The bright crack beside the nearest pillar looked ready to split under one strike.
Vaela walked past it.
Orrek took half a step toward the light before her hand caught the back of his belt. His chain hung from his sound shoulder, and fresh blood had darkened the wraps around both palms.
"The crack opens whenever the creature shifts its left foot," he said. "I can reach it from here, although the light is sitting exactly where my chain would land."
Vaela studied the light without releasing his belt. "Give me a moment before you swing. The room knows how you strike, and I want to see where the dust moves when the light opens."
The Null Body watched them from the center of the chamber. Dark seams beneath its feet carried light into its smooth ankles, while white plates turned inside the hollow ribs. The mask remained fixed on Kael, but one long hand angled toward Vaela.
Renn moved the fourteen behind a slanted pillar. He kept the boy under his left arm and passed the count through wrists with his injured hand.
"The bright line reaches the same side as the cord we tore," he said. "It may be connected, but I cannot tell whether breaking it helps us or helps the body."
"Keep your feet away from it," Kael said. "Vaela reads the stone, while Orrek keeps the chain loose until something moves."
Vaela crouched three handspans from the glowing crack. She drew the damaged white edge only far enough to expose its chipped tip, pressed the dull side into the dust, and dragged it toward the pillar.
HISS!
Pale grains gathered around a line too thin to see from standing height. The hidden line ran away from the bright crack, passed beneath the pillar, and entered the left wall behind the Null Body.
Renn watched the gathered dust slide past the bright crack. "Something beneath the pillar is pulling those grains toward the wall."
Vaela lowered her face closer to the floor. "I see it now. This thinner line carries the pull, while the bright crack sits beside it like bait beside a snare."
The Null Body crossed the chamber.
Its feet followed the dark seams without touching broken stone. The left arm unfolded twice at the elbow, placing a flat white palm between Vaela and the hidden line before any ordinary body could have covered the distance.
SWOOSH!
Kael struck the wrist from the side.
CRACK!
The joint bent around his forearm instead of breaking. A white plate inside the palm turned with the blow and forced half the impact back through his elbow. Pain jumped into the shoulder the anchor had already damaged.
The returned impact drove Kael’s elbow into his damaged shoulder, and his hand went numb for half a breath. The Null Body had used his own interception against him.
The Sovereign Root opened.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ HOSTILE COUNTERMEASURE PRESSURE DETECTED: False Weakness Backlash
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +1
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▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
====================================================================
One shard waited behind Kael’s thoughts, and he needed to distinguish a real opening from the chamber’s invitation before someone behind him paid for the next mistake.
Threat Perception Instinct.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +1 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Threat Perception Instinct -> 26
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: False-target recognition sharpened under active countermeasure pressure.
====================================================================
Kael’s vision remained ordinary, but small errors became easier to notice. The bright crack flashed before the body moved, as though trying to call his eye early. The dark seam beneath its feet brightened only after weight entered the joint. The thin line Vaela had found pulled dust toward the wall whenever the ribs closed, hiding the useful structure behind ordinary stone.
"Left wall," Kael said. "The line bends upward behind it."
Vaela rolled beneath the returning palm. Broken glass cut her knuckles, but she reached the dull line and drove the chipped edge into the place where it vanished under the wall.
CLINK!
The blade stopped less than an inch deep. Pale force crawled over her thumb and numbed the hand holding it.
"I found the part it does not want to display," she said through clenched teeth. "The wall is carrying more than the crack."
The Null Body pulled back one inch.
Renn saw the retreat. "It moved for Vaela’s blade. The light never made it move."
He changed the count without waiting for another instruction. The boy switched from Renn’s wrist to the furnace-scar woman’s sleeve. Tavin supported Dorran from the opposite side. Sella placed her daughter ahead of her instead of holding the child behind her coat. The burned worker took Jaro’s elbow when his bandaged palms began shaking.
The fourteen remained connected, but their positions no longer matched what the masks had copied.
Sella’s daughter saw Vaela’s whitening fingers and reached toward her before Sella caught the child’s wrist. Vaela looked back long enough to understand the fear on both faces.
"The cord has numbed my thumb, but the hand still closes," she said. "Keep the child behind the pillar, because a second touch may travel farther than the first."
She shifted the blade into the crook between thumb and forefinger, using bone to support what the deadened muscles could not. Sella nodded and moved without asking for reassurance, while the girl watched Vaela test the altered grip.
CLICK! CLICK!
Plates inside the Null Body’s ribs turned in several directions at once. Its head followed Kael while the left shoulder tried to answer Vaela and the rear foot corrected toward Renn’s changing line.
"It cannot follow every change together," Renn said. "The ribs are choosing one of us at a time."
Jaro stayed beside the burned worker and helped him change hands. "Keep shifting before those ribs settle. Poor cooperation may be the first useful habit my old crews taught me."
Orrek shortened his grip on the chain and moved with the others instead of answering. Their frightened voices overlapped and denied the chamber a clean command to repeat.
Vaela twisted the white edge deeper. Blood ran over her numb thumb and gathered at the blade’s guard.
"Kael, strike above my hand. The hidden line turns away from the surface there."
Kael stepped inside the Null Body’s reach. The smooth palm cut toward his throat, but he lowered his shoulder beneath it and drove the full weight of his body into the left wall.
BOOM!
Stone folded inward. The bright crack flared across the pillar, begging for the second strike, while a dull white cord appeared for half a heartbeat inside the broken wall.
The Null Body staggered.
SCREECH!
Its mask slipped out of line with its throat. The left foot scraped instead of gliding along the floor seam.
Orrek laughed despite the pain tightening his shoulder. "Its left foot is scraping now. The wall strike damaged more than the face."
Vaela followed the dragging foot while she worked the blade loose. "Keep watching it. The balance is changing, and I need to know where the weight goes before Kael strikes again."
Kael drew his bruised arm back. The chamber had punished a familiar interception, but his sharpened perception now exposed every choice it tried too hard to guide.
Vaela pulled her blade free.
SCRAPE!
The thin cord withdrew deeper into the wall. Three new cracks lit across the room: one near the floor, another along the ceiling, and a third across a pillar at Orrek’s striking height.
Orrek looked at the last one and shortened his grip again. "The crack sits exactly where I would swing the chain."
Vaela kept her attention on the pillar instead of him. "Leave it alone until we know where the stone carries the force. The room has watched you long enough to make the bait convincing."
The Null Body stood still and let the bright cracks tempt them.
One of the older workers stared at the ceiling crack. The light reflected him without burns, dirt, or the torn coat hanging from his shoulders. His grip loosened from the woman beside him.
Renn tapped his wrist twice.
TAP! TAP!
"Look at your own hand," Renn said. "The room has made you clean because it wants you alone. Keep the dirt and hold on."
The worker blinked, saw the blood beneath his nails, and tightened his grip. The ceiling crack dimmed.
Kael studied the rhythm of all three lights. The floor crack pulsed with his breathing. The pillar waited for Orrek’s chain. The ceiling followed the worker’s gaze.
None of the bright cracks shifted when the Null Body moved. During the dark pause between their pulses, dust slid toward an unmarked patch of floor beside Kael.
Kael placed his palm on an unmarked patch of floor.
The mask turned toward him too quickly.
Vaela followed the mask instead of the light. "It watched your hand, not the cracks. Something lies under that bare stone."
Kael struck beside his hand.
THUD!
The floor held, but all three bright cracks bent toward the impact. Their light revealed a hidden cord running beneath the unmarked stone.
Vaela cut across it.
SNAP!
The Null Body stepped back. One layer of white plate closed over its ribs, and the glowing cracks vanished at once.
Renn kept the fourteen moving behind the damaged pillar. The chamber had lost one trick, not the body built from everything they had already survived.
"It needed us to strike the wrong support," Vaela said as she moved behind the damaged pillar. "The next bait may not shine for us."
Jaro flexed his wrapped hands and winced. "I would have hit the first crack before anyone stopped me. Keep me away from the next one if I start reaching too quickly."
Kael watched the Null Body store the failed trap behind closing ribs. Its mask remained on Vaela’s hidden cord until the last plate sealed, giving all fourteen people something real to watch when the next trap appeared.
The creature lowered both hands. Darkness pooled beneath its feet, holding the shape of Kael’s last impact without carrying the broken stone around it.
The room had begun building a strike from the force he had already spent.