From Human to Skeleton: Revived with Infinite System Crystals

The west wall rose three inches on the arms of dead suits.

A brown bottle rolled toward Nessa, crossed a dip in the street, then climbed back toward the rubble. The floor had tilted. She watched the bottle strike her boot while slabs along the wall settled onto gray shoulders and stood with them.

Behind that moving shield, something living pushed a narrow forelimb through the gap. Davi's voice reached the implant behind Nessa's molar. "The west wall is walking on dead suits, and three live shapes are using the slabs to reach our truck."

"Count the brewery tunnel sockets before that shield reaches the truck."

Nessa tried to raise five fingers toward Vey. Her smallest stayed buried in her palm. The two beside it lifted late, so she pointed with her whole forearm and let him count the roof line himself.

Davi answered around a burst of rifle fire. "All five sockets are empty. Every intact cage is still strapped to a soldier who thinks the roof matters more."

Along the brewery tunnel ceiling, five emergency sockets waited at the old expansion joints. Fourteen workers had carried the rear gate beneath them while families passed. At the west entrance, the truck's bent axle rested on empty kegs that shifted whenever the wall moved.

Nessa looked up at the five intact defenders linked across Vey's roof. Their pulse cages flashed through the same pattern from wrist to shoulder. Below them, the armor they had already shed climbed out of the rubble and carried the wall toward the tunnel.

"Strip five cages and send them into the tunnel."

Vey came off the roof without using the stairs. His remaining armor opened along his calves to take the landing, then closed before the dead strips could answer Ty's rib. "Those cages anchor our roof line, our five heaviest rifles, and the only intercept pattern left on this side."

"Your wall cover is marching toward us with the wall."

The first live Vale shape forced its head between two concrete slabs. Its mouth opened sideways below a plate of eyes. Three dead sleeves locked around the neck and carried the weight that should have crushed it. Vey watched one of his roof defenders raise a rifle while the armor raised the other arm toward Ty.

Ty stood inside the quarantine marks with both sickles planted. Jade's white palm covered the rib seated around his chain. Each knock beneath her hand pulled another dead shoulder from the rubble.

"Keep that rib inside the marked street and give it no new direction," Nessa called.

"I have become very committed to standing exactly here," Ty answered.

Jade shifted her palm when the rib tried to turn west. "His bad ideas remain inside the line with him."

The dead wall took another step. Vey touched his chest control. "Roof Five, close bare hands and prepare nerve-first release."

The linked defenders looked down at him. One woman struck the side of her cage with a closed fist. "Commander, removing these cages leaves the east roof blind between shots, and the next Vale wave will see the gap before we do."

Vey answered, "Keep five rifles and lose the borrowed arms."

Nessa heard the answer and moved before Vey could improve it. Dragging the fourth desk rail to the brewery stairs pulled three empty suits behind her along the cage fiber wound around it. Palla trapped them beneath the broken signpost.

At street level, medics put copper markers into five bare hands while black clamps came off one nerve line at a time. The third man's thumb opened after his sleeve, so the blade waited until his bare wrist forced the correct order.

The wall shield crossed the tram rail. Nessa counted cage releases against its steps. Five vanished when the dead space of her smallest finger spoiled the hand count, so she assigned the desk's left ceramic bolt to the first cage and the right bolt to the second. The wall crushed a vendor cart as Cage Two came free. Cage Three left its wearer while a live Vale arm reached around the rubble and pulled one dead suit higher.

The fourth defender refused to let the medic take his shoulder cage. "My plate still answers me, and the tunnel has workers for the sockets."

Nessa caught the front of his armor with her working hand. "The workers are carrying your retreat while your plate answers someone else's rib."

His eyes went to Ty. Another knock moved through the street, and the defender's gray elbow turned west before he did. He released the shoulder clasp.

The fifth cage came free as the wall reached the brewery truck. Davi slid down a drainage cable from the roof and landed beside the stack. Half his suit remained attached below the waist. He pulled its intact cage from his hip and added a sixth.

"The tunnel asked for five. Mine makes six because my armor keeps trying to bite through this cable."

"Then your sixth cage moves with the rear gate crew."

The flour-coated baker came from the brewery entrance with the borrowed rifle braced against her shoulder. She looked at the cages, then at the truck the workers were still holding against the frame. "Which one keeps the ceiling out of my bread ovens?"

Davi gave her his hip cage. "This one reaches the second socket, and the red latch faces away from your ribs."

"My ribs have enough work, so you carry the flour."

She pushed the rifle into his hands, took the cage, and ran under the truck brace. Davi followed with a flour sack on each shoulder and the barrel pointed into the floor.

Four more civilians took the stripped cages. A brewery worker with a burned apron carried the first. An old man refused to leave his keg hook until Nessa showed him how its curved end fit through a cage handle. The fifth went to a girl old enough to argue that two younger children could match her pace.

"They match your pace after you reach the first socket alive."

The girl accepted the correction and made both children hold the back of her coat.

Inside the tunnel, the first cage struck its ceiling socket. Gray support ribs tightened over the entrance. The worker pulled it free once the next cage reached the second joint, passing the pulse deeper without leaving anyone behind to guard a machine.

The synchronized roof line broke as the cages entered five different sockets. Rifles dropped an inch when borrowed shoulders stopped carrying their weight. The one-armed instructor moved among them with his box of safety catches and kicked each stock into a position its new owner could hold.

He sent two stripped defenders into the tunnel with ammunition boxes and the rear gate chain. The other three kept their rifles at the entrance, carrying every pound their armor had carried for them.

"The weapon will hurt your shoulder now. Set your feet before the stock convinces you that pain changed the target."

The first defender fired without armor. The stock drove him backward into a beer cart, but the shot broke the eye plate on the Vale shape behind the wall.

The flour-coated baker heard it from the second socket. She handed her cage forward, came back for the rifle, and checked the safety with her thumb before firing through the tunnel mouth.

Her shot struck a dead sleeve holding the rubble. The sleeve released. A concrete slab fell across the live creature's narrow arm and pinned it to the street.

The rest of the wall opened and let two Vale bodies through. Six human-sized hands carried the first across the broken curb. Behind it, the second dragged a sack of black tendons that fastened themselves to every abandoned armor plate it passed.

Vey spread his unarmored defenders across the brewery entrance. "Tunnel teams carry people, ammunition, and every cage they receive. Wall teams hold this opening until the rear gate reports clear."

Nessa took the broken signpost from Palla and drove its end through the nearest dead shoulder. Her three useful fingers closed around the metal. The fourth joined late. The smallest stayed folded against her palm and gave back no pressure.

The civilians moved cage by cage beneath her. Each socket stiffened long enough for the next group to pass. Empty suits beat against the tunnel ribs from outside, but the five separate pulses gave them five directions and no shared grip.

The rear gate crew crossed last. Davi backed through with the truck's brake handle over one shoulder and a child tucked under his other arm. "The east outlet has every family, but the brewery owners are counting missing kegs."

"Tell them the wall took payment before we did."

The first tunnel socket came free. No civilian remained between it and the wall.

Vey dropped beside Nessa and caught the signpost when her grip shifted. "Medical checks that hand before you take another wall assignment."

"The wall remains open, and medical has not learned to shoot."

She tried to prove the point by opening her hand. Her middle finger released. Her index followed. The ring finger stayed folded beside the smallest, and a gray line had crossed the first two knuckles while she was looking elsewhere.

The medic behind Vey took Nessa's wrist without touching either line. "You can argue inside the brewery because the clinic moved beneath the tanks."

Behind them, the live Vale bodies climbed over the dead armor and entered the city.

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