The pale figure reached for Orrek’s wrist.
Kael crossed the last broken plate and hit it first.
BANG!
Its head snapped sideways. One red-glass eye cracked, and thick black fluid ran from its nose. The figure staggered, yet the small scale inside its open chest continued tipping toward the red side.
Five more pairs waited across the chamber. They wore fitted coats made from pale skin, and each smooth face had been shaped to look calm. Clear veins ran from their ribs into the floor.
The struck figure corrected its neck with both hands. Its partner raised one palm, and pale rings opened around every place where the survivors touched.
One ring surrounded Orrek’s arm where he held the ash-lipped woman. Another closed around Renn’s fingers and the count cloth. A third tightened over the strap crossing the bowl boy’s chest.
The figures were not attacking random bodies. They were cutting the grips that kept the injured formation together.
"Red means they have chosen a hand to separate," Vaela said. She stepped between Renn and the nearest figure, blade low. "Watch the chest scales. Move the person before the hand arrives."
Orrek shifted the woman to Sova. "My shoulder cannot win another pull. Give me the ones close enough to hit."
Jaro drew the boy behind him. "I would prefer enemies whose faces admit what they are doing. These look prepared to apologize after removing a limb."
The first figure lunged again. Kael caught its wrist before two narrow fingers reached Orrek.
Kael chose Gravity Vector Impact to break the severing grip, Velocity Movement Authority to reach both bodies, and Cellular Acceleration to keep his wounded flesh moving ahead of their corrections.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRESSURE DETECTED: Proximity Severance Servant Pair
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +3
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +3 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Gravity Vector Impact -> 46
- Velocity Movement Authority -> 43
- Cellular Acceleration -> 16
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Proximity Severance Break Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
Kael drove his knee into the figure’s stomach.
THUD!
The chest scale tore from its hinge and lodged between pale ribs. He twisted the captured wrist until the long fingers broke backward.
SNAP!
Its partner struck his left side. A red ring closed where the palm touched him, and skin began pulling away from the muscle beneath his ribs.
Kael elbowed the smooth face.
CRACK!
Glass splintered under the pale skin. Cellular Acceleration helped the damaged flesh tighten around the ring before it could cut deeper, but the bruise and torn skin remained.
Vaela cut a ring from Renn’s wrist.
SLICE!
"Keep your hand on the cloth," she said. "The ring is following the grip, not the object."
Renn changed hands and pressed the cloth against his chest. "It followed me when I moved. The clear veins must be telling them where we touch."
"Show Orrek the vein nearest his feet."
Renn pointed. Orrek hooked it with the last chain link and pulled from his waist rather than his shoulder.
RIP!
The vein tore free. Two figures jerked toward the broken connection, and their scales went white for a breath.
Sova used the opening to move the ash-lipped woman behind a low stone rib. Jaro sent the bowl boy after her, keeping his hand inside the boy’s belt rather than around his arm.
"The ring found my hand inside your belt," Jaro said as he pulled the boy lower. "Stay beneath my arm, because I cannot change this grip until we reach Sova."
Orrek laughed once and immediately regretted it when the shoulder wrap pulled.
The remaining figures moved together. They ignored Kael and rushed the spaces between survivors, placing their hands wherever one person supported another. Pale rings flashed around sleeves, wrists, shoulders, the bowl strap, and Vaela’s blade as she covered the children.
Kael could not stop six pairs one at a time.
He struck the floor.
BOOM!
Stone buckled outward from his fist. The clear veins jumped from their grooves, and every pale figure lost its balance. Their chest scales rattled between red and white.
"Move while they cannot read you," Renn shouted.
Orrek pushed two injured workers behind Sova. Vaela cut a vein and guided another pair across it. Renn changed the contact chain as he counted, using shoulders, sleeves, and the flat of his palm in a pattern the servants had not seen.
Jaro dragged the boy beneath a falling figure and kicked its knee from behind.
CRACK!
The leg folded. Jaro stared at it with startled satisfaction while the boy crawled clear. "I meant to hit the knee, although I was frightened enough to miss everything else. Keep moving before it stands again."
Kael seized two figures by their open chest seams and slammed them together.
CRUSH!
Their scales shattered first. Thick black fluid and red glass covered both calm faces as they collapsed against each other.
A third figure caught Sova by the wrist. The ring around her arm tightened, pulling her hand away from the injured woman she was guiding.
Sova did not release the woman. She stepped inside the figure’s reach and drove her forehead into its mouth.
CRACK!
Pale teeth struck the floor. Orrek’s chain followed low and wrapped around both ankles.
"Pull with me," he said.
Sova leaned back. The figure fell hard enough to expose the veins along its spine. Vaela cut them before it could rise.
The last servant retreated toward the wall, where fresh clear veins waited to join its back. Kael felt Gravemarrow Arrival Step stir under his heel. The seed was unstable, and the previous use had already opened his calf.
He used it once.
BOOM!
Kael reached the wall before the servant connected. Pain split his calf along the old tear, and his landing left a dark print on the stone.
The servant saw the limp and raised both hands toward his chest. Kael drove his fist through the scale before another ring could close.
SPLIT!
The body folded around his arm. Beneath the beautiful face lay a bundle of pale fibers and red glass instead of bone. Kael tore the fibers free and dropped them beside the broken veins.
The rings around the survivors faded. Renn counted all twenty-one while Vaela pressed cloth against Kael’s calf and ordered him to keep the heel down.
Sova checked the ash-lipped woman before tending her own split lip. Two thin rings remained around the woman’s arm, pale enough to see through the skin. Vaela pressed one with her thumb and watched it retreat toward the wrist.
"They are losing strength without the servants," she said. "Keep the arm warm and move the fingers until the color returns."
The woman opened her hand slowly. "I could feel Sova holding me, but the arm kept telling me I was alone."
Sova tightened her grip enough for the woman to feel it. "I am still here, and I will keep your wrist warm until the feeling returns." She wrapped the forearm with a strip torn from her own sleeve.
Renn repeated the instruction to the others with fading marks. He used their names or the injuries he could identify instead of speaking to the group as one body. Each person moved a hand, answered, and found the person still beside them.
As names and fingers moved, clenched shoulders lowered and the survivors began breathing at their own pace again.
Vaela returned to Kael and tightened the cloth around his calf. He tried to stand before she finished, and her hand forced his heel back onto the stone.
"The step tears the same line every time, and another use may leave the leg unable to carry you," she said while tying the wrap. "If the next room forces the choice, plant your other foot first and give me warning before you move."
Kael watched the wall beyond her shoulder. "You will have the warning. I will not spend the leg for a distance I can cross another way."
The bowl boy studied the broken servants. Their pale faces had peeled apart, exposing fibers, veins, and small scales under the cheeks.
"Why make them look like people?" he asked.
Vaela wiped the black fluid from her blade. "I do not know who shaped the faces, but they made us hesitate before we saw the open ribs. Look for the veins and scales first if another one appears."
Sova touched her split lip. "I watched its hands because they looked human, and it nearly took my wrist. I will watch the chest next time."
Orrek returned the ash-lipped woman’s arm to his sound side and tested the grip before walking. Jaro handed the bowl back with both hands, waiting until the boy had secured the repaired strap before releasing it.
Several exhausted survivors managed a brief laugh. The sound ended when thin needles emerged from the next wall.
TICK! TICK! TICK!
Pale marks appeared wherever Kael had reached someone during the fight: beside Renn’s cloth, Orrek’s shoulder, Sova’s wrist, and the bowl boy’s strap. More marks lit along the passage behind them, tracing old rescues through the previous rooms.
Renn watched a clear thread join the marks. "It remembered every place he helped us."
Vaela stood and looked toward the narrow passage. "The clear threads are carrying those marks into the next passage. They will find the same grips there."
A line crept from the wall toward her hand where it rested on Renn’s shoulder. Kael pinned the line beneath his boot; it flattened before reaching Vaela’s hand.
SQUELCH!
Clear fluid spread beneath his boot. The wall needles kept writing.
Kael looked at the twenty-one people gathering their injured bodies for another crossing. The wall had drawn a line from every rescue toward the next passage.
Kael followed the writing thread before it reached the last mark.
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