The seam closed behind Kael.
CLACK!
Fourteen shapes remained visible through the black wall. Renn had the count cloth stretched between them, and Vaela was moving from Orrek’s hand to the rescued child. They were injured, frightened, and beyond Kael’s immediate strike path.
Kael turned toward the Excisors.
One mask was split, another chest had folded around Kael’s shoulder, and pale nerves showed beneath cracks in their black ribs, but the crowns remained intact.
Three dark rings floated behind the bodies, linked to the corridor by reflection nerves. Cold fluid pulsed through each ring before an Excisor repaired.
Kael tested the injured leg before they moved. It could still carry him, although the cut above the knee had begun to stiffen. His left hand closed more slowly than the right, and blood made the torn rib difficult to hold.
He let the rib fall.
CLANG!
The Excisors watched the weapon strike the floor. None of them watched his empty hands. Kael flexed his fingers once and understood the mistake they had made.
The first ring had missed a beat when Ivara shook the white rooms, and Kael needed it to miss again.
HUM!
The quarantine field closed in three layers. The first tightened around his lungs. The second pulled at his joints. The third absorbed the force spreading through the floor before it could reach the crowns.
All three Excisors spoke.
"Living Contamination Event isolated."
Kael rolled his shoulders as blood ran from his collar and forearm. Every breath burned his side. He held no shards, but every point he had spent remained inside him.
Behind the dark wall, Renn heard the three voices speak as one, and his grip tightened around the count cloth. "They sound as if they have already finished with him."
Orrek rested his shortened chain across his knees while Vaela bound the tooth in his palm. "People sound certain when they need everyone else to stop looking."
Vaela pulled the knot firm. "Save the lesson for later. I need you listening for Kael’s feet, because the change in rhythm will tell me what the field is doing."
Renn pressed one ear toward the glass. The first step came slowly. The next crossed too much distance for an injured body.
The first Excisor attacked.
Its blade-hand crossed toward his throat.
SWOOSH!
Kael stepped inside the swing and accepted the edge across his collar rather than his neck.
SPLIT!
Heat ran down his chest. He caught the Excisor’s wrist, turned his hips, and drove one knee into the joint beneath its ribs.
CRACK!
The joint folded backward.
Reflection threads pulled the body upright. Kael met the rising mask with his forehead.
BANG!
Black pieces burst from its mouthless face. The crown brightened, and new glass began covering the damage before the fragments landed.
The second Excisor struck his back.
THUD!
Kael hit one knee. A dark outline formed beneath it, shaping the floor around a kneeling body.
He slammed his palm down.
CRACK!
The outline split before the glass could hold his position.
The third crown widened. A black ring dropped around Kael’s shoulders.
CLANG!
Its inner edge bit into old wounds and pulled upward. The field could not lift him, but the pressure trapped his arms long enough for the first Excisor to finish repairing.
Kael stood.
SCRAPE!
The ring dragged over bone. Blood slicked its edge, and every muscle across his back shook under the effort.
The Sovereign Root answered.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRIORITY RESPONSE DETECTED: Quarantine Crown Isolation Field
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +6
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
====================================================================
Six shards ignited inside him, and every crown brightened in response.
"Growth event mapped. Crown adjustment preparing."
Kael drew one painful breath. "You measured the body before it changed."
He divided the shards across the four attributes needed to reach and break the crown.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +6 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Core Mass Density -> 33
- Gravity Vector Impact -> 32
- Velocity Movement Authority -> 29
- Metaphysical Resistance -> 33
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Crown-Break Pressure Surge Confirmed
====================================================================
The ring continued cutting, but it could no longer pull him upward. Core Mass Density settled through his frame and drove his feet into the floor. Gravity Vector Impact gathered around his hips. Velocity Movement Authority shortened the delay before his next step, while Metaphysical Resistance rejected the field’s attempt to restore the kneeling shape.
All six shards were spent, and zero remained.
Kael closed both hands around the ring.
RIP!
Its edge cut his palms. He pulled downward instead of trying to lift it away.
The Excisors stopped for a fraction of a heartbeat. Their restraint had become a handle attached directly to the crowns.
One crown released while another pulled upward, sending cold fluid in opposite directions through their centers.
The conflict trembled against Kael’s palms, and he gave the harder-pulling crown more weight than its frame could accept.
Kael stepped.
THUD!
The floor cratered beneath his right foot. Force ran through the ring, climbed the reflection nerves, and struck the lower part of the first crown.
The ring stuttered, and Kael moved before it corrected.
The second Excisor entered his path. He drove his shoulder through its chest and carried the body into the quarantine field.
CRUNCH!
Black ribs burst around him. The crown behind the Excisor shifted away from the collision, exposing the pale connection along its spine.
The third Excisor cut toward Kael’s knee.
He stamped on the blade.
CRACK!
The black hand shattered beneath his heel.
Kael reached the first body, caught it beneath the jaw, and pinned it against the wall with his forearm.
BOOM!
The panel bowed. The crown flickered behind the damaged head, drawing every repair pulse through the lower-left ring.
Vaela had found the weakness. Jaro had recognized its timing. Ivara’s distant resistance had forced it to miss.
Kael only needed to survive the opening.
The Excisor drove its broken fingers into his side.
SPLIT!
Pain spread beneath his ribs. He kept the body pinned and reached around its head with his left hand.
His fingers closed on the lower ring.
SCREECH!
The crown screamed through the corridor.
Needles erupted from the wall and entered Kael’s arm. He turned his elbow inward, using shoulder and ribs to shield the grip. Skin tore. His hand remained closed.
Three needles reached bone. Two bent when Core Mass Density settled through the arm. The third buried itself near his elbow and began pumping cold fluid into the wound.
Kael tore the needle free with his teeth and spat it against the pinned Excisor’s face.
CLINK!
Cold spread through his forearm, slowing the fingers around the crown. Regenerative Dominion could not remove the fluid, but it kept the damaged tissue working while his grip tried to fail.
The other Excisors recovered.
Kael kicked backward without looking.
THUD!
His heel folded the second Excisor’s knee into the floor. His other foot pinned the shattered hand of the third.
The quarantine ring tightened around his shoulders. Kael pulled it farther down, forcing all three crowns to support the same impossible load.
RUMBLE!
The black passage shook from floor to ceiling.
Renn’s voice reached him through the wall.
"Fourteen! Still fourteen!"
Orrek followed, rough and breathless. "The lower ring, Kael. Make it regret having one."
Vaela gave no encouragement. She watched the pulse.
"It is breathing now. Strike before the light reaches the center."
Kael waited one beat.
The lower ring brightened.
He dragged it down with his left hand and drove his right elbow into the crown’s wet center. His knee pinned the Excisor’s spine. His shoulder broke through the restraint around his body, and both feet crushed deeper into the old stone.
SHATTER!
The first Quarantine Crown broke.
Black light burst across the passage. Force raced backward through every reflection nerve and convulsed the pinned Excisor.
Breath returned first.
GASP!
Movement returned next.
CLATTER!
Loose glass struck the floor. The final layer released everything it had absorbed from Kael’s attacks.
BOOOOM!
The lane split from floor to ceiling.
The sealed wall behind Kael cracked open. Released pressure threw the survivors against one another, but Renn held the count cloth until every hand answered.
Sella fell across the burned man and shielded her daughter beneath them. Tavin caught Dorran before his injured ankle twisted beneath the rail. Orrek drove his sound hand into the floor and kept Vaela from striking the broken wall.
Nobody escaped the blast untouched, yet the count cloth remained stretched through fourteen answering hands.
Kael stood inside the falling glass with a piece of the crown in his fist. Blood ran down both arms. The two remaining Excisors retreated one step, their crowns dim and their feet cutting matching lines through the floor.
He threw the broken piece between them.
CLANG!
"Carry this back and show them where their containment failed."
The Excisors did not answer. A vertical slit opened behind them and pulled both bodies away before the collapsing lane could bury them.
Vaela crossed the broken seam with the white edge ready. She pressed cloth against Kael’s forearm and checked the cut in his side.
"They carried every unbroken part away, so whoever receives them will know exactly where you struck."
"We needed the passage more than their bodies."
Renn counted everyone again. Orrek remained against the wall with his injured palm held high. Jaro sat on the floor, staring at the crown fragment.
"People are punished for touching those rings, but you broke one with your hands," Jaro said.
Orrek looked at the shattered lane. "He should be punished for leaving such an ugly mess."
The rescued child peered around Sella’s shoulder. "Did we win?"
Orrek looked toward the heavier ring turning somewhere ahead, and his smile faded before it could become another joke. "We made this room lose, but the next one has not met us yet."
The child considered his answer and held tighter to her mother.
A heavier ring rotated somewhere ahead.
RUMBLE!
Kael faced the sound. He had zero shards, fresh wounds, fourteen living survivors behind him, and proof that a Quarantine Crown could break.
He walked before the white rooms could seal the route again.