Void System: Every Heroine Makes Me Stronger

The crack turned before Varexia crossed it.

It ran down the wall, reached the floor, and bent through the connected stone toward Severin’s worn boots.

Threat Vector opened a narrow line beside the table.

He took it.

The floor failed behind his heel, splitting the table and folding a seat into the broken stone. The carafe burst against the far wall.

Severin cleared the collapse, but his right shoulder struck the inner arch. The scrape beneath his torn shirt opened again.

Pain flashed down his arm. The blood-darkened sword slipped in his right hand, its nicked edge catching light. His left hand caught beneath the grip; the healing cut stung under the sudden pressure. The turn woke the older ache beneath his ribs.

Maerith had already left the table behind. Her hand hovered over the fracture as her eyes followed its bend through the floor.

"Kharaxis," she said. "Don’t fight the stone. Move off what it touches."

Varexia stepped through the opening, tall and dressed in dark cloth untouched by dust. Red-black light drew a hard edge around her as the wall continued to sink behind her.

Her gaze passed over Severin and stopped on Maerith.

"You finished the Trial," Varexia said. "For this?"

Maerith didn’t answer the insult. "Inner arch. Now."

The slab beneath Varexia stayed whole.

Every connected piece between her and the arch cracked.

Severin felt the first tremor through his boots. Hazard Attunement shifted his weight before the seam opened. The next strain reached his knees, and he shortened his step. Stone burst where his foot would’ve landed.

A third line climbed through the wall itself. His body turned with it before the inner face split.

Then another pressure entered the same stone.

The warning became noise. Too many failures, pulling in different directions.

Maerith reached a side opening first. Her foot crossed the threshold and landed on the same pale tile. The room beyond still stood in plain sight.

"Velkrath." Maerith pivoted toward the broad arch. "That route is cut."

Severin followed. The calf wrap shifted inside his damp trouser leg, but the wound held.

Behind them, the broken table didn’t settle. The larger pieces cracked again. Then again. Dust crept over the floor in a slow gray sheet.

Warm blood spread beneath Severin’s shirt.

Maerith glanced at his shoulder. "Eschara. It’ll keep what’s broken from mending. Leave the room."

The gallery beyond the arch curved toward a larger chamber. Pale openings broke the left wall.

Footsteps approached from ahead.

10 women entered the gallery at speed. None wasted breath on the ruined room behind Severin.

"Arieth. Seraine. With me," Maerith said. "The rest, clear the inner rooms. Take the records you can carry. Shut every door that still shuts."

8 split away without crowding the passage.

Arieth stopped at Maerith’s left. Seraine took the right.

Maerith touched 2 fingers to Arieth’s brow. "Take 1 thread. Hold the last route that worked, exactly as it was."

Arieth’s breath caught. Her focus sharpened on Maerith’s feet, the wall openings, and the fracture advancing behind them.

Maerith’s hand moved to Seraine’s shoulder. "My sight. My false forms. This fight only."

Seraine looked toward the nearest opening. "It leads through."

"Check again when she moves."

Varexia lifted a hand.

Threat Vector pulled Severin toward the right wall.

He drove Gust Vector across his next step.

The floor rose where he’d been. A strip of stone smashed into the ceiling, showering his back with fragments. His right arm went numb. The sword point struck the floor and screamed over it.

Feeling returned with a rush. Severin activated Pain Partition before the pain could pry his hand open. The shoulder kept burning.

Maerith caught the torn edge of his sleeve and turned him toward the nearest side passage. "Go with the others."

"No."

"This isn’t the Trial."

"Exactly." Severin looked past her. Varexia had ignored the 8 women moving deeper. Her hand changed angle only after Maerith put herself between him and the broken floor. "She changes the attack when you cover me."

Varexia’s eyes dropped to the blood darkening his shoulder.

"Your Angels run," she said, "and the human asks to stay."

"He noticed you changed the strike," Maerith replied.

Her fingers released Severin’s sleeve.

"Behind my left shoulder. Move when the pattern changes."

Severin called Decision Lattice.

Choices multiplied faster than he could hold them.

A branch ended with the gallery broken and Arieth down before she spoke. Another left Seraine reaching for a link that wasn’t there. Maerith stepped left, then right, and each answer opened more attacks. Severin moved inside the lattice and every path split again. His thoughts lagged behind the multiplying choices.

His shoulder throbbed. The floor shifted under his boots. Maerith said something he heard too late.

A slab struck him from the side.

His shoulder hit the wall. Fresh heat spread beneath his shirt.

He dropped the lattice.

Too many.

Arieth opened her mouth, stopped, then looked toward the second opening in the left wall.

"The route held until just before that opening," she said. "After that... I lost the order."

Seraine moved to the point Arieth indicated. "The near opening is real. The far opening isn’t."

She raised 2 fingers.

A second Maerith appeared beside the false opening.

Varexia struck her.

The figure vanished before Varexia’s hand closed. The wall behind it split from floor to ceiling.

Seraine stepped back. "She took it."

Varexia turned her wrist.

Seraine flinched. Her next false form broke apart before it had a face.

"Link’s gone," she said.

"Velkrath cut it," Maerith said. "Don’t reach after it."

A fracture snapped across the gallery.

Seraine lifted her left arm too late. A shallow line opened from wrist to elbow.

She hissed and clamped her right hand over the cut. Blood pushed through her fingers anyway.

"Eschara," Maerith said. "Don’t brace with that arm."

The gallery opened into a circular arena.

A raised walk ringed the broad floor. Old seams crossed the stone. 3 entrances broke the outer wall, though the nearest already groaned beneath the strain running through the residence.

Maerith led them across the center.

Varexia followed.

She didn’t turn toward the 8 Angels deeper inside.

The floor gave way in 2 lanes. The strip beneath Varexia remained level.

The falling shock climbed through Severin’s boots. Impact Echo caught the related force before it folded his legs. The jolt still drove into his ribs hard enough to steal half a breath.

Maerith turned at the center seam.

A fracture reached her right flank. Ivory cloth split, and blood ran over her waist.

She stayed upright.

False Maeriths scattered along both sides of the raised walk.

Varexia tore through the false women in succession. The real Maerith crossed behind Severin while Varexia spent those heartbeats destroying what wasn’t there.

The next fracture turned after Maerith instead of opening beneath him.

Seraine’s forearm kept bleeding, and blood still ran from Maerith’s flank. Neither woman slowed.

Severin called Decision Lattice again.

Narrow it. After Maerith covered him, who would Varexia choose?

Maerith stepped across his line.

Varexia’s attention moved to Severin.

He shifted left.

The fracture changed before reaching Maerith and opened where Severin would’ve landed.

Gust Vector carried him behind the center seam instead. Varexia turned with him rather than finishing the strike on Maerith.

"She’ll choose me," he said.

"Until she knows you’re drawing her."

"Then let her learn late."

Arieth reached the inner edge of the raised walk. "I can keep the order of the center seam and Seraine’s lane. Beyond them, it slips."

Seraine pressed her wounded arm against her body. "I can show her 1 open way. If she cuts me again, it dies."

"That’s enough," Severin said.

Maerith looked at him. "Enough for what?"

The old ache beneath his ribs tightened when another section of the raised walk sagged.

Severin called Decision Lattice for the third time and held it to 2 choices.

The lattice gave him Maerith meeting the close strike and Varexia slipping away before it closed. Then the other path: the right lane left genuine, all 3 attacks already moving, Maerith turning them after Varexia had spent too much to retreat.

That path brought Varexia close enough to try something Severin had never attempted against anything remotely this heavy.

"Don’t drive her back," he said. "Turn the strike. Keep her close after."

Maerith’s gaze stayed on Varexia. "Why?"

The nearest entrance collapsed. Stone ground against stone, and dust rolled across the floor.

Dust dried Severin’s throat again. He waited until the crash swallowed his voice.

"The thing you couldn’t examine may be able to take her if we break her resistance and stop her from getting free. I don’t know if it can hold that much."

Maerith’s eyes flicked to him, then to the closing distance.

"You don’t know."

"No."

"And you intend to test it here."

"She came here."

For a breath, Maerith said nothing.

Then she faced the arena.

"Arieth, center seam. Seraine, give her the right lane."

Both Angels moved.

Arieth took position beside the line she had preserved. Seraine crossed to Severin’s right, her left arm tight against her body.

Maerith touched Seraine’s uninjured shoulder. "My false forms again. Only that lane."

Seraine nodded once.

Maerith looked at Severin. "You get 1 attempt."

"I’ll use it."

2 false Severins broke away from him.

The first ran left. The second cut toward the damaged gallery.

Varexia closed her hand.

Both figures vanished. Seraine’s fingers jerked as the borrowed link died again.

Maerith shifted toward Severin’s left. Her boot crossed a pace and came down on the same seam. She stood no closer.

Maerith didn’t waste another step. Her right foot planted beside the center seam, her body turned half-sideways to Varexia.

The right lane began to crumble without opening. Dust slid into every crack and stayed there.

Threat Vector gave Severin a half-step forward.

He took it and kept the sword low. The blade couldn’t stop what was coming. Its weight steadied his grip while pain tugged at his shoulder.

Varexia crossed the dust. None of it touched her skin or clothes.

A crack ran from beneath her feet into the arena wall, then returned along the floor toward the arm she drew back.

The first step split the center seam.

The second broke the stone between them.

Varexia lifted her foot for the third.

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