No gland in the next gallery looked at Kael. Their pale surfaces tracked the survivors instead. The passage after the uncounting chamber was lined with swollen white glands behind transparent membranes, each one the size of a child’s head and threaded with black nerves that ran into the walls.
Where the glands looked, the air sharpened. A limping worker at the rear stumbled, though no hook, blade, or servant had touched him.
The gland nearest him pulsed once. Tiny red dots opened across the walls, threads shifted, breathing pores angled toward his lungs, and the floor seam under his bad foot began to split.
Kael stepped between the worker and the gland, but its pale surface rolled toward the rear without following him. Vaela watched the red dots move with it. "The gland chooses one body, and every thread and floor seam follows."
Jaro pulled the bowl boy behind his legs. "It chose the limping man because he could not move quickly, and now it is searching the rest of us for someone easier."
The gland pulsed again. This time all attention moved to the boy with the cracked bowl. He froze.
The bowl shook in his hands. The walls opened. Kael moved before the first thread launched.
Kael needed Threat Perception Instinct to see each choice, Velocity Movement Authority to cross the chosen line, and Regenerative Dominion to keep his body working when attacks meant for someone else cut him.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRESSURE DETECTED: Attention Gland Survivor Targeting
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +3
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +3 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Velocity Movement Authority -> 47
- Regenerative Dominion -> 41
- Threat Perception Instinct -> 38
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
The threads launched, and Kael crossed them before they reached the boy. Three sliced his shoulder, two wrapped his forearm, and one cut his cheek, but their hooked ends still strained past him toward their chosen victim.
Regenerative Dominion kept the cuts from opening too wide. Velocity Movement Authority put him between the thread and the boy. Threat Perception Instinct found the gland nerve behind the membrane.
Kael grabbed the nearest thread and pulled. The attention gland jerked in its socket. It tried to look away from him.
Kael did not allow it. He wrapped the thread around his fist, planted his feet, and yanked the gland out through its own membrane.
RIP!
White nerve milk sprayed across his chest. The gland hit the floor wet and pulsing. Its surface tried to turn toward the boy again. Kael stepped on it.
SQUELCH!
The gallery noticed him. Every red dot on the walls snapped toward Kael at once. He smiled through blood.
The room attacked. Threads flew, breathing pores coughed cutting dust, and floor seams opened like thin mouths under his boots. He took three steps into the pressure and broke the first wall organ with his elbow.
CRACK!
He broke the second with his knee.
CRUNCH!
The third he tore out barehanded and threw into another gland.
SPLAT!
White fluid burst over black nerves. The gallery spasmed. Attention scattered wildly, striking walls, floor, ceiling, survivors, Kael, then back to Kael again. Vaela saw the pattern. "They need the glands to choose targets. Break the choosing bodies."
Orrek grabbed a loose slab of route plate and used it like a shield, shoving three workers behind him. He could not move fast, so he made himself large. Threads bit into the plate and through it into his hands. He pushed anyway.
"Look at someone who can strike back," he growled at the nearest gland.
It did. The gland pulsed toward him. Orrek spat at it.
Kael reached it first. His shoulder hit the wall under the gland.
BOOM!
The membrane burst. The gland popped free and slapped against his face like a wet mask. For one ugly second it tried to redirect his own attention away from his body, away from pain, away from breath, away from the survivors. Kael bit it.
CRUNCH!
White nerve milk flooded his mouth. He tore the gland off with his teeth and spat it onto the floor. Jaro stared.
"It was educational in a direction I did not request."
Renn counted because fear needed work. "All twenty-one are still moving." The remaining glands pulsed at his voice and turned toward him.
They all turned toward Renn. Kael moved. Vaela moved too.
Her blade cut two black nerves feeding the closest gland. Kael’s fist crushed the organ before it could finish its pulse. Orrek dragged Renn back. Jaro threw the cracked bowl under a floor seam before it opened fully.
CLANG!
The seam bit the bowl instead of Renn’s foot. The boy lurched after it, anger breaking through fear. "You keep throwing my bowl before you tell me!"
Jaro caught his sleeve before he reached the opening. "Stay behind me. I will bring it back when Renn is clear."
The absurd human anger crossed the gallery. Several glands turned toward the noise. Kael used that.
He caught two attention threads in both hands, crossed them over his chest, and pulled opposite directions.
SNAP!
The threads tore loose from the walls. Six glands deflated at once, collapsing into wrinkled sacks of white fluid and black nerves. The gallery lost its chosen targets. For one breath, hostile pressure spread evenly.
Kael made it regret fairness. He drove forward, shoulder first, and broke the central gland cluster against the far wall.
BOOM!
White fluid exploded across the gallery. The walls shook, and red dots winked out one by one. The last attention gland tried to roll its gaze away from him, so Kael caught it between both hands and crushed it.
CRUSH!
Blindness did not make the gallery harmless. Without the glands choosing targets, every hidden part fired at once. Threads snapped from wall to wall, cutting dust burst from breathing pores, and floor seams opened under empty air before biting at random boots.
Chaos favored the strong and punished the tired. Kael moved into it. A thread cut across his chest.
SNAP!
He caught it and used it to drag a wall organ out of its socket. The organ came free with a wet pop and dangled like an eye on black nerves. He crushed it in his fist and threw the pulp into a breathing pore before it could cough again.
SPLAT!
The breathing pore choked on its own gland. Orrek drove the route plate forward like a plow while three workers stumbled behind him. He caught one with his elbow, nearly went down when pain crossed his shoulder, and kept pushing until the plate hit a cluster of snapping seams.
CRUNCH!
The seams broke under the plate’s edge. Vaela shouted over the sudden noise. "The nerve braid is opening on your left!"
Kael moved before the first loop cleared the wall.
He hit the left wall with his shoulder.
BOOM!
A nerve braid burst from under the surface, whipping blindly. Vaela cut the first loop. Jaro threw a broken gland membrane over the second, which did almost nothing except make the braid visible. Kael used that visibility to grab it. He pulled the braid across his knee.
CRACK!
The gallery lost another layer of hidden aim. Renn counted people, damage, and people again. "All twenty-one are here. Three breathing pores are broken, and five floor seams are closed." His voice gave the survivors something clear to follow through the noise.
The boy crouched beside the worker who had nearly lost his breath and pressed the bowl edge against a bleeding leg wound. The pressure was crude, but it slowed the blood while Kael caught the last functioning thread, wrapped it around the dead central cluster, and pulled until the whole mass tore free from the wall.
RIP!
The entire gallery sagged. White nerve milk flooded the floor, carrying little red dots that had lost their targets. The gallery went blind in the only way that mattered.
The gallery still had red dots in its walls, so Renn made everyone call an injury and touch the person beside them. A cut shoulder, burned palm, dust-filled lungs, and bleeding leg came back through uneven voices. When one remaining dot turned toward the limping worker, every nearby face turned with it.
Kael threw a crushed gland husk at the dot.
SPLAT!
The red light went dark. Vaela opened the dead gland with her blade and showed the workers how every black nerve ended at one of those spots. "The glands chose a body, and the wall followed through these cords. Watch for the red light before the tissue swells."
Vaela cleaned the thread cuts across Kael’s shoulder and checked the forearm that had carried two lines at once. Regenerative Dominion had kept the wounds narrow, but black fibers remained beneath the skin, so she opened each cut just far enough to pull them free. Kael held still while Orrek braced the injured arm against his knee.
"The room ignored you, but the wounds did not," Vaela said. "Carry the arm low until the shaking stops."
Kael closed his hand once and felt the new recovery hold without pretending the cuts were healed.
The limping worker studied the exposed nerves until he could point out two empty sockets on his own. Orrek shifted closer to him, while Jaro retrieved the bowl and returned it to the boy with both hands.
"I said I would bring it back," Jaro murmured. "I should have warned you before I threw it."
The boy checked the new dent and tucked the bowl beneath his arm. "Warn me next time, and do not miss."
Kael motioned toward the corridor. "Stay close enough to see who the walls choose, and move before that person stands alone."
They left with no injured person walking alone. Renn kept the count in the middle, Vaela watched the walls, and every red light remained dark behind them.
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