The three crowns descended.
HUM!
Their vibration flattened every breath in the passage. Kael kept both hands around the rib he had torn from the floor, holding it between the Excisors and the seam where Vaela was trying to move the fourteen.
Blood ran from his palms.
DRIP!
Each drop produced a different reflection. One showed Kael kneeling. Another showed Renn alone with the ring still around his wrist. A third placed Orrek behind a closing wall.
Kael tightened his grip.
CRACK!
The rib split, and the false images broke with it.
Vaela saw the reflections scatter. "The glass keeps offering you one person at a time. It wants the rest of us abandoned."
Jaro pressed both torn hands against the seam. "I would be delighted to leave, but the passage has neglected to provide an opening."
"Keep feeling along the lower edge. You found its weakness once, and fear has made you observant."
"Fear has made me want another profession."
Orrek gave a short laugh and paid for it with a burst of pain through his shoulder. Behind him, black dividers rose between boots and joined hands. The room saw fourteen separate targets.
Renn refused the arrangement. His trapped wrist bled, and his throat could no longer carry a steady count, so he tapped shoulders and palms with his free hand.
TAP! TAP! TAP!
One tap marked a person. Two kept them linked. Three warned them not to answer a reflection.
The second Excisor turned its smooth mask toward him. Narrow vents opened where its cheeks should have been.
"Witness method adapted. Sever tactile count."
Kael planted one foot beside Renn’s lane. "His hands remain attached."
Renn resumed tapping, and the certainty in Kael’s voice steadied the people nearest him.
Sella moved her child from one arm to the other and pressed the empty hand against Lysa’s shoulder. Dorran could no longer put weight on his injured ankle, so Tavin ducked beneath his arm despite the pain in his own chest. The burned man took the rear of their small cluster and used his coat to keep their skin away from the nearest divider.
Renn tapped them in order. Each person answered by tightening the next grip, keeping the line human despite the room’s measurements.
All three bodies moved.
They appeared first as reflections in the side walls. Their real feet touched the floor one heartbeat later, linked to the crowns by pale nerves running from their backs. Kael watched the delay instead of the bodies.
Jaro noticed the same formation. "They are placing themselves around you. Once the crowns agree on the distance, there will be nowhere left to turn."
Vaela held the white edge toward the seam. "Give me their timing, not the funeral. I still need a way through."
The first Excisor struck. Its forearm flattened into a blade and swept toward Kael’s left knee, aiming to ruin the tendons rather than remove the leg.
Kael dropped his weight.
THUD!
Stone cracked beneath his heel. He turned the blade aside with the torn rib, but its edge changed shape against his guard.
SPLIT!
The cut opened his forearm to bone.
Cold pressure entered the wound and held the flesh apart. Kael could feel the field insisting that the cut remain unfinished.
The Sovereign Root answered.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRIORITY RESPONSE DETECTED: Black Glass Severance Edge
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +2
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
====================================================================
Two shards burned inside him.
The Excisor’s crown brightened. "Growth event mapped."
Kael kept the blade trapped against the rib. "You mapped the wound. You have not survived the answer."
He sent one shard into Gravity Vector Impact and the other into Metaphysical Resistance.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +2 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Gravity Vector Impact -> 30
- Metaphysical Resistance -> 32
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Severance Rejection And Impact Authority Surge Confirmed
====================================================================
The wound bled, but the field lost its hold on the flesh. Kael closed his fingers around the rib while added weight gathered through his hips.
The attacking Excisor tried to withdraw its blade. Kael rotated the broken rib and trapped the flat edge against his forearm. The black surface cut deeper whenever he pulled straight back, so he stepped closer instead.
Its mask remained smooth, but the pale nerves behind its neck tightened. The crown expected distance between them. Kael removed the distance and drove his forehead into the mask.
BANG!
A fracture crossed one sealed eye. The Excisor’s other hand unfolded toward his side, but Kael’s new resistance caught the pressure before it could hold his earlier wounds open. He turned his hip and forced the body across the path of the second Excisor.
The two polished frames collided.
CRASH!
Their crowns shifted apart before touching.
Vaela saw the avoidance. "The bodies can collide. The crowns protect their distance."
Kael stored the detail and drove his heel into the rib’s base.
He ripped the rib from the floor.
SHATTER!
The passage screamed through every connected panel.
SCREECH!
Two survivors covered their ears. Renn continued tapping with his free hand, deliberately breaking the rhythm whenever the glass tried to repeat it.
Vaela pointed toward the pale nerve beneath the first crown. "Lower left. The pulse enters there before the body moves."
Kael swung the rib across the connection.
CRACK!
The nerve bent sideways. The crown lurched, dragging the Excisor with it. Its elegant stance collapsed into an awkward half step, and the damaged mask failed to finish repairing.
Orrek saw the opening. He brought his shortened chain down across the nearest divider.
CLANG!
The panel bowed. His wounded shoulder dropped, and Tavin caught his belt before he fell across the broken edge.
"Keep your head back," Orrek warned. "I can stand without help."
Tavin pulled harder. "You can lie after both feet are under you."
Lysa joined him, and together they held Orrek upright.
The third Excisor opened both hands. Needles slid from the walls toward the old break in Orrek’s shoulder, drawn to the damaged bone.
Vaela threw the white edge.
SWOOSH!
The fragment clipped the needles’ reflections. Their real points corrected toward the false angle and struck the wall.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Vaela caught the returning edge through its cloth. Heat burned into her injured wrist, but her grip held.
"I can turn one attack at a time," she said. "Jaro, the seam must open before it learns the throw."
Jaro crouched along the lower edge. "The wall closes whenever I touch it."
"Give it the pressure it expects, and move your hands before the answer arrives."
Jaro wiped both palms on his coat. "The first opening happened when the room corrected toward the white edge. I need Vaela to irritate the upper panel while I pull below it."
Vaela shifted beside him without taking her eyes from Kael. "Say where you need the fragment. I will not guess while three blades are moving."
"Hold it flat against the seam and turn only after the glass tightens around my fingers. The correction should travel upward."
"Should?"
"I am working from one successful accident."
Vaela placed the wrapped edge where he indicated. "Make the second one look deliberate."
Jaro inserted two fingertips beneath the lowest panel. The glass closed immediately, pinching skin. He hissed but waited until the dark veins gathered around his hand.
"Turn it."
Vaela rotated the fragment. White light ran along the seam. The pressure around Jaro’s fingers lifted toward the edge, and he pulled before the wall could reverse.
The opening widened by the thickness of his hand.
"Again," he said. "I need one more correction before a child can fit."
Kael forced the torn rib beneath the damaged crown. The other Excisors adjusted around him, but they no longer watched the survivors.
Every mask faced Kael.
Renn pulled the first survivor toward Jaro while keeping the count cloth tied around his wrist. Sella passed her child to Lysa and crawled after them. Dorran moved on one knee when his ankle failed.
The crowns rotated into a tighter formation.
HUM!
Kael stepped.
THUD!
The lane fractured beneath his new impact. One crown shifted left to turn him away from the seam, while another watched Orrek through the wall. Threat Perception Instinct did not reveal their thoughts. It made each dangerous angle clear enough for his body to answer.
He changed his weight before the floor finished reacting.
The first crown dipped to correct.
Kael struck its damaged nerve line again.
CRACK!
The Excisor folded across the torn rib. Its crown flickered, and the wall released Jaro’s hands for a single breath.
"Now," Kael said.
Jaro drove his fingers into the lower seam. Vaela pushed beside him, using the wrapped white edge to keep the opening from sealing around his skin.
Renn tapped twice and dragged the survivors forward. Orrek planted himself at the rear, chain in one hand and injured shoulder hanging low.
The crowns descended the last few inches.
Sound vanished.
Kael saw the three attacks gather without hearing them: one for his knee, one for his throat, and one aimed through the wall at Orrek. He entered their timing before the blades could finish forming.
He dropped the torn rib across the knee strike and caught the throat blade between both bleeding palms. The third edge passed beside him toward Orrek’s reflection.
Kael shifted his rear foot.
The cracked floor resisted for half a heartbeat before Gravity Vector Impact forced the weight through it. A ridge rose beneath the third Excisor and spoiled its angle. The blade struck the divider above Orrek instead of his shoulder.
SPLIT!
Black fragments crossed the seam. Orrek covered Tavin and Lysa with his sound arm while Vaela used the white edge to keep the fragments from sealing into a new panel.
Kael drove his elbow against the blade near his throat. The Excisor’s wrist bent. Metaphysical Resistance kept the cut from deciding how far his hands should open, and he held until the crown dipped to restore the joint.
Behind him, the seam widened enough for the first child.
Kael drove the torn rib across the damaged crown line, giving the fourteen one more breath to escape the room.