They stopped running.
That alone was enough to draw blood.
Choosing the Ground
The ruins were old—older than the city's current maps. Collapsed factories, broken rail spines, half-buried conduits that still hummed faintly with leftover power. A place like this didn't look valuable.
Which meant it wouldn't be watched carefully.
Yin Lie stood at the edge of a shattered loading bay, breathing slow, measured. Every inhale burned. Every exhale carried pain he no longer tried to suppress.
"This is where they'll come," he said.
Kai studied the terrain, eyes sharp. "Why here?"
"Because it's obvious," he replied. "And because they think we're desperate."
Qin Mian swallowed. "We are desperate."
Yin Lie glanced at her. "Yes. But not stupid."
Letting the World See You Bleed
They didn't hide their trail.
That was the first lie.
Yin Lie dragged his left foot just enough to leave uneven prints. Qin Mian let her Anchor flicker—weak, unstable pulses that leaked into the air like panic. Kai disabled two countermeasures on purpose, letting residual signals bleed into the local grid.
To the watchers above, it looked like collapse.
SUBJECT CONDITION: DETERIORATING
PROBABILITY OF CAPTURE: HIGH
The world took the bait.
The Hunters Close In
The team arrived quietly.
Five of them.
Not city units. Not contractors chasing bounties.
This was a specialized pursuit squad—tight formation, adaptive armor, weapons tuned for Variants who hit back.
They didn't rush.
They circled.
"Targets confirmed," one of them said calmly. "One mobile, one unstable, one escort."
Another voice replied, almost bored. "Clean capture if possible. Termination authorized."
They moved in.
The First Cut
The moment the lead hunter crossed the threshold of the loading bay—
the floor collapsed.
Not downward.
Sideways.
Space twisted violently as Qin Mian released the Anchor just enough to tilt geometry, sending the hunter slamming into a concrete wall at a wrong angle, bones breaking before armor could compensate.
The squad reacted instantly.
Weapons up. Formation spread.
Too late.
Yin Lie Moves First
Yin Lie stepped forward into their line of sight.
He didn't roar.
He didn't charge.
He waited.
When the first shot came, he moved half a second early—ice snapping into place as the round tore through where his head had been.
He closed the distance in three steps.
The pain almost dropped him.
Almost.
He drove his shoulder into the second hunter, ice reinforcing shattered bone just long enough to transfer momentum. The impact sent both of them through a rusted support beam.
The hunter didn't get back up.
They Adapt — Too Slowly
The remaining three adjusted tactics instantly.
Net weapons. Containment rounds. Suppression fields.
Kai answered with precision.
She took the third hunter down with two shots—one to disable the shield generator, one clean through the visor.
The fourth lunged for Qin Mian.
That was their last mistake.
Qin Mian Breaks the Pattern
Qin Mian didn't flare wide.
She didn't panic.
She stepped forward and collapsed distance, compressing space around the attacker's torso until armor screamed and metal folded inward.
The hunter screamed once.
Then went silent.
Blood sprayed across the broken floor.
Qin Mian staggered back, gasping, Anchor burning like fire in her chest.
Yin Lie caught her.
"I'm okay," she whispered.
"I'm okay."
They both knew it was a lie.
The Last One Runs
The fifth hunter broke formation.
Turned.
Tried to retreat.
Kai raised her weapon.
Yin Lie stopped her with a gesture.
"No," he said quietly.
He limped forward, each step costing more than the last.
The hunter turned just in time to see him.
Fear flickered behind the visor.
Yin Lie didn't kill him quickly.
He froze the ground beneath the hunter's feet, then the joints, then the weapon—layer by layer, methodical, controlled.
He leaned close.
"Tell them," Yin Lie said softly.
"We're not prey."
Then he shattered the ice.
Aftermath
The ruins fell silent again.
Five bodies.
No alarms.
No pursuit.
Just the sound of Qin Mian breathing too fast and Yin Lie's heartbeat struggling to keep rhythm.
Kai checked the perimeter.
"They'll know," she said. "Soon."
Yin Lie nodded.
"That's the point."
The Message Reaches the World
Far away, feeds updated.
One pursuit squad—lost.
No survivors.
No clean data.
Analysts stared at the results in silence.
The Director closed her eyes briefly.
"…They're learning," she said.
Someone else whispered, "And so are we."
End of the Chapter
Yin Lie sat heavily against a broken wall, exhaustion crashing over him at last.
Qin Mian knelt beside him, hands shaking as she wiped blood from his face.
"I was scared," she admitted.
He looked at the bodies in the distance.
"So were they."
Above them, the world adjusted its models again.
The hunt did not stop.
But it changed.
Because now, everyone understood one thing:
Chasing them
would cost lives.
And the next team sent after them
would know
they might not come back.