White cords pushed through the seams ahead of Kael. Each one ended in a small hook, while black rings opened and closed along its length.
SCRATCH!
The first row hung above the passage like fishing lines. Clear fluid moved inside the cords, carrying tiny images of Kael’s shoulder wound, cut palm, damaged knee, and bitten tendon.
Vaela raised her wrapped blade. "Keep your hands clear. The first hook is following Kael’s shoulder wound, and the fluid came from the sample that escaped below us."
Jaro had already lifted one finger toward a cord. He lowered it and wiped the hand on his clothing. "I was checking the distance. Curiosity has limits when the wall grows hooks."
Orrek kept the chain around his waist and moved the survivors behind him. Sova supported his injured side. "My shoulder has been cut often enough to attract attention. Keep the people with old wounds away from the first row."
A hook dropped toward Kael’s shoulder.
WHIP!
Kael caught the cord before the point entered the reopened cut. The black rings pulsed against his fingers, and his elbow locked in the same position the Removal Body had forced on it.
The cord was making the joint repeat an injury it had already survived.
Renn watched the arm stiffen. "It is replaying the lock from the last chamber."
Vaela studied the clear fluid. "If the cord stays attached, his body may begin treating the old injury as if it belongs there."
Kael pulled the hook from the wall.
RIP!
Clear fluid sprayed across the tiles. Every seam along the passage opened in response.
A hundred hooks struck at once.
WHIP! WHIP! WHIP!
Three wrapped around Orrek before they could reach the survivors. One crossed his forearm, another found the old shoulder tear, and the third tightened around his chest. His knees bent as the damaged joint tried to repeat every time it had failed under weight.
Sova caught his waist. The people behind him took hold of her clothing and pulled together, keeping him upright without touching the cords.
More hooks passed over Orrek and searched the people behind him. One turned toward the ash-lipped man’s wrapped palm. Another followed the younger survivor’s limp, while two lowered toward Renn’s damaged throat whenever he tried to speak.
Vaela pushed the ash-lipped man beneath a strip of unbroken wall. "Keep the hand against your chest and move with Sova. The hook is following the old cut, so do not offer it a second angle."
Renn stopped speaking and counted with his fingers. Jaro watched the signals, repeated them to the rear with one hand, and used the other to pull the younger survivor away from the cord following his calf.
The bowl boy crouched beside Nera. She covered his hands with the loose end of her sleeve, hiding the old scrapes across his knuckles without taking the bowl away.
Kael moved toward him. A hook caught his hip and forced the turn used against the Removal Body. Another tightened around his wrist. A third brushed his jaw and delayed his next breath.
The Sovereign Root opened under the pressure. Kael chose the two exact attributes that would let damaged tissue answer faster and keep the reopened wounds from becoming entrances.
Cellular Acceleration. Regenerative Dominion.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRESSURE DETECTED: Tendon-Memory Hook Rehearsal
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +2
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +2 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Cellular Acceleration -> 14
- Regenerative Dominion -> 33
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Wound-Learning Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
The hooks pulled deeper. Heat spread around Kael’s old cuts before the cords could finish forcing them open. Cellular Acceleration made the injured tissue respond to his present movement, while Regenerative Dominion held the torn edges together.
Pain remained, but the remembered locks could no longer hold his joints in the old positions.
Kael broke the hook around his wrist.
SNAP!
His elbow released. He crossed the next row as twelve hooks drove into the old wounds along his shoulder, thigh, ribs, palm, and jaw.
RIP! RIP! RIP!
The cords pulled each wound in a different direction. Kael drove his wounded shoulder into the wall before the passage could finish separating the strain.
BOOM!
Stone and cords broke together. The impact slackened the hooks around Orrek and opened enough space for Vaela to reach him.
She cut the line buried in his shoulder.
SLASH!
Sova and two survivors pulled Orrek away as the hook released. He spat clear fluid from his mouth and kept his uninjured hand on the chain.
"I can guard the floor, but the shoulder will not survive another cord," he said. "Keep the high hooks away from Renn while I move everyone past the break."
Vaela wrapped fresh cloth across the joint. "Stay below them and use your waist. I will cut anything that reaches the binding."
Renn pressed each knot on the count cloth and called the survivors forward in pairs. "Twenty-one are here. Move when Kael clears the next section, and keep every old wound covered."
The hooks turned toward his voice.
Kael crossed the passage before the first one reached Renn’s throat. He took three cords across his shoulder, caught a fourth with the marked hand, and drove his heel into the tile.
BOOM!
The floor broke beneath him. He gathered the cords and slammed them against the wall.
CRACK!
A seam split open behind them. Inside, clear fluid ran across a pale spool turning around a red axle. Tiny images of Kael’s hand, knee, shoulder, and breath appeared on its surface before each hook attacked.
Vaela pointed with her blade. "The spool is feeding the old movements into every cord. Break the axle, and the hooks lose their aim."
Kael grabbed the spool. It replayed the pain of his fingers closing around the Removal Body’s ribs, but he tightened his grip until its shell folded.
CRUNCH!
A wave passed through the collapsed spool, and every cord began whipping without a target.
WHIP! WHIP! WHIP!
Blind hooks struck the walls, floor, and one another. The passage remained too narrow for twenty-one people to cross safely.
Renn divided the formation into three groups. Sova led the first along Vaela’s blade marks. Jaro guided the middle group and warned them away from loose cords.
Orrek remained with the last group. He hooked his chain around a fallen length of tendon and dragged it away from the walking line with his waist.
CLANG!
The cord whipped once when the chain moved. Kael caught it before the hook reached Orrek’s bound shoulder and crushed the nearest ring beneath his heel.
CRACK!
The first ten survivors reached the far side. Renn crossed with the final four, touching each shoulder as it passed and checking that the copied hooks had not caught a sleeve or bandage.
Kael caught two cords around his forearm and pulled.
The wall opened from floor to ceiling.
RIP!
Hooks spilled from the split and dropped across the tiles. Clear fluid hissed against the old ash beneath them.
Vaela stamped on the nearest black ring before it could close around her ankle. "The cords can still react after the spool breaks. Crush every ring near the walking line."
Jaro and Sova used the surviving piece of door plate to sweep loose hooks away from the survivors. Orrek dragged the larger cords aside with his chain while keeping the pull below his injured shoulder.
A younger man tried to step around one fallen hook. It twitched toward the old cut on his calf.
Orrek caught the back of his wrap. "Wait until Vaela breaks the ring. The cord saw your limp before you saw it move."
The man returned to the line. Vaela crushed the ring, and Renn guided him across with another survivor supporting the wounded leg.
Kael reached the last hook hanging in front of his face. Clear fluid inside its ring shaped a small image of him closing his fist, followed by pale lines reaching along his wrist, shoulder, chest, knee, and heel.
The cords had recorded where the unintegrated authority seed touched Kael’s body. They knew the physical response, while the unfinished power and the Root behind it remained beyond them.
Kael crushed the ring.
CRACK!
The remaining cords withdrew as the seams began closing over them.
CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!
The walls carried what the hooks had observed toward the next mechanism.
Renn counted again, and all twenty-one answered.
Vaela checked Kael’s reopened wounds while Sova rebound the younger man’s calf. Orrek sat against the wall for three breaths with the chain around his waist and the injured shoulder braced.
Jaro watched the closed seams. "They remember old injuries because people usually protect the same pain in the same way. We should change how everyone carries the wounded before the next room copies us again."
Renn looked at the formation. "Partners change after every turn. Support a different side each time, and speak before moving if you feel a cord pull."
The survivors reorganized without breaking contact. Some used shoulders instead of hands. Others passed belts and cloth beneath arms so injured fingers could rest.
Small voices began counting beneath the floor.
"One. Two. Three."
They copied Renn’s damaged rhythm with perfect patience.
The survivors stopped. The voices continued to twenty-one, naming the number without knowing any of the people it represented.
Renn tightened the count cloth around his fingers. The floor had copied the one task he believed still belonged entirely to him.
Vaela stood close enough for him to see her without turning toward the voices. "Let the floor keep the sound. You still know who answers when you count."
Renn looked across the twenty-one faces before he nodded. He touched the first shoulder himself instead of repeating the number aloud.
Kael looked down at the sealed seams. The hooks had learned more than old wounds. They had watched the group use touch, names, cloth, and shared weight to keep twenty-one bodies together.
The next room was waiting to count every contact.