The Null Body finished forming in front of Kael.
Plates opened along its hollow ribs, each angled toward someone in the group. Thin cords trembled whenever Renn counted a breath or Vaela moved the injured.
Orrek braced his working shoulder against a crooked pillar. His other arm hung close to his side, swollen beneath the old wrapping. "I preferred it when the room was still guessing."
"It has enough guesses now," Jaro said. He crouched beside a floor seam and gripped the broken scar glass from the last chamber. "Watch the ribs. Every plate is facing someone."
The Null Body struck the floor with one heel.
CLANG!
Dark lines raced through the stone. One split beneath Orrek, another curved toward Vaela, while a third reached for Renn's bare feet. The cords snapped forward before anyone could leave the marked ground.
Renn caught the nearest survivor by the wrist and shoved the man's hand against the next person's shoulder. "Keep touching someone. I cannot count you if the room pulls us apart."
Vaela dragged her damaged white edge across the plate coming for her. The blade did not cut it, but the impact turned it far enough to miss her wrist.
SCREECH!
Orrek threw his hip into the opening floor. Stone slammed against him from both sides, trapping his coat and grinding against the joint he could still use.
THUD!
"Move before my better half becomes the flatter half!" he shouted.
The survivors stumbled through. A boy pulled the crawling furnace-scar woman by her sleeve, babbling about old boot soup so she watched him instead of the cords.
Kael waited until the Null Body turned. Its left ribs closed first. A bright seam reached from those plates into the pillar, lifting the body when the light reached the top.
He crossed the dark line under his feet and drove his elbow into the glowing joint.
CRACK!
The seam split, but the Null Body had learned his reach. It twisted away, caught his chest with a flat palm, and threw his momentum sideways. Kael struck the floor hard enough to break the stone beneath his spine.
CRASH!
Pain swallowed his breath. The hand remained against his chest, pressing him deeper while the floor tightened around his shoulders.
The Sovereign Root opened behind his eyes.
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ HOSTILE COUNTERMEASURE PRESSURE DETECTED: Null Body Full Sequence
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +7
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▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND: NONE GIVEN
====================================================================
Seven shards waited for his command. Kael sent two into Core Mass Density, two into Gravity Vector Impact, and one each into Velocity Movement Authority, Regenerative Dominion, and Metaphysical Resistance.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
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≫ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +7 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Core Mass Density -> 39
- Gravity Vector Impact -> 38
- Velocity Movement Authority -> 34
- Regenerative Dominion -> 28
- Metaphysical Resistance -> 39
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≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Structural mass, impact authority, movement deviation, wound recovery, and denial resistance surged under full null pressure.
====================================================================
The pressure remained, but Kael changed beneath it. His back sank deeper into the stone, his ribs held, and the torn flesh across his chest drew tight.
He wrapped both hands around the white wrist pressing him down.
CRUNCH!
Finger plates folded against his grip. The Null Body tried to turn his force back through his joints, but Metaphysical Resistance kept the command from settling inside him. Kael dragged the arm down, paused when the body adjusted, and wrenched it sideways.
Vaela saw the left ribs open. "The bright seam feeds those plates. Keep its arm low, and I can reach it."
Kael lunged toward the mask. The Null Body raised its free hand to stop the head strike it remembered. His forehead halted short, his weight dropped, and his shoulder hammered the floor between its feet.
BOOOOMM!!
Stone burst upward. The broken seam carried the impact into the pillar, and the force returned through the Null Body's legs. Its ribs flew open.
"Now. It has lost the floor!" Renn shouted.
Orrek drove his hip harder into the split stone.
CRACK!
Vaela reached beneath the open ribs and cut the pale vein she had marked.
SNAP!
Jaro hurled his scar glass into a bright seam on the opposite wall. "Follow this one, you blind piece of bone!"
Light rushed toward the false opening. The Null Body turned with it, and Kael hauled the trapped wrist into the broken pillar.
He crushed the hand first.
CRACK!
His elbow broke the nearest rib hinge.
THUD!
His knee rose through the hollow center from the angle Orrek had opened.
BOOM!
The white mask dipped to protect the gap. Kael drove his shoulder through it and stamped on the dark line trying to lift the body away.
CRUNCH!
White fragments sprayed across the floor. New seams fastened around the broken ribs before Kael could tear them free.
The Null Body staggered upright. Its chest plates spread, and the mask split open. Turning metal and pale glass shifted behind it whenever Kael changed his stance.
Jaro's fear stripped the humor from his voice. "The center is copying every way he starts."
Vaela kept pressure on her bleeding thumb. "Kael, it moves before you finish choosing. Give the rest of us enough time to make its choice wrong."
Renn pulled the survivors closer without breaking the chain of hands. Orrek held the damaged floor open. Jaro moved beside the false seam, ready with his last piece of glass, while Vaela raised the white edge near the exposed vein.
The rotating center flashed. Plates struck from Kael's left and right, forcing him toward the stance the body expected. He let his head tilt forward and his right fist rise.
The Null Body committed both arms to the familiar attack.
Kael stepped short instead.
Renn stamped once, giving him the position of the people behind him. Vaela severed the feeding vein. Orrek released the floor at the exact moment the body's weight returned, and Jaro jammed the final glass shard into the seam trying to repair it.
Kael caught one wrist with his left palm. His right elbow collapsed the open rib hinge, his knee drove into the turning center, and his heel anchored against the broken stone. Gravity gathered through his whole body before he drove forward.
BOOOOMM!!
Kael's shoulder struck the mask across its deepest dent.
SHATTER!
White fragments burst across the hollow ribs as they folded around Kael's arm. The stance locks tore free from the legs, throwing more pieces upward before they crashed back onto the floor.
CLATTER!
Kael reached through the ruined chest and seized the turning core. It pushed against his fingers, trying to open his grip and send the force elsewhere. His new density held it between both palms.
He tore it free.
RIP!
Kael threw the broken core into the open chest. Every bright seam in the chamber went dark. The Null Body dropped to its knees, and Kael drove his heel through it before it could rise again.
THUD!
Its ribs broke outward. Plates, pale dust, and pieces of white bone spread across the floor, leaving no whole body beneath him.
Renn moved along the survivors, touching each wrist until his count reached the last frightened hand. Blood darkened the cloth around his throat.
"All twenty-one are still here," he said, and the relief in his damaged voice made several people sag against one another.
Orrek slid down the pillar, cradling his shoulder. "The arm has stopped obeying me. I can still stand if someone keeps it against my ribs."
Vaela knelt beside him, secured his wrist against his ribs, and checked the joint without asking permission. "Hold it there while I look at Renn. The arm stays still until I return."
Jaro stared at the wreckage. "I do not know how many of these bodies the Court built."
Exhaustion left the group silent. Jaro searched the broken plates for movement.
Kael stepped away from the broken chest. His body had grown stronger, but the improvement had not erased the pain. Blood still ran down his ribs, and both hands shook when he opened them. The Sovereign Root held zero shards.
Far above the chamber, Ivara Thane felt the Null Body break through the chain around her ribs. The fourth link strained against her pull.
CRACK!
The split widened and bit deeper into her skin, but a narrowing strip of metal still held. Ivara smiled into the cold cell and tested the fracture with another measured pull. "I can widen it again."
Back below, the wall trembled around a widening black seam.
RUMBLE!
A narrow passage appeared beyond the dead body, its floor made from black glass and pale support bone. White dust drifted through the opening and turned toward the blood on Kael's hands.
Jaro swallowed and kept his distance from the clean plates scattered near his feet. "One body failed. The next chamber will link floor, cords, and plates. Old workers called it a countermeasure protocol. No crew I knew returned after seeing one."
Vaela stopped him from touching a plate with two bloody fingers. "Keep talking from behind Orrek. I need room to check the wounded before that passage opens farther."
Jaro stepped behind Orrek and tucked both wrapped palms against his chest while Vaela turned toward Renn.
Renn laughed once, and the sound caught against the damage in his throat.
COUGH!
Vaela turned toward him immediately. With the Null Body down, she could hear his damaged breathing clearly again.
Kael looked from the injured people to the opening. They needed a safer floor, water, and time for Vaela to work, but the chamber behind them had already begun shedding pale dust from its seams.
"We keep moving," he said. "Stay close enough to touch, and leave every white piece where it fell."
Orrek stood, Renn restored the count, Jaro watched the passage, and Vaela checked the weakest first.
Behind them, a fracture crept across the dead Null Body's chest.
CRACK!
The limbs stayed still while pale dust lifted from the broken plates and carried the failure deeper into the white rooms.