Nineteen hours. The timer bled down one second at a time in the corner of my eye, and I still hadn't used the skill once.
I was deep in Floor 2, in a sector where the corridors reconfigured every six hours. Two dead ends mapped already. My left forearm throbbed where the Ink Hound had bitten me. In my right hand, Ink Bite sat like a cold, coiled spring, waiting to snap. I had no idea of its range. No idea of its power. Just the weight of it, and the clock.
The corridor opened into a wider chamber. Blue light strips flickered erratically. In the center, a cluster of ink crystals glowed with a soft, internal light—a resource node. Hunters would kill for these. Guarding it was the reason why.
Someone had scratched three letters into the corridor wall beside the node: SUF. I had seen the same three letters in the Records bathroom stall and never asked what they meant.
An Ink Scribe Mantis. E-rank.
It was twice my height, a construct of hardened, glossy black chitin. Its forelimbs weren't limbs—they were bladed scribe's quills, tapered to monomolecular edges, coated in a sheen of wet ink. It paced in a slow, precise circle around the crystal cluster, its movements mechanical. Assessing. Writing in the air.
My Codex flickered.
**[Target Analysis — Ink Scribe Mantis]**
Rank: E
Threat Profile: Armored chassis. Bladed forelimbs (cutting/inscribing). Low mobility in confined spaces.
Weak Point: Joint articulation (cervical, thoracic, limb sockets).
Note: Internal ink structure is pressurized. Destabilization leads to catastrophic failure.
Ink Bite was F-grade. Those blades were E-rank. A straight attack wouldn't penetrate the chitin. I flexed my left hand. The cold spring tightened.
A second problem surfaced as I focused on the skill. A drain. Not on ink—on *me*. My vision tilted, then steadied. Using Ink Bite cost stamina. A lot of it. I was already running on fumes, scraped focus, and the stale protein bar I'd choked down hours ago.
I calculated. Three uses. Maybe. Three uses and I'd collapse. I had to win in three moves or less.
The Mantis completed its circuit. It stopped. Its faceted head rotated toward my hiding place in the corridor shadow. It had known I was here. It was waiting for me to make the first move.
Fine.
I didn't charge. I backed up, into the narrower corridor I'd just come from. The ceiling was lower here. Pipes and conduits ran overhead, crusted with dried ink residue. I kept my eyes on the chamber entrance.
The Mantis appeared in the doorway. It had to turn sideways to fit its bladed arms through. Perfect.
Round one.
I raised my left hand, palm out, aiming not at the beast, but at a section of the ceiling directly above it—a metal panel, corroded at the edges. I triggered Ink Bite.
The cold spring snapped.
A pulse of invisible force left my palm. No light. No sound. Just a sudden, violent *corrosion*. The metal panel didn't melt—it *disintegrated*, turning into black dust in an instant. The panel dropped.
The Mantis was fast. It tried to pivot back. Not fast enough.
The heavy panel slammed down on its right bladed forelimb. A sharp, cracking sound echoed in the corridor. Not the chitin breaking—the joint at the shoulder socket. The limb went limp, the blade scraping against the floor.
The beast let out a sound—a high-frequency screech like grinding metal. It twisted, its remaining functional blade scything toward me in a furious horizontal arc.
I ducked. Not low enough.
The tip of the bladed quill grazed my left side, just below the ribs. A line of fire erupted across my skin. I felt my shirt tear, then the wet warmth of blood soaking through the fabric. A real wound. Shallow, but bleeding freely.
I hit the ground, rolled, came up against the wall. The Mantis was recovering, dragging its damaged limb. Its good blade was raised, poised for a downward stab that would pin me to the floor.
It couldn't fully extend in the narrow space. That was my only advantage.
Round two was a draw. I was bleeding. It was damaged.
Round three. All in.
It stabbed down. I didn't dodge sideways. I dove *forward*, under its guard, into the space between its body and its good blade. The chitin of its torso was slick, cold. I slammed my left palm directly onto the cracked joint of its injured limb—the one place the armor was compromised.
I channeled Ink Bite directly into the wound.
The cold spring uncoiled with everything I had left.
This time, I felt it. A vibration. A resonance. The skill wasn't just corrosive—it was *destabilizing*. It sought the internal ink structure, the pressurized system that animated the Mantis, and introduced a flaw.
A tremor ran through the beast. Its screech cut off into a wet gurgle. The glossy black chitin of its torso spider-webbed with fine cracks, glowing from within with a sickly purple light. The light pulsed once, twice.
Then the Mantis simply… collapsed. Not like a felled animal. Like a sculpture of black glass shattering from the inside out. It hit the floor and dissolved into a pool of inert, dark ink, leaving only the two bladed forelimbs and the faintly glowing crystal cluster behind.
I slumped against the wall, gasping. My side burned. My vision swam. The cold weight in my left hand was gone. Emptied.
My Codex flared, bright enough to paint the corridor in blue light.
**[E-rank target eliminated using transcribed skill. Permanent inscription condition: MET.]**
**[Codex Panel — First Inscription]**
Rank: F-Rank Clerk
Inscription Slots: 1 / 3
─────────────────
Slot 1: Ink Bite (F-grade) ★ PERMANENT
─────────────────
**[No active timer]**
The twenty-four hour countdown in the corner of my vision winked out. Gone. The skill was mine. A permanent part of my Codex. Slot one of three, filled.
I pushed myself upright, clutching my bleeding side. The ink crystal cluster glowed invitingly. I ignored it. Resources were meaningless if I bled out here. I needed to get back to a safe zone.
I limped out of the narrow corridor, past the dissolving ink pool, and back toward the main thoroughfare that led to the Floor 2 exit. Each step sent a jolt of pain through my ribs. The blue light strips seemed dimmer. My own breathing was the only sound.
It took me forty minutes of slow, painful walking to reach the main junction—a four-way intersection marked by a broken directional pillar. The exit was to the north, maybe ten more minutes.
I stopped at the junction, leaning against the cold pillar to catch my breath. That's when I saw it.
Tucked into a crack in the pillar's base, almost invisible. A small, folded square of waterproof paper.
I knew that fold. My sister's fold. The one she used for field notes.
My left hand twitched once before my brain caught up. I crouched, teeth set against the pain in my side, and pried it out.
It wasn't a note. It was a map fragment. Hand-drawn in her precise, quick strokes. It depicted a section of Floor 3—the C-wing catalog sector. A path was highlighted in red ink, snaking through the stacks to a point marked with a single, stark symbol: a downward-pointing arrow, crossed with a question mark.
On the back, in her handwriting, just two words:
*They're migrating.*
I stared at the paper. My sister had been here. Recently. She'd left this for someone. For me? Or for anyone who knew her fold?
The map showed a way into Floor 3. A back way. Not through the official scanners.
My side throbbed. I had one permanent skill. I was bleeding. I had no business going deeper.
I folded the paper and slipped it into my pocket. The texture was familiar enough to ache.
I turned north, toward the exit, and started walking again. The timer was gone. The countdown had just changed shape.
Three years, and she'd been here. Recent enough that the ink hadn't even faded.