The creature hit the wall hard enough to shake dust loose from the ceiling.
Kael felt the impact through his boots, a dull thud that traveled up his legs and settled in his spine. He didn't move. He watched.
The thing unfolded itself from the wall slowly, joints clicking as it reoriented. Its limbs scraped metal as it turned, testing the space again. The corridor was too narrow for it to build speed. It knew that now.
Kael flexed his right hand.
Heat gathered under the skin—controlled, contained. He kept it there, just below the point where the claws would surface. The pressure behind his eyes sharpened, then steadied.
Five percent.
The creature lunged.
Kael stepped inside the motion instead of away from it. The timing felt obvious, like the monster had announced itself a second before it moved. He caught one of its forward limbs with his left hand and twisted. The joint gave with a wet sound.
The creature shrieked. The sound scraped along the corridor, high and broken.
Kael didn't flinch.
He let the claws surface—just enough. The tips broke skin, dark and curved, heat bleeding off them in waves. He drove his hand forward, not hard, not fast. Precise.
The claws slid between plates at the base of the creature's neck.
The shriek cut off.
The body sagged, weight pulling against Kael's grip. He let it drop. It hit the floor and didn't move again.
Silence rushed in to fill the space.
Kael stood over the corpse, breathing steady. His heart rate hadn't spiked. His hands weren't shaking. The heat under his skin faded quickly, leaving only a faint tightness.
He looked down at the creature.
Then he frowned.
"That's it?" Juno said from behind him.
Kael didn't answer right away. He crouched, nudged the body with his boot. No response. No reflex. Dead.
Mira stepped closer, careful not to touch anything. Her eyes tracked the wounds, the angle of the kill.
"You barely changed," she said.
Kael straightened. "I didn't need to."
Juno snorted. "That thing tore through a reinforced corridor."
Kael wiped his claws against his sleeve. The skin retracted, leaving his hand human again. "It relied on mass and reach."
"And?" Juno pressed.
"And it telegraphed everything."
He paused, then added, quieter, "I could've used less."
The words hung there, awkward and unfinished.
Mira looked at him sharply. "Less than that?"
Kael nodded once.
He turned away from the body and started walking. The corridor felt different now—lighter, like the pressure had eased. The Law flowed back into the space, tentative, then steady.
Juno followed, boots echoing. "So what does that make it?"
Kael didn't slow. "Tier two. Maybe low three."
Mira blinked. "You're sure?"
"It tried to overwhelm," Kael said. "Didn't adapt. Didn't retreat."
Juno let out a low whistle. "And you killed it at—what—ten?"
"Five."
They stopped walking.
Juno stared at him. "Five?"
Kael turned to face her. "Anything more would've been waste."
Mira crossed her arms, fingers digging into the fabric of her jacket. "Waste of what?"
Kael hesitated.
The corridor hummed around them, systems settling back into rhythm. Somewhere far off, a door sealed. Another opened.
"Of margin," he said finally.
Juno's expression shifted—not fear, not awe. Calculation. "And twenty‑five?"
Kael didn't answer immediately.
He closed his eyes for a moment. The memory came uninvited—the way the world narrowed when he pushed higher, the way thoughts thinned out, the way faces stopped registering as people and started registering as obstacles.
"When I hit twenty‑five," he said, "I stop thinking ahead."
Mira's voice was quiet. "And after?"
Kael opened his eyes. "There is no after."
They stood there, the three of them, the dead monster cooling behind them.
Juno broke the silence first. "So you're Enhanced baseline."
Kael nodded.
"And at max?" she asked.
"Elite," he said. "Middle."
Mira frowned. "That doesn't line up with what you just did."
Kael looked back down the corridor, at the body they'd left behind. "That's because most things don't require elite force."
Juno exhaled slowly. "You're saying the danger isn't the monsters."
Kael didn't correct her.
They started moving again.
As they walked, Kael felt the familiar itch under his skin—the echo of transformation, already fading. He focused on it, catalogued it, let it go.
Five percent.
Enough to kill.
Enough to stay himself.
For now.