. It simply took the space in front of me and held it.

A low pulse left its chest. Flat. Even. Not loud enough to startle prey. Not sharp enough to be a threat. It rolled over my head like a hand brushing hair the wrong way.

The System interpreted what my bones already understood.

[Signal Class: Predator C]

[Message: Route Reserved]

[Dominion Protocol: Cooperative Segregation Required]

Route reserved.

A current, claimed the same way a vent mouth or a den used to be. I had never seen that in the abyss. There, anything that swam in front of your teeth was yours if you were fast enough.

Here, even whole lanes of water had owners.

I shifted left, sliding into the colder seam that ran parallel. The broad predator watched me move but did not follow. Its hum deepened slightly, an acknowledgement.

Allowed to pass, as long as I did not take anything from its lane.

I did not. I continued along my loop, hungry and empty. No prey. No gain.

The System did not need to say it, but it did anyway.

[Biomass Pool: 638 / 8000]

The Blue Dominion had rules that the trench never cared about. I had learned about dual hunters and overseer pulses. Now I was learning about routes.

I watched from the side when I met the next prey flow.

Two predators approached the same stream from different angles. Both large. Both confident. They did not rush. They slowed as they drew close and began to exchange pulses.

One long hum.

One short reply.

Another hum with a slight modulation at the end.

Silence.

They moved as if they had just divided something only they could see.

Predator A entered the flow first and stunned a wide section. It fed while the prey panicked and scattered. Predator B waited, coiled just outside the chaos. When the flow began to restore its shape, B glided in and picked off the second wave of disorganised prey. A pulled out and left the area entirely.

No fights.

No wasted pulses.

Both ate.

The System was quick to latch onto the pattern.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

[Observation Logged]

[Pattern Identified: Kill-Sequence Negotiation]

[Energy Expenditure: Optimised]

Kill sequence.

Negotiation.

Words that had nothing to do with the teeth themselves and everything to do with the invisible rules around them.

When the next mid-sized prey line crossed my route, I tried to copy the behaviour.

I followed it at a distance first, learning its bends. Two predators already patrolled ahead. Their pulses marked their positions clearly. I did what the others had done. I sent a short, clean tone toward them, just strong enough to show I was here.

They answered with a clipped note that made the water around my snout vibrate.

The System translated what little my body could not.

[Response: Access Denied]

[Reason: Rotational Quota Full]

Rotational quota. There was a list somewhere in this section of sea that I was not on.

I stared into the flow and watched the prey move. Hunger spoke louder in me than protocol. I slid lower and took a spot along the underside of the stream. When the two patrol predators stunned their section, I lunged at the edge and took two prey bodies as they rolled.

I did not even have time to swallow.

A sharp disruption pulse sliced between me and the stunned fish. It did not touch my flesh. It hit the water instead, shredding the shape of my stun field.

My kills woke and bolted.

The System did not need to think before it reprimanded.

[Unapproved Harvest Attempt Detected]

[Risk of Retaliation: Moderate]

The word unapproved echoed in the space behind my teeth. This was no longer about who was strong enough to take. It was about who was allowed.

I backed away before the patrol decided to make an example of me. They did not chase. They had already denied me. That was enough.

I had learned something important. The Dominion did not only have routes. It had quotas. There were turns. Feeds. Permission.

I dropped out of that part of the Blue and retreated to the fringe currents. The place where pulses thinned and ownership blurred. No obvious patrol lines. No thick prey flows. No paired hunters. No overseer scans in the immediate distance.

Just a weaker life.

The prey here were low-nutrient grazers. Jelly shapes that drifted close to the sediment clouds. Small dartfish with little meat on their bones. It was tedious work. Each stun pulse netted almost nothing. Still, almost nothing was more than arguing with quotas.

I picked off what I could.

The System recorded the trickle.

[Biomass Intake: +16 Units]

[Biomass Intake: +21 Units]

[Biomass Intake: +12 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 687 / 8000]

Painfully slow.

The only grace in this section was freedom. No one sent me a directive pulse. No one claimed a lane. No one told me to leave. Only hunger moved me.

I pushed deeper into the fringe and found a pocket where currents curled lazily and small eel-shaped grazers clustered along mineral threads. They were soft, but richer than most of the things here.

I rolled a stronger pulse through the pocket and felt bodies slacken. This time, I did not hesitate. I tore through them, swallowing in quick, efficient bites until nothing twitched.

The System liked that more.

[Biomass Intake: +204 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 891 / 8000]

Still far from what I needed, but better than nothing.

The ache in my flank dimmed to a dull burn. I could move more cleanly. My pulses regained some strength. I was still below the line, but I was climbing.

Then a new vibration swept through the region.

It was not as crushing as the overseer pulse I had felt before. It did not flatten my hum. It did not feel like a god clearing its throat. But it was structured and wide. It rolled across the Blue in steady beats, like a signal being pushed through layers.

The System reacted before I could name it.

[Dominion Announcement Detected]

[Trade Wave Initiated]

[Migration Slot Redistribution: Active]

Trade wave.

Migration slot redistribution.

The words meant nothing yet, but the water understood them.

Currents shifted. Warm seams turned. Cold streams moved a little higher or lower. Prey flows began to bend away from their old paths. Predators peeled off from their usual routes and glided into new lanes. Pulses travelled between them in quick sequences. Confirmations. Acceptances.

No fights broke out. No one tried to hold old ground. They simply moved as if a rule had changed and they had always known it would.

It was not a storm. It was not chaos. It was something worse.

Administration.

The Dominion was not just a structure laid over wildness. It was an economy. Somebody somewhere had decided which lines would carry prey, who would have access, and when they would have it. That decision now flowed through the sea in ordered pulses.

I hung on the edge of my circuit and watched my familiar routes distort. The main prey flow shifted left and thinned. A secondary stream fattened along a new path. Patrol predators adjusted their positions.

And in all that movement, for a moment, things slipped.

A section of smaller prey broke away from the reformed flow. Confused by the new lanes, they drifted into open space with no guiding pulse and no patrol claim.

That was my crack.

I moved, ignoring the sting in my side. My hum rose to a proper strength for the first time since the injury. I pushed a strong stun burst into the broken cluster.

Half the school was locked in place.

I surged through them and fed hard.

The System tallied the gain.

[Biomass Intake: +312 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 1203 / 8000]

It was not enough.

I pushed again, angling along their path, sending another burst into the ones that had shaken off the first stun. More bodies slowed. I bit down until the muscles in my jaw ached and my throat burned with swallowed heat.

[Biomass Intake: +450 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 1653 / 8000]

Still not enough. But better. Much better.

The trade wave continued to ripple through the region. Flows twisted and reformed. Predators slid into new loops. For a narrow moment, there were no paired hunters blocking my angle. No quotas assigned to this broken fragment. No one had claimed it in the new pattern yet.

I used the gap.

I gathered what remained with shorter pulses, catching stragglers, snapping up the confused. Blood clouded the water in a wide band. The broken school thinned to nothing under my work.

The System chimed again, its tone unchanged.

[Biomass Intake: +204 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 1857 / 8000]

Still a minor rise in the long scheme, but meaningful after so many failed hunts. Enough to feel in my limbs. Enough to put weight back into my hum.

The trade wave settled over time. Currents found new beds. Predators slid into their updated lanes. The air of organised motion returned. It looked almost like before, only the paths were slightly different and the arrangements had shifted invisibly under the surface.

Everything around me moved with purpose.

Everything except me.

The System finished its update with one more suggestion.

[Recommendation: Seek Trade Alignment]

[Warning: Independent Hunting Reduces Long-Term Yield]

Trade alignment. That was its way of telling me to find a place in the quotas. To join the lanes. To negotiate.

I floated in the dim blue, flank still sore, but fuller than I had been since the pair had cut me. I understood the abyss. It was teeth and darkness. I understood the trench. It was pressure and territory. I understood hunger.

This was something else.

The Twilight Dominion was an economy. Routes and quotas. Trade waves. Shared hunts. Overseer audits. Energy managed across a wide, cold sea. Predators did not only kill. They followed the rules. They paid costs. They obeyed signals.

For now, I was outside that system. A solitary hunter stealing what I could from the edges.

My hum vibrated low and bitter in my chest.

Everything has a cost.

I turned into the shifting currents and swam on.