I woke up before the system did.
That alone told me everything had changed.
No alerts.No countdown.No whispered hunger clawing at the back of my skull.
Just breath.My own.
The ceiling above me was familiar—the academy dorm, cracked paint, faint hum of old shielding arrays. Morning light leaked through the blinds in thin lines, cutting the room into quiet geometry.
For the first time in many lives, the world felt… unforced.
The Predator System finally came online.
Not with a command.
With a status.
[SYSTEM BOOT SEQUENCE: COMPLETE][ACTIVE CYCLE: ONE][USER: PRIMARY VARIABLE][NOTE: PREVIOUS DEFINITIONS INVALID]
I sat up slowly.
My body felt different. Not stronger. Not weaker.
Integrated.
Like something that had always been there finally stopped resisting.
The mark behind my ribs was still present—but it no longer pulled. It rested. A scar that had learned its place in the body.
I stood and looked at my hands.
They were steady.
Too steady.
⸻
Campus was already awake.
Students moved between buildings, laughing, arguing, complaining about trivial things. News drones hovered overhead, projecting sanitized reports about the Broadwood Incident.
"Dungeon instability contained.""No further risk detected.""Administrator oversight functioning as intended."
Lies, stacked neatly for public consumption.
I walked through them unnoticed.
Not because I was hidden—
—but because the world hadn't learned how to see me yet.
The Predator System updated quietly as I crossed the central plaza.
[ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSE: NORMAL][ANOMALY DETECTION: NONE][OBSERVATION: SYSTEM IS ADAPTING TO YOU]
Good.
That meant it hadn't caught up.
Yet.
I entered the training hall.
Conversations died one by one.
Not fear.
Recognition.
They didn't know why they were looking at me—but something in them understood that I didn't belong to the same flow anymore.
A rank board flickered on the far wall.
My name was still there.
Eliasz Kierski — F-Rank
Suppressed.Maintained.
A lie everyone could agree on.
I smiled faintly.
⸻
Someone was waiting near the arena entrance.
Mira.
Not a projection.Not an anchor.
Her.
She stood stiffly, like someone unsure whether the ground would hold. Pale. Thinner. But real in a way that made the air around her feel warmer.
Alive.
Our eyes met.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
The Predator System stayed silent.
That mattered more than anything.
"You're awake," she said quietly.
"So are you," I replied.
Her hands trembled slightly before she clenched them into fists.
"I remember pieces," she said. "Not everything. But I know I wasn't… alone."
"You weren't."
She searched my face, trying to find the shape of the truth without forcing it.
"They won't tell me what happened," she said. "They say the logs are corrupted."
"They are."
"Was it you?"
"Yes."
A pause.
She let out a breath she'd clearly been holding for days.
"Then… thank you."
No drama.No tears.
Just acknowledgment.
Cycle One didn't need confessions.
⸻
The Unknown Predator appeared near the observation deck—no system distortion, no forced presence.
Just a man leaning against the railing, watching students train like none of this concerned him.
"They're rewriting protocols," he said without looking at me. "Quietly. Carefully. They don't want to admit they lost control."
"Did they?" I asked.
He smiled thinly.
"They lost certainty," he replied. "Control comes later."
He glanced at Mira—then back to me.
"Cycle One is unstable," he continued. "Not broken. Just… undefined."
"That's the point," I said.
He nodded once.
"Then you should know this," he added. "The Administrator didn't die."
I already knew.
"It fragmented," he said. "Distributed itself across auxiliary systems. It's weaker. But harder to kill."
"I'm not trying to kill it."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Then what are you trying to do?"
I looked at the arena, at students fighting for ranks that suddenly meant less than they thought.
"I'm going to let it learn," I said. "The same way predators do."
The Unknown Predator laughed quietly.
"Careful," he said. "That's how gods start."
"No," I replied. "That's how cycles end."
⸻
The Predator System delivered one final update for the day.
Not a warning.
Not an order.
An invitation.
[NEW PATH AVAILABLE][DESIGNATION: UNBOUND PROGRESSION][NOTE: THIS PATH CANNOT BE REVOKED]
I accepted without hesitation.
Somewhere deep beneath the academy, systems adjusted. Not to restrain me—
—but to keep up.
Cycle One had begun.
And this time, the hunt wasn't about survival.
It was about direction.