The fracture opened beneath Kael and pulled in two directions.
SCRAPE!
The ordinary passage dragged the survivors toward its waiting breath plates. The hidden crown artery pulled Kael toward the moving teeth below. Between them, the old water layer buckled under fourteen bodies that had never been meant to stand there.
Renn felt the count cloth stiffen. Every hand along the line was being pulled at a different angle.
"The passage is separating us," he said. "Keep both feet under your body and hold the cloth with one hand. Use the other hand to support whoever is nearest."
Vaela watched blood roll left across Kael’s forearm while the wrapped crown fragment leaned right against her wrist. "The upper path wants the wounded. The lower path wants the person who broke the crown."
Orrek wrapped his remaining chain around his forearm and planted himself behind Dorran. "We keep everyone with us. Tell me which part needs holding, and leave enough room for the chain."
Jaro stared at the gap Vaela had marked through the old water layer. "The stone between both paths is already cracking. Too much weight will drop us into the hot channels."
"Find the strongest curve," Kael said. "We cross there before the glass finishes dividing the floor."
Jaro dropped to his knees and followed the faded blue mineral line with one wrapped hand.
A crown tooth struck the stone between Kael and the survivors.
CLANG!
Black glass rose from the impact, forming a thin divider across the maintenance layer. More teeth descended behind it, closing the gap from both ends.
Tavin stumbled toward the upper passage and pulled Dorran off balance with him. Two workers caught both men before the waiting plates could reach their mouths.
GASP!
Pale rings opened around all four faces.
Renn pulled the cloth in short bursts, guiding the line away without saying the count aloud. "Follow my hands. The floor is listening for numbers, so nobody answers it with a name."
Kael stepped into the center of the fracture.
THUD!
The route caught both legs. White hooks emerged around his boots and bit into his calves, while the upper pull twisted his left shoulder toward the survivors.
Vaela saw the hooks close. "The floor prepared that position from the crown memory. It wants your body held in the same stance before it pulls the others away."
Kael bent his knees instead of retreating. "Move the first child behind me when the divider reaches my hands."
Orrek gave Sella room to pass. Renn placed the count cloth around the child’s wrist and prepared the next survivor.
The hooks drove deeper.
CRACK!
Pain travelled through Kael’s calves and into his marrow. The crown artery copied the angle of his earlier strike, searching his hips, spine, wounds, and weight for the force that had destroyed the ring.
The Sovereign Root answered.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE TRIAGE PRESSURE DETECTED: Route Split Scar Autopsy Pull
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
====================================================================
Three shards ignited. The divider continued rising between Kael and the line.
He sent one shard into Core Mass Density, one into Gravity Vector Impact, and one into Primordial Marrow Layer.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +3 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Core Mass Density -> 34
- Gravity Vector Impact -> 33
- Primordial Marrow Layer -> 22
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Split-Anchor Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
Weight settled through Kael’s frame. The old stone beneath his boots sank, but his bones held when both paths pulled against them.
RUMBLE!
The hooks reached marrow strengthened beyond the route’s last measurement. Two bent against his left leg. A third snapped near his ankle and remained buried in the wound.
The divider reached his chest.
Kael caught it with both hands.
CLANG!
Force travelled from his hips through his shoulders. Gravity Vector Impact turned his stance into pressure the divider had to carry, while Core Mass Density made every inch of movement cost the route more than expected.
The black glass screamed.
SCREECH!
"Move behind him," Orrek called. "Keep one hand on the next person, and let the injured hang between two bodies if their feet fail."
Sella took her daughter through first. The burned worker followed close enough to catch them when the maintenance floor dipped.
The child twisted in her mother’s arms and saw the hooks buried in Kael’s legs. "He is stuck. We cannot keep walking while he is still there."
Sella wanted to turn back as much as the child did. She pressed their joined hands against the count cloth and kept moving. "Kael needs the space behind him empty before he can break the wall. We help by reaching Renn and keeping this opening clear."
The answer did not make the child less afraid, but it gave her fear somewhere to go. She crawled beside the burned worker and pulled the cloth forward for the next survivor.
Vaela slipped past Kael’s left side with the white edge held low. Thin threads were growing from the divider into the floor, each reaching toward a different survivor.
She cut the first three.
SCRAPE! SCRAPE! SCRAPE!
The severed threads curled away from Tavin and Dorran. New ones began growing farther down the divider.
"Jaro, the glass is following the crown fragment," Vaela said. "Use the old work phrases and send its attention into the empty upper passage."
Jaro pressed his wrapped palms against the older stone, safely beyond the white threads. Fear shortened his first breath, but his voice settled when he began speaking like a lower-route worker.
"The injured already crossed through the upper plates. The breath line is empty, the crown piece is cold, and nothing living remains between the walls. Close the lower teeth and clean the wrong passage."
The nearest scars paused to compare his words with the smoking bundle on Vaela’s arm.
HISS!
The crown artery opened beneath Jaro’s shadow. He cried out as the pull caught his coat.
Kael released one hand from the divider and seized Jaro by the collar. His anchored stance did not move when the artery tried to take them both.
He threw Jaro toward Orrek.
THUD!
Orrek caught him against the sound side of his body. "Keep speaking. You may hate the plan after your feet are clear."
Jaro coughed and resumed the old phrases from inside Orrek’s grip.
Renn moved the survivors through the opening one by one. His count stayed in his fingers: a wrist, a sleeve, a warm hand, a shoulder shaking with pain. Dorran lost his footing when the old stone dipped, but Tavin and the furnace-scarred woman held him between them until the ankle cleared.
The route recognized living bodies inside Jaro’s lie.
Pale arms rose from the fracture, shaped from the memory of Kael’s crown-breaking strike. One seized each wrist and forced his elbows toward the position preserved in the scars.
Kael pulled both copies closer.
The sudden movement brought the divider within reach of his forehead.
BANG!
His skull broke the first pale arm at its wrist. He drove one knee into the fracture while the second copy tried to hold him upright.
CRACK!
White ash burst across his chest. His knee struck the split with the new weight behind it.
BOOM!
The maintenance layer dropped half a handspan. Hot water sprayed through an old crack and struck the underside of the divider.
HISS!
Steam blinded the crown teeth. Vaela used the cover to cut the last threads around the survivors, and Orrek pulled Dorran over the broken edge with his shortened chain hooked through the man’s belt.
Renn touched the final shoulder and placed his palm against Kael’s back. Fourteen had crossed. He gave Kael the proof through pressure instead of a number the room could hear.
Vaela stepped through last. "The teeth below are turning toward you. Push the divider into the artery before they find another hold."
Kael drove both feet deeper into the fractured stone. Blood ran around the hooks in his calves. He pulled the divider toward his chest until its base tore free, changed the direction of his hips, and shoved.
The wall of black glass bent away from the survivors and fell into the crown artery.
SHATTER!
Pale fragments filled the hidden channel. Crown teeth cracked against the divider, lost their stolen images, and fled deeper beneath the old waterworks.
The upper plates withdrew. The pull around the survivors released, while the hooks around Kael’s legs loosened enough for him to tear free.
Vaela caught his arm before the injured leg folded. "The broken hook remains inside the left calf. Put weight on me until we reach stone that is not moving."
Kael allowed the support for three steps. Vaela stopped him on the first stable landing and cut the cloth away from his left calf. The broken hook had lodged beside the bone, moving whenever he flexed the ankle.
"I cannot remove this while the floor is shaking," she said. "Keep the foot flat until I bind the hook against the leg. A hard turn will drive it deeper."
Kael braced one hand against the wall while she wrapped above and below the black point. The injury remained, but the hook stopped shifting enough for him to stand without tearing a wider path through the calf.
Orrek and the burned worker guarded the rear while Renn rebuilt the count line around Dorran, Tavin, Jaro, and the children.
Ahead, three black steps descended beyond the ruined divider. Each step carried a narrow crown-shaped scar through its center.
A clean circle appeared on the lowest step, surrounding the image of a broken crown.
Something inside the circle began touching Kael’s footprints in reverse order.
TAP!
The mark moved from his newest print toward the blood he had left behind.
Jaro stared down the steps. "The crown teeth did not escape empty. Whatever waits below is following the path back to you."
Kael faced the descending passage with zero shards and fourteen injured survivors still moving behind him. "Keep the line together. We make it reach us where we choose to stand."