Undertier

His body can't feel the cost. Something else is keeping score. Wick was born in the flooded lower tiers of a dying arcology, where the only honest thing left is his father's tally sheet - until a bookmaker's men take that too. The black-market symbiote fused to Wick's spine was never meant to run this hot. Second Skin converts pain into power: strength, speed, reflexes beyond what a human body should hold - for anyone who can stand the agony of drawing on it. Wick can't feel pain at all. To him, the system has no ceiling. Nobody tells you what "no ceiling" actually costs. Every point he draws shows up somewhere else - a private readout only he can see, climbing toward a number he doesn't understand yet. His hands still work. His legs still work. For now. Trained by Fane, a washed-up fighter who burned out his own leg finding this exact line, Wick claws his way up through the Undertier's illegal fight circuit one rigged bout at a time, chasing the one man who ordered his father's death. The higher he climbs, the harder the bill comes due - and somewhere above him, in the dry tiers that never flood, that man is still counting his money. This is a story about a boy who can win every fight and still lose everything, told the only way that's honest: he pays for it, and he knows exactly what he's spending before he spends it. Undertier is Book 1 of The Second Skin Saga - a close-quarters revenge story set in the flooded bottom of a dying city, for readers who want the cost counted honestly and paid in full. For readers who loved Red Rising and want the climb to cost something real.