The Titan was dead, but the bunker was uninhabitable.

  The center of the room was a cooling lake of slag where the floor had melted. The rest of the space was a knee-deep swamp of toxic yellow sludge, boiling mud, and the tangled carcasses of fifty mutated eels.

  The air didn't smell like victory. It smelled of sulfur, boiled fish, and the copper tang of smelting slag.

  I stood on the gantry, looking down at my Kingdom of sewers.

  [ Class Ability: Blueprint Mode (Active) ]

  I triggered the new Tier 2 interface.

  The world shifted. The red danger highlights of [ Architect's Vision ] faded, replaced by a calm, translucent blue grid.

  The wireframe overlay mapped the entire bunker. I saw the geometry of the walls, the load-bearing limits of the ceiling, and the hidden infrastructure beneath the filth.

  I focused on [ Sanitation ].

  Blue lines lit up beneath the sludge. I saw the ghost of the original drainage system—massive outflow pipes that had been clogged with debris and dead eels during the fight.

  [ Obstruction Detected: Main Grate ]

  [ Efficiency: 0% ]

  I didn't need magic to fix this. I needed labor.

  "Vance!" I called out, my voice cutting through the exhaustion in the room. "Take Team A. The grate in the northeast corner is blocked."

  I pointed to a specific square on the grid that only I could see.

  "Kael!"

  The rebel leader looked up. He was covered in yellow muck, leaning on his iron pipe. He looked tired, but the terror was gone, replaced by a grim pragmatism.

  "Take the shovels," I ordered. "Clear the intake valve. If we don't flush this room in ten minutes, the toxins settle."

  Kael didn't argue. He didn't ask for a vote. He grabbed a shovel from the debris pile.

  He caught my eye. He nodded—a sharp, silent acknowledgment of the reality we lived in. He waded into the sludge, waving his team forward.

  "Dig!" Kael shouted.

  I watched them work. As they shoveled the piles of eel meat and concrete dust away from the grates, the blue lines on my [ Architect Vision ] turned green.

  [ Flow Restored ]

  The sound started as a gurgle, then became a roar. The suction took hold. The yellow sludge swirled into a vortex over the drains, dragging the filth down into the deep mains.

  Within minutes, the floor was clear. It was wet, stained, and smelled terrible, but it was concrete.

  Emily walked up the ramp to the gantry. She looked exhausted, her face smudged with soot, but her clipboard was already out.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "Status," I said.

  "We have protein," she said, gesturing to the corner where a team was butchering the remaining eels. "It tastes like rubber and static, but it's calories. We won't starve tonight."

  She tapped the clipboard, her expression serious.

  "But we have six hundred people sleeping on wet concrete in a sewer. The Titan didn't kill them, but the bacteria will. If we don't get beds and latrines online by midnight, the dysentery will finish what the Exterminators started."

  I looked at the floor again. I cycled the [ Blueprint Mode ] options.

  [ Category: Habitation ]

  New ghost images appeared. Bunk beds made of pipe and scrap canvas. Water filtration troughs. Waste disposal chutes connecting to the lower outflow.

  I treated the base layout like a circuit board. Optimization. Flow.

  "We build," I said. "Barracks in the center, near the radiant heat of the Core. Latrines in the east sector, downwind of the ventilation."

  I marked the zones on the overlay.

  "Get the non-combatants. The tailors, the carpenters. I'll mark the snap points."

  Emily nodded, making a note. "On it. Go test your new toy, Ren. I'll manage the city."

  I stepped away from the command deck, finding a quiet corner near the structural pillars.

  My hand went to my belt. Muscle memory expected the [ Gluttonous Shiv ]. I expected the pulsing, frantic hunger of the parasite blade.

  It was gone.

  In its place was a heavy, cold sensation. It was Gravity.

  I realized the trade I had made. The Shiv wanted to consume. Fracture wanted to hold on. I had traded my need for a tether.

  I drew the weapon.

  The blackened bone hilt sat heavy in my palm. Three inches above it, the jagged shard of violet Void-Glass floated, spinning slowly. The purple thread of gravity hummed between them.

  I looked at a heavy iron chain hanging from the ceiling, twenty feet away. Between me and the target stood a thick concrete pillar.

  "Physics check," I whispered.

  I threw the blade.

  I didn't aim around the pillar. I threw it straight into the Dimension.

  Shift.

  The blade vanished from reality. It dissolved into a streak of purple smoke, entering the [ Lost City ] overlay.

  In the physical world, it was gone. In my mind, through the Tether, I could feel it flying through the grey sky of the ghost world.

  Then, I felt a snag.

  [ Warning: Collision (Ghost World) ]

  The blade jerked. In the physical world, the air was empty. But in the ghost world, there was a ruined wall blocking the path.

  I gritted my teeth. I mentally yanked the Tether, steering the blade. I forced it to curve, banking hard to the right to avoid the invisible obstacle.

  It was like flying a kite in a hurricane while blindfolded. I had to see two worlds at once.

  "Resurface," I commanded.

  The blade punched back into reality behind the pillar.

  Clink.

  It struck the chain, severing the link with a spark of void energy. The chain rattled to the floor.

  The blade snapped back to the hilt in my hand instantly.

  I let out a breath. It was powerful. It ignored physical cover. But it was dangerous. If I lost focus, I could lose the blade inside a wall that didn't exist.

  I holstered the weapon and walked toward the Core.

  Mara and Rook were there. Mara was tending to the massive dents in Rook's chest plate, sealing the metal with stone-singing.

  Her own hands were worse. The porcelain skin was spiderwebbed with deep cracks. The strain of the [ Flash Frost ] had nearly shattered her.

  I sat down on a crate beside them.

  "The base is sealed," I said quietly. "The water is flowing."

  I looked at Mara.

  "I can give you a squad," I said. "You, Rook, Vance. You can go to Sector 9 tonight. Get the Living Wood. Fix yourself."

  Mara stopped working. She looked at the bustling base. She looked at Kael hauling debris. She looked at Emily organizing the food line.

  She touched the cracks in her arm.

  "You built the shell, Artisan," she said softly. "But you are hollow. You cut out your own memory to make that knife."

  She looked me in the eyes. The [ Trinity Link ] hummed in my chest, warm and grounding.

  "If I leave, who balances the equation?"

  She shook her head.

  "We stabilize the patient," she said, gesturing to the bunker. "Then we march on the Garden together."

  I nodded. I didn't say thank you. The Link said it for me.

  I stood up and walked to the upper gantry.

  Below me, the bunker was transforming. The sludge was gone. Walls were rising. Sparks from welders lit up the gloom. The smell of cooking meat filled the air.

  I activated [ Architect's Vision ].

  I saw the Level 1 barricades. I saw the tired refugees.

  But through the Blueprint, I saw the Level 10 Fortress it would become. I saw turrets. I saw automated defenses. I saw a city beneath the city.

  "We're the foundation," I whispered to the dark.

  I watched the Legion drill in the center of the room.

  "...and we're going to take back the sky."