Zay woke up with dry blood crusted around his ear and the faint taste of copper in his mouth. GravEdge didn't have beds—just slabs of carbon composite laid out in the maintenance corridor, half-lit by flickering wall strips. He stretched his sore limbs, every joint popping like rusted hinges, and slid to his feet. His hoodie clung to him, damp with sweat and old gore. The scent of oil, ozone, and concrete rot was already home. But today, the gym felt different. Stiller. Hungrier. Something was coming.
He left without a word, lacing up his shredded runners and hitting the streets above. The early morning in the Dust was always strange—too quiet, like the city was pretending to sleep but kept one eye open, watching. He jogged through broken skybridges and under the flayed skeletons of old advertising towers, his breath fogging in the smog-thick air. Zay ran not just to train, but to hunt silence. Somewhere in the rhythm of footfalls and pulsing blood, the world made sense again. But he wasn't alone. As he passed an alley near Burner's Row, a gaunt figure stepped out of the shadow—bald, tattooed, with a coat too big and eyes that didn't blink enough.
"You got hell in your stride, kid," the man said, lighting a short metal cigarette. "Keep walking like that, you'll end up finding something worse than death."
Zay slowed, eyes scanning. The man didn't reach for a weapon, didn't posture. Just watched. Zay shrugged and kept running. "Let it find me."
Later that day, with his legs aching and his fists still raw from yesterday's slaughter, Zay wandered into a place called The Molten Lung—a half-submerged bar stitched into a sewer runoff pipe. The walls were fungus-covered chrome, and the drinks were served in heat-tempered glass mugs that hissed when touched. Zay didn't know why he came. Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe he just wanted to see if the bartender would flinch when he ordered a synth-whiskey while still smeared in blood.
She didn't.
He sat beside an old man nursing a glass of something green and thick. They didn't talk for a while. Just drank. Then, the man spoke.
"You fight like a feral dog. I saw you drop Mantis. That wasn't boxing. That was dissection."
Zay smirked, eye twitching from a still-swollen orbital. "You got complaints?"
"No," the man replied, never looking up. "I got a warning. Someone's watching you."
Zay narrowed his eyes. "Who?"
The man tapped his glass. "Not someone you can knock out."
Then he stood and limped out, leaving Zay with nothing but questions and a sickening burn down his throat. He didn't chase him. People like that weren't meant to be chased.
Back in GravEdge, the air was feverish. Fighters buzzed with a tension Zay hadn't felt before. Vega was pacing. Silas and Lena leaned against the wall, unusually quiet.
"You know who just walked in?" Vega asked.
Zay spat onto the floor. "Should I care?"
She pointed with her chin toward the far side of the cage.
Standing there was a mountain of a man, dressed in a black combat exosuit with cybernetic tendrils curling around his neck like living wire. Bald, square-jawed, skin marked with deep scars and regimental barcodes, he looked like he had punched through more men than he could count—and remembered each name. A deep gouge above his right eye pulsed with a glowing red chip. And his gloves? They were military-issue crush gauntlets.
"Hakon," Lena whispered. "Used to be Heavyweight World Champion before the war cycles. Ten years ago. Now he's a military advisor for the corp-police. No one touches him."
Zay grinned wide, his teeth red. "Looks like I just found my warm-up."
They met in the cage with no ref, no crowd, no rules.
Hakon didn't speak. He simply nodded once, raised his fists, and moved with terrifying precision. His first jab struck like a battering ram, slamming into Zay's forearm and nearly snapping it. Zay grunted and twisted, absorbing the blow, then returned fire with a savage left hook—but Hakon absorbed it like metal. The man didn't flinch. Didn't even blink.
Then he hit back.
It was like being struck by a truck. Zay flew into the cage wall, ribs screaming, lungs empty. Blood gushed from his mouth, thick and bubbling. He laughed. "Okay, pops. That was cute."
Zay sprang forward, boots skidding across the rubber mat, and unleashed a flurry. Hooks, crosses, body shots—all fueled by rage and desperation. But Hakon blocked most with inhuman grace. His counters were brutal: a hook to the kidney that made Zay vomit blood mid-swing, a jaw-crunching uppercut that dislocated Zay's teeth. The crowd winced. Even Vega looked away.
But Zay… he laughed again. Laughing through blood, through broken teeth, through pain that would kill most.
"You punch like a retired mascot."
Then Zay changed.
He dropped low, twisted inside Hakon's reach, and rammed his elbow into the base of the military giant's spine. Hakon staggered—just for a second. That second was enough. Zay's fist shot up, shattering the ex-champ's nose. Blood geysered. Zay followed with a savage knee to the face, then drove his thumb into Hakon's eye socket. The man howled, grabbed Zay by the throat—but Zay slammed both fists against his temples like twin hammers. Hakon reeled, disoriented.
Then Zay grabbed the side of Hakon's jaw, and with a scream of effort, snapped it sideways.
The crowd went dead silent.
Hakon fell like a crumbling pillar, his jaw hanging, one eye ruined, face drenched in thick arterial red. Zay stood over him, chest heaving, fists trembling. His mouth twisted into a smirk.
"Get off my mat, old man."
Nobody clapped. Nobody moved. But something shifted in that moment—like the ground itself knew it had just witnessed something unholy. Vega stepped into the cage, expression unreadable.
"You just broke the champion of ten years ago like he was made of damp clay."
Zay shrugged. "He's the past. I'm the problem."
Lena crossed her arms. "You're insane."
"Damn right I am."
Silas handed him a towel. "You've got it now."
"Got what?"
"Our respect," Vega said quietly. "And our fear."
Zay wiped the blood from his face. "Good."
Outside, the city howled. Somewhere, someone watched. The dream burned brighter. But in that pit, covered in another man's blood, Zay Calderón knew one thing with violent certainty: this wasn't the top.
This was only the beginning of the climb.