I CLIMB (A Progression/Evolution Sci-Fi Novel)

Alonso moved swiftly across the familiar terrain.

The air here was colder, drier—tainted by the lingering scent of char and old blood. The ground was fractured and uneven, littered with windblown ash and slivers of darkened bone.

He remembered the marks carved into the stone by their claws that day. He remembered the blood. The screams in the night as he ran for his life—Kahul, Tziib, Kinam, vice-leader Xam, and Captain Tohol.

He remembered the crash of Tohol's final stance, the echo of steel against chitin. The sound of corpses falling behind in the dark, swallowed by the black.

He remembered it all—as clear as if it were unfolding again before him.

Just over a month ago. Back when death had been so close it embraced him. When every moment had teetered on the edge.

But now—

He gripped his sword tighter.

Now, it wasn't the same.

He wasn't the same.

And this time… he wasn't alone.

Alonso drew in a slow breath, narrowing his eyes as he cleared his mind. His perception expanded in waves—delicate threads of EM pulses stretching outward in sync with his natural senses, brushing over stone, cracks, hidden tunnels, shifting air.

He scanned for openings. For any sign of a nest.

But before he could reach it, something else reached them.

A tremor.

Low skittering ahead.

"I'll take care of it."

Alonso gave a nod, signaling Wang with a subtle hand motion to hold position.

Ayu was already gone.

Her form blinked forward, bare feet slamming into the dusty earth hard enough to leave shallow craters. Her dagger flashed—one clean swipe across a Xok'al's throat, its body dropping before it could screech.

She twisted on her heel, her hips rotating with lethal grace, building momentum into a rising kick that shattered a second creature's skull like a melon.

She vanished again, and three more slashes rang out nearly in unison. Three bodies hit the ground seconds later, blood steaming as it splashed across the brittle rock and tufts of coarse, dying grass.

By the time Alonso arrived, the skirmish was over.

He surveyed the field—silent now, save for the soft drip of ichor seeping into the scorched soil.

He'd seen plenty of nests before. Cleared more than a few, with Ayu. While often hidden, they always left traces. Thin grooves carved by constant movement. Dampness under the stones. The faint metallic tang of iron and oxidised fluids drifting from deeper tunnels.

"Found it," Ayu called, crouching near a jagged crevice that split the ridge like a torn seam.

As usual, she'd picked it up by scent first.

Alonso approached, peering down.

The crevice narrowed as it descended, the walls covered in vein-like resin and pale blue fungal growth. A humid draft rose from below, tinged with rot and acid. The stone was slick in places, the start of a steep, natural funnel into blackness.

"I'm sending coordinates of the entrance. We're going in."

"Copy that," Lukas replied. "If it's too much, fall back. We'll cover you. If you want noise topside or a distraction, just say the word. Remember—you've got a full team out here."

Alonso sent a quick thumbs-up.

Then he followed Ayu down into the dark, swords held low, his mind already shifting into combat rhythm.

The entrance narrowed quickly—walls closing in, pressing tighter with every step. Faint pulses of bioluminescence flowed along the stone like sluggish veins, casting pale, sickly glows that flickered across the damp floor.

The air grew thick.

Hot. Stale. Saturated with pheromones and rot.

Suddenly, round projectiles tore through the passage—shrieking past in rapid succession. But none hit. Not even grazes. The three of them moved unfazed, stride unbroken, as if the barrage were nothing but mist.

Then came the first wave.

A cluster of Xok'al lunged from the shadowed bends of the tunnel. Wang stepped forward in one fluid motion, his long zhanmadao arcing wide. The blade cleaved through torsos with frightening ease, edge cutting from clavicle to hip as his footwork darted side-to-side.

A blur of steel and motion.

Limbs hit the walls. Blood spattered the moss-covered ground. But the path remained clear.

Alonso pressed forward, eyes locked ahead—scanning the terrain for the next split in the tunnels, mapping the likely route toward the final coordinates.

The enemy surged again—this time in greater numbers. Two-tails. Three-tails. Fast, clawed limbs scraping along the walls as they advanced in tight packs. Their tails flicked upward and launched projectiles in timed volleys. Blades whirled through the air, catching the glowlight as they spun.

And yet—

"Too slow," Ayu murmured, her head twitching just slightly—dodging a projectile that passed within millimetres of her neck.

Without even glancing back, her arm swept low.

The dagger plunged clean into the throat of a three-tail, its body folding before it hit the stone.

"Found the path down. Let's go," Alonso called, already veering into a sloped tunnel to the left.

They accelerated. The air thickened. The walls tightened once more, the stone growing warmer, almost alive.

Then—contact.

An electromagnetic domain lashed outward like a pulse of static force—the unmistakable signal of a Commander-tier Xok'al.

Wang dropped low, blade raised, knees bending in preparation. His mech suit flared as Heart of Sparks surged in his grip, its field crackling to life.

But—

He paused.

A flicker of confusion crossed his face.

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Neither Ayu nor Alonso stopped.

They didn't even flinch.

They just kept moving—slipping through the tunnel's curve as if the Commander's wave hadn't even touched them.

Alonso noticed Wang's reaction—the Xok'al's EM domain clearly affecting him and his armor. He quickly glanced at Ayu.

"Up for it?"

"Sure," she grinned, her body heating up, muscles bulging slightly as her form blurred—appearing in front of the Commander Xok'al before it could even react.

The creature barely managed to block with its scimitar-shaped limbs—but it was all a feint.

Ayu crouched, slashing its thigh, then fast-stepped behind it, briefly jumping even before the tail even twitched.

Her kukri followed through, piercing the lower spine. A crack echoed as vertebrae snapped—the Xok'al's lower body collapsed. It turned to retaliate, but Ayu was already gone, her footsteps soft beside Alonso as blood dripped from her bone blade.

The Commander Xok'al staggered—then collapsed, dead.

Wang gulped at the display of power, wondering if this was truly the Ayu he knew.

It wasn't just her speed or force. It was the smoothness of her movements—an unbroken sequence exploiting the creature's blind spots and delayed reactions. The kind of mastery that could only come from impossible levels of muscle memory and refined instinct.

He knew her SP was higher than his. Knew she'd refined her technique—Fury—more than his Heart of Sparks.

But still… why did the gap feel so big?

"Wang, let's go," Alonso called.

He snapped out of it and followed, cutting down the swarming three-tails, letting the questions and doubts fade—one strike at a time.

Their path continued. Two more Commander-class Xok'al emerged before they even reached the next level, but Ayu dispatched them with relative ease under Fury.

The tunnels twisted and narrowed, the walls pulsing with thick biological tissue. One-tail workers and infant Xok'al flickered in and out of view, scuttling through side burrows.

Alonso kept scanning, though his gaze lingered on Wang more than once.

Wang was fast—faster than most, thanks to his Awakening and the Ajnal technique—but he relied entirely on his EM domain to counter the Xok'al's. His armour, powerful as it was, conducted too much feedback, dragging him down more than it helped when facing the four-tails.

That was precisely why Alonso had long since abandoned metal in his own armour—and as for his blades, he'd learned how to shield them completely from enemy waves.

He wasn't sure if Lukas' decision to place Wang on the entry team had been the right call. Wang could hold his own against a Commander in a one-on-one fight, sure—but the margin wasn't wide enough to make it efficient.

The lack of experience was obvious. He moved like a duelist mid-exhibition, or someone piloting a flashy mech suit in a tournament—precise, fast, stylish—but not lethal. He relied on speed and gear, but his technique was riddled with gaps.

Ayu had noticed it too. Their glance said enough.

Maybe they'd expected too much. Or maybe the Ajnal weren't suited for fighting Xok'al the way beastmen were.

"How's the situation going down there? Need some airstrikes from the top? Rumble it out?" Lukas' voice crackled in.

Alonso chuckled, sending back a pulse. "Just keep an eye out for reinforcements. Xok'al communicate over long distances through their swarm neural network. If a Warden shows up, then we might need you guys to intervene. Otherwise, stay hidden and wait for the good news."

Lukas paused on the other side, sensing the confidence. "Alright. Keep us updated."

Alonso confirmed, while Houston silently pushed a real-time 3D map of the nest's structure to the others—its layout updating live from the data fed in by their descent.

"We're already over a hundred meters deep. Halfway there," Alonso said as he stepped through a cluster of Xok'al, his body barely shifting—just a breath, just a glide.

He emerged clean on the far side, and behind him, every Xok'al dropped at once with a dull, unified thud. Each throat bore a single, razor-thin cut—silent, bloodless, final.

Ayu moved in next, veering sideways to the narrow edge of the tunnel. Her bare feet pressed into the stone, toes gripping cracks and tiny crevices with impossible precision as she redirected her weight. A shift in tension, a subtle pull in her spine—and she launched.

The four-tail opened fire, but hit only her afterimage.

By the time its sensors registered the anomaly, Ayu was already there.

She reversed the grip on her right kukri as she landed, her breath measured, her posture low. Steam hissed softly from her skin—each pore exhaling heat like a furnace under control. Her left blade came first—angled low, slicing a tendon. A pivot of her hip, and the right kukri followed, carving across the Commander's abdomen in a shallow crescent.

The beast retaliated—but she wasn't there. Her body had already shifted two paces to the side.

Before the Xok'al could follow up with its upper claw coming down, Ayu had already slipped beneath the future arc, her body low and coiled. She slid forward in a tight line, then drove her knee into the creature's inner joint with a sharp crack. The impact staggered it, throwing off its balance.

The second kukri rose clean and silent behind the motion.

One final cut.

The Commander collapsed with a hiss, its limbs spasming once before falling still, blood spurting across the murky ground in uneven pulses.

Across the tunnel, Wang had pushed Heart of Sparks to its threshold, his body a flickering blur of light and motion. Sparks danced across his frame, funnelling into the Zhanmadao as he struck—the blade cleaving through the Commander's defense with a crack of heat and force, but not enough. The strike took its arm clean from the shoulder, but failed to reach the heart.

Before he could adjust, one of the Xok'al's tails smashed against his ribs, the sheer blunt force knocking the wind from his lungs and breaking his rhythm. He stumbled—only for a split second—but it was enough to expose him. With no choice, he flooded his armour with Heart of Sparks, sacrificing control for raw escape velocity, and vanished from the spot just as another tail sliced the air behind him.

He reappeared behind the creature, the blade coming down in a wide arc, barely guided. This time it hit true.

The Xok'al finally fell.

Wang's heartbeat thundered in his chest, his breath ragged, and the strain already showing in his shoulders. He'd pushed Heart of Sparks too far, too frequent. The backlash gnawed at his muscles, at his thoughts, at his core. Every movement now came at a cost.

Still, he forced himself to keep moving, pushing past the burn in his limbs as he caught up with the other two deeper in the tunnel.

But as he reached them and saw the way they stood, reality struck him hard.

Ayu stood loose and ready, both kukris lowered at her sides, her skin barely touched by sweat, her breathing steady and quiet, as if the fights hadn't even happened.

Alonso stood straight, sword balanced lazily on his shoulder, his gaze lost as he analysed the internal map Houston was feeding him with the ease of someone out for a walk rather than deep inside enemy territory.

Wang approached, jaw clenched, trying—and failing—to steady the tremor in his arms.

He—

"Wang, retreat toward the others."

The words hit like a hammer.

"What?"

Alonso didn't turn. "Lukas, send in support. Wang is returning."

"Alonso, wait, I—"

"Wang," Alonso said, his voice flat, "you're not prepared to face the Xok'al."

There was no anger in his tone. No sharp edge of insult. Not even the condescension Wang feared most—just truth, delivered like any other obvious battlefield observation, detached and precise.

Ayu said nothing. Her gaze remained fixed ahead as she wiped the blood from her blades, the motion smooth, practiced, indifferent.

Wang clenched his jaw. His pride flared hot in his chest. His fingers tightened around the grip of his weapon until the veins stood out along his forearms.

But he didn't argue.

Because deep down, he knew Alonso was right.

"Imani and Jun's squad Mecas are already on the way. Is everything okay? Is Wang fine?" Lukas sent.

"Yes. I'm sending you an update," Alonso replied, transmitting both his assessment of Wang's condition and the most efficient route towards him.

Lukas picked up on the subtext immediately and let out a quiet breath. After exchanging data with Alonso earlier, he'd expected Wang to be somewhat behind him and Ayu—but not by this much. The gap was staggering. Was it technique? The reliance on conductive armour? Combat experience? All of that?

He made a mental note to reassess once the operation was over.

"Roger that. Imani, initiate live feedback sync with Wang. Alonso, Ayu—you two fine moving forward alone?"

"Yes."

Wang held Alonso's gaze a moment longer before exhaling. He didn't say anything. Just nodded, turned, and made his way back.

Seconds later, Alonso stepped forward, Ayu falling in beside him without a word.

A breath later, the air shifted—and they became nothing but echoes swallowed by the dark.