SSS Alpha Ranking: Limitless Soccer Cultivation After A Century-Chapter 119: BENEATH THE CITY

The deeper they went, the more the air changed.

Blaze felt it first. The tunnels beneath Veridion weren't simple maintenance shafts anymore. The metal walls gave way to rough concrete, then old stone, then something older than any urban blueprint. His skin prickled with static, the way it always did when a place carried a history nobody documented.

Lionel led the way with a battered handheld light. Grim followed behind him, silent and coiled like he was waiting for something to jump out of the shadows. Anastasia moved quietly, one palm pressed to the wall as if reading the vibrations of the place itself. Scarlet walked behind Blaze, her steps clipped, angry, unsteady. Ryuji and Kenji took the rear, scanning every branching passage.

Aya walked beside Blaze, glancing at him every few minutes, like she couldn't decide whether to ask a question or hold it in.

None of them spoke for a long time.

The quiet didn't feel peaceful. It felt like the city had swallowed them whole and was deciding whether to spit them back out.

Blaze kept walking, but a knot tightened in his chest. Every step felt heavier. This was the first time since the escape that he wasn't riding on adrenaline. No alarms screaming. No drones tailing them. Just the cold knowledge that they were running without a real plan.

And that Aurion was coming.

---

Lionel finally stopped in a wide chamber with three connecting tunnels.

"Alright," he said, voice low. "We regroup here."

Scarlet snorted. "Regroup? We're hiding, Lionel."

"We've been hiding since we left Veridion," Ryuji muttered.

Grim crouched and touched the floor. "No recent tracks. Nobody's been this deep in years."

Aya leaned against the wall, rubbing her arms. "The deeper we go, the harder it'll be for Jason to relay anything back to us."

His name hung in the air.

Jason.

The one who stayed behind. The one caught in the middle. The one who risked everything without ever stepping out of the building.

Blaze swallowed hard. "He'll be alright."

Scarlet rounded on him. "Don't do that."

Blaze blinked. "Do what?"

"Act like you know more than us. Like you can sense what's coming. We need information, Blaze. Not vibes."

Anastasia stepped between them before Blaze could respond. "Enough. We're all rattled."

Scarlet looked like she wanted to argue, but she turned away instead, pacing the chamber's edges.

The group slowly spread out. Kenji started setting up motion sensors from his pack. Ryuji studied the tunnels, mapping routes. Lionel checked their rations. Grim kept watch silently, eyes narrowed.

Blaze just breathed.

He didn't want to admit it out loud, but Scarlet wasn't wrong.

Something inside him had been stirring since the escape. A weight he couldn't shake. A heat buzzing behind his ribs. A truth he had spent years burying was clawing its way back up.

Aya sat beside him. "You're quieter than usual."

"I'm thinking."

"You don't think. You brood."

He huffed. "Is there a difference?"

"When you brood, you avoid telling people things that matter."

Blaze stared at the opposite wall. Aya watched him for a moment, then gently nudged his arm.

"You froze back there. When the drones passed overhead."

He didn't react.

"I saw you," she said softly. "Your eyes changed."

He shut his eyes. "Aya, don't."

"You're not just a gifted kid who slipped under the radar. There's something else. Something you don't want to talk about."

His chest tightened. "Not here."

"When, then? Before Aurion finds us? After someone dies because we didn't know what we needed to know?"

Her words hit harder than she meant them to. He flinched, and she reached for his hand—but stopped herself halfway.

Before either of them could say anything, Kenji spoke.

"Movement."

Everyone snapped into position.

Ryuji moved to Kenji's side. "How far?"

"Not far enough. Something's heading down the main tunnel. Something big."

Scarlet cursed. "It's Aurion. Has to be."

Grim listened, head tilted. "Heavy boots. Four… maybe six people. Rhythm is too even for guards. Strike team."

Anastasia's face paled. "Already? How did they track us so fast?"

Lionel's jaw tightened. "Someone must've leaked something. Or—"

"Aurion planted a tracker on one of us," Scarlet said bitterly.

The group exchanged uneasy glances.

Then they all turned to Blaze.

He felt the accusation before anyone spoke it. Aya stepped in front of him instantly.

"No. Don't start that," she snapped.

Scarlet raised her hands. "I didn't say anything."

"You didn't need to."

Lionel cut through the tension. "We don't have time for this. We need a defensive position."

"They're too close," Grim murmured. "If we fight them here, we're cornered."

Kenji packed up the sensors. "There's another route. That side tunnel drops deeper, below the grid."

Scarlet shook her head. "That's unstable. It's basically collapsing."

"Better collapsed than caught," Kenji shot back.

Blaze said nothing. His mind wasn't on the tunnels or the approaching boots. It was on the strange pressure building behind his rib cage. The electric hum in his bones. His pulse beating too fast. Too hard.

Aya's voice reached him through the fog.

"Blaze… hey. Stay with us."

He forced himself to nod.

Lionel turned to the group. "Decision time. Take the collapsing tunnel or hold our ground."

Nobody wanted to say it.

They were tired. Scared. And divided.

Scarlet crossed her arms. "We go down. We run. Fighting a strike team in this space is suicide."

Ryuji nodded. "Agreed."

Anastasia hesitated. "The deeper tunnels are dangerous. But staying here is worse."

Kenji didn't even pretend to debate. "Down we go."

Everyone looked at Grim.

He listened to the approaching footsteps again, then said quietly, "We won't survive a straight fight."

Finally they looked to Blaze. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

He didn't give an answer right away. That humming in his chest sharpened, like something ancient and angry waking from sleep.

Aya touched his shoulder. "Blaze. Choose with us. Not alone."

He lifted his head. "We go down."

Scarlet sighed with relief. Lionel nodded once, decisive.

"Then move."

---

The collapsing tunnel wasn't wide enough for all of them to walk side by side. They had to slip through in single file, careful not to disturb the loose rock overhead.

Blaze stayed near the middle. Aya right behind him. Scarlet just ahead, muttering under her breath with every shift of the ceiling.

Halfway down, the ground trembled.

Dust rained from above.

"Keep moving," Lionel called softly from the front. "The destabilization is old. It won't drop unless—"

A distant explosion ripped through the tunnels behind them.

The whole passage shook. Stone cracked. A shockwave flew through the corridor like a fist.

Grim shouted from the rear. "Strike team breached the chamber."

"We need to go faster!" Ryuji yelled.

They pushed forward. Blaze stumbled as a section of the ceiling groaned overhead. Aya grabbed his arm, steadying him.

Another tremor.

More dust.

Scarlet swore loudly. "They're using shock charges to collapse the upper level. They're trying to trap us down here!"

Kenji replied from the front, breathless. "Then we outrun the collapse."

But Blaze couldn't outrun what was happening inside him.

His heartbeat was wrong. Too strong. Too loud. Every thud echoed in his ears like a drum. The humming in his bones grew sharper, hotter, like sparks shooting up his spine.

He grabbed the wall to steady himself, knuckles white.

Aya turned. "Blaze? What's happening?"

"I don't know."

Scarlet looked back with narrowed eyes. "Is it the same thing from before? The eyes?"

"Scarlet—" Aya warned.

Scarlet ignored her. "If he's losing it now, we're dead."

"I'm not losing it," Blaze snapped, though he wasn't sure.

The tunnel shuddered again, harder this time.

A crack shot across the ceiling.

"Move!" Lionel shouted.

They sprinted. The tunnel opened into a wider cavern just as the roof behind them gave way. Stone thundered down, sealing the path completely.

Dust filled the air.

They coughed, gasped, grabbed each other to stay together.

Grim listened for further collapse, then gave a curt nod. "We're safe from cave-in."

"Not from Aurion," Scarlet said.

Anastasia pointed to the blocked tunnel. "They're going to clear that. Or find another way around."

Lionel steadied his breathing. "We need a new route deeper in. Kenji?"

Kenji scanned the cavern with a small device. "There's a path, but it leads further from the city. We'll be off-grid. Completely."

Scarlet exhaled shakily. "Off-grid is the point."

But Blaze didn't move with them.

He stood still, one hand pressed to his chest. The humming had turned into a pulse of heat under his skin. A fiery pressure pushing outward, like something locked inside him was clawing to be released.

Aya's voice softened. "Blaze… what aren't you telling us?"

He didn't answer.

Because he wasn't sure he could say it.

But the truth was simple.

What was waking inside him wasn't normal. Wasn't safe. Wasn't something Aurion had missed.

It was something they'd been waiting for.

Scarlet took a step closer, eyes sharp. "Tell us what you are."

Lionel held up a hand. "Scarlet, hold on—"

"No," she snapped. "He's hiding something. And whatever it is, Aurion is hunting him for it. We deserve to know."

Ryuji looked torn. Anastasia looked scared. Kenji looked calculating. Grim watched Blaze with unreadable calm.

Aya whispered, "Blaze… please."

He opened his mouth.

The cavern lights flickered.

Then static filled the air.

A cold mechanical voice echoed through hidden speakers in the walls.

"Target confirmed. Deployment authorized."

Aurion had found them.

And Blaze felt the thing inside him finally wake.