Months passed, well, at least I assumed so, the current carried us out of the Convergence Node in a slow, steady line. Dozens of predators moved around me in a quiet column. Not ordered by choice. Ordered by the pulse. The Summons signal still sat under my ribs. It had not faded. It had not softened. It beat like a second heart, keeping time with the others. I kept pace because any attempt to fall out of it felt like dragging myself through broken rock.

My flank still ached. The wound had closed, but the muscle pulled every time I turned. The handler pulse from before had aggravated it. Each kick sent a shallow pain up my side, but stopping was not an option. The current did not slow for me. The predators did not shift to make room. If I fell behind, the pulse would drag me back into line or rip through me until I learned to obey.

The System repeated the same lines over and over. A steady drip against the back of my skull.

[Directive: Maintain Formation]

[Handler: Apex Entity Pending Manifestation]

[Compliance: Required]

The words did not sound aggressive. They sounded like directions on a chart. Clean. Unemotional. Certain.

I tried a small change of angle, shifting half a body length to the left. The pulse hit me before I moved more than a few metres. A short, sharp jolt under the ribs. Not pain. Correction. I felt my head straighten and my path return to the line the current wanted.

I slowed my tail for one single beat. The pulse sped me up again.

I tightened my fins. The pulse forced them open.

I exhaled a little harder than needed. The pulse softened it.

Nothing I did went unnoticed. Nothing I attempted had any sway. I was not being guided. I was being steered. My body did the work, but the rhythm inside me held the wheel.

We moved deeper into the broad current that had opened ahead of the Node. It ran like a straight river through the Twilight, carrying predators in a long arc. The water thickened as we entered it. Not physically. Through vibration. Bands of overlapping frequencies crossed each other in steady patterns. I heard pulses from places I could not see. Narrow tones marked the positions of predators far ahead. Low thrums from predators behind us. A wide hum runs through the entire corridor like a spine.

The System labelled it.

[Location: Gathering Current]

[Function: Predator Consolidation Corridor]

[Purpose: Mass Relocation and Resource Routing]

Relocation. Resource routing. I kept repeating the words to myself because they felt alien. How could predators be relocated like materials? How could the Dominion route us as if we were water or stones or heat?

Yet the current made it clear. Every predator in the region was being moved. No resistance. No confusion. No scattered paths. All of them sliding like beads along the same thread.

The deeper we moved into it, the more obvious the structure became. Lanes formed without walls or fences. The water carried predators of different sizes into different paths. High frequency hunters moved in one band, vibrating at speeds that blurred their outlines. Low-frequency grazers drifted more slowly in a wider path. Pairs kept to central lanes. Scavengers clung to the lower pressure path where they could pick at scraps from bigger hunters.

Unaligned predators, like me, were drawn into a lower amplitude lane. I recognised some shapes. Injured hunters from the Trade Wave. Small predators that had lost their partners. Juveniles with shaky pulses. And solitary types like me who had not aligned with any unit or overseer.

System confirmed it.

[Category: Unaligned Predator]

[Placement: Lower Dominion Stream]

Lower stream. It sounded harmless. But the message was clear. The Dominion had layers. I drifted at the bottom of them.

Then the System added another line.

[Handler Claim: Verified]

Claimed. The word hit hard every time I heard it. I had not asked for that. I had not agreed. But the Summons signal had been chosen.

The predators around me shifted when the current thickened again. A sudden change in pressure moved through the water. Instinct crawled up my spine. Not fear. A warning. Something larger was approaching.

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The hum changed. It flattened into silence. Even the smallest flex of fin or tail felt wrong, like trying to move beneath a fallen tree trunk. The water ahead darkened. A shadow passed through the upper haze. Slow. Broad. Deliberate.

Predators around me tightened their bodies. None fled. None produced a pulse. Every hum flattened itself in submission.

The System did not whisper this time. It spoke in a sharp tone.

[High Amplitude Apex Approaching]

[Designation: Handler Class Entity]

Handler class. Not a Leviathan Overlord. Not a migrating apex predator. A structured enforcer. The thing guiding the Summons.

The shadow solidified as it drew closer. A long-bodied creature, thick along the spine, its tail dragging a wake that cut through the current like a trench. Plates covered its sides. Cracked. Scarred. Repaired. The resonance organ along its back pulsed like a steady drum, glowing with faint red light.

It did not hunt. It inspected.

Its presence pushed aside the hum of every predator nearby. When it passed above me, my ribs vibrated so hard I thought the plates would rattle loose.

It stopped.

Right above me.

A directed pulse hit my chest. It was not an attack. Not a greeting. A question.

The System translated.

[Handler Inquiry: Accept or Resist]

I hesitated. One moment. One heartbeat of uncertainty. It was enough.

The lash hit me like a blade of pressure. It cut across my flank, tighter than the wound from the paired predators. A white flash ran across my vision. I kicked out of reflex, nearly drifting out of my lane.

System chirped.

[Integrity: 89%]

[Warning: Noncompliance Registered]

I reacted before another lash came. I sent a low pulse through the water. A simple acknowledgment.

The handler's pulse softened. Only slightly. Enough to signal that my answer had been noted.

Accepted.

Claimed.

It drifted forward, leaving me behind like a piece added to an inventory.

Behind it, the Summons pulse hardened into a more precise rhythm. It pointed into a deeper branch of the Gathering Current. The group began to turn toward it. I followed because there was nothing else to do.

The handler sent a second command. Sharper. More exact. It struck each of us in the unaligned lane like a stamp.

System interpreted.

[Directive: Relocate to Sub Basin Twelve]

[Task: Participate in Harvest Cycle]

[Penalty for Failure: Lethal Force Authorised]

Harvest cycle tightened something cold under my plates. It did not sound like a hunt. It sounded like labour.

I tested the thought of stopping for half a beat. The handler sent a correction pulse. It slid straight into my spine and forced my muscles to move.

I tried again. A tiny deviation. Another correction. Sharper.

The Summons pulse and the handler pulse worked together. One directed movement. The other punished deviation.

I had no choice. My body moved as if someone else had their jaw clamped on the back of my skull.

The lower stream of unaligned predators formed into a neat convoy. Some shook from fear. Others did not understand what was happening. A few were large enough to be confident until the handler drifted overhead and they lowered their tones like the rest.

Every pulse the handler sent had corrected spacing.

One predator drifted too far forward. Correction.

One lagged. Correction.

One turned its head too sharply. Correction.

We were being shaped into something. Not soldiers. Not hunters. Tools.

The System logged a measurement.

[Integration Level: Increasing]

[Group Alignment: 41%]

I felt none of the alignment. Only pressure. But the System insisted the number was climbing.

The current bent around a small mass of prey. I smelled blood and iron. Instinct pushed me forward. The group surged with me. A brief moment with no correction pulse. A chance to feed.

I hesitated. If it was unapproved, the lash would come.

The handler did not pulse the restraint.

I lunged.

The prey cloud broke apart under my hum. I snapped my jaws around a cluster of soft-bodied feeders. Warm liquid ran down my throat. I felt the numbers rise.

[Biomass Intake: +833 Units]

[Biomass Pool: 2988 / 8000]

[Growth Cycle: 266]

A minor gain. Not much. But enough to remind me I could still act on my hunger when allowed. The group fed in small bursts around me. Scavengers snapped at scraps. Juveniles darted through the mess.

Then the handler fired a pulse.

[Break Approved]

[Reform Formation]

We obeyed. The feeding cloud broke apart. Prey scattered. The current continued to carry us deeper.

It felt like losing something. Not the prey. The instinct. The freedom. Every moment under the handler tightened the leash around my ribs. Not a rope. A rhythm.

The corridor narrowed as we approached the basin. The current thickened. The walls of the sea pressed closer. The water carried heavy echoes. Pressure traps. Feeding pockets. Cold seams filled with dying prey.

The system named it.

[Location: Sub Basin Twelve]

[Function: Controlled Feeding Zone]

[Population: Unaligned Predators and Tiered Recruits]

Controlled feeding zone. A place to manage growth. Regulate it. Decide how much each predator could take.

I found myself drifting at the centre of the group, pushed by the rhythm, squeezed by the current. The handler drifted behind us like a closing gate. No way back.

The basin opened beneath us. Its centre glowed faintly with the bodies of prey forced into a tight spiral. The scent of blood thickened. The hum of predators layered across the water. At the far end of the basin, two more handler class shapes moved in slow arcs, checking positions.

Every predator here had been placed.

The water did not feel wild. It felt owned.

The pulse in my ribs tightened again. The Summons rhythm softened, replaced by a new pattern. A schedule. The first beat of something I did not yet understand.

I drifted with the others, feeling the cage settle around me.

The sea had always given and taken. Always traded. But here, in the Dominion, I understood something new.

The sea was no longer the one in control.

The Dominion decided.

And I was now part of its ledger.