Then Silas's voice cut through the noise: "Kai! Where do you think you're going?"
He'd noticed. Of course he had.
Kai turned. Silas was thirty feet away, but closing fast. Two of his guards broke from the fight to follow.
"Run!" Kai shouted.
They sprinted onto the bridge. The fused section groaned under their weight but held. Behind them, Silas and his guards followed.
Halfway across, Kai's simulation flashed a warning: Bridge integrity at 43%. Multiple simultaneous impacts will cause collapse.
Silas and two guards were on the bridge now. Their combined weight was too much.
The wood groaned, cracked.
"Jump!" Kai screamed.
They leaped for the far side as the fused section gave way completely. The entire center of the bridge collapsed in a roar of splintering wood.
Silas and his guards fell with it.
But Silas didn't scream. As he fell, he reached out, his fingers elongating, transforming into grappling hooks that dug into the far cliff face. He hung there, fifty feet down, his body reshaping itself to survive the fall. His correction was more extensive than he'd shown—full morphological control.
His guards weren't so lucky. They vanished into the thorned depths.
Silas looked up, his eyes meeting Kai's across the gap. There was no anger in that gaze. Only calculation. And promise.
He would survive. And he would remember.
On the far side, Vex's remaining forces watched them, weapons ready. Their leader—a woman with skin like polished obsidian and eyes that burned with inner fire—stepped forward.
"Well," she said. "That was impressive."
Kai's ability assessed her: threat level extreme. Correction: thermal regulation and emission. Could likely generate intense heat.
"You work for Silas?" Vex asked.
"We escaped him," Lena said.
"Even better." Vex smiled. It was not a comforting expression. "Anyone who inconveniences Silas is a friend of mine. For now." Her gaze settled on Kai. "You're the predictor. Silas was bragging about you. Said you were his new prize."
"I'm not anyone's prize."
"We'll see." Vex gestured to her people. "We're heading to the Heart Tree. You can walk with us. Or you can try to go alone through the inner rings." She nodded toward the forest beyond. "The grove gets... creative closer to the center."
Kai looked at Lena, at Anya. They were exhausted, wounded, out of supplies. Walking with Vex offered protection, resources. But at what cost?
Slot counter: 89/200
Time was running out.
"We'll walk with you," Kai said.
"Wise choice." Vex turned and started into the trees without looking back. "Keep up. And don't touch the singing flowers. They're addictive."
As they followed, Kai felt a shift in his own perception. The encounter with Silas, the bridge collapse, the cool assessment of Vex—each moment sanded away another layer of something soft inside him.
When Lena stumbled and he caught her, his aversion response was so strong he actually gagged. She looked at him, hurt, and pulled her arm away.
Empathic Dampening: 61%
He was becoming a stranger to himself. A efficient, calculating stranger.
The inner rings of the grove were indeed different. The trees were taller, thicker, with bark that pulsed like slow heartbeats. Luminescent fungi grew in intricate patterns that seemed almost intentional—like circuitry. And everywhere, the signs of correction: plants with razor leaves, flowers that emitted sleeping pollen, vines that tracked movement.
They passed a clearing where five people sat in a circle, perfectly still. Their skin had fused with the moss beneath them. They were becoming part of the grove, willingly. Their faces were serene.
"Voluntary corrections," Vex said without stopping. "Some people can't handle the pressure. The grove offers peace. Assimilation."
"It's suicide," Anya said.
"It's surrender," Vex corrected. "Different thing."
Deep in the grove, they came upon the first system monument.
It was a stone plinth, ten feet tall, covered in glowing runes that shifted as they approached. When Kai touched it, knowledge flowed into him:
System Log: Entry #734
Correction Protocol Alpha is proceeding at 87% efficiency.
Notable deviation: Broken adaptations continue to emerge at 3.2% rate despite optimization attempts.
Hypothesis: Broken adaptations are not errors but evolutionary responses to underlying system paradox. Investigating.
The Mending continues.
Vex touched the plinth after him. Her expression darkened. "Broken adaptations. That's what they call us. The ones who don't fit."
"You're Broken?" Kai asked.
She held up a hand. Flame blossomed from her palm, hot and controlled. "Thermoregulation should be internal. Balanced. Mine is... expressive. The system tried to correct it three times. Each time, it came back stronger. Now it's labeled me Broken." She closed her hand, extinguishing the flame. "Silas wants to study people like us. Figure out how to replicate our deviations without the costs."
"Why?"
"Because the game isn't ending at the Heart Tree," Vex said, meeting his eyes. "That's just the tutorial. Whatever comes after, Silas wants an army. And Broken abilities are powerful. Unpredictable. Valuable."
They continued walking. The forest grew denser, darker. The Heart Tree was visible now through gaps in the canopy—a colossal presence, its branches seeming to hold up the cracked sky itself. Its fruit glowed like miniature suns.
Distance to Heart Tree: 1.2 miles
Slot counter: 112/200
They were close. But so were many others.
As dusk fell (or what passed for dusk in this artificial sky), they made camp in a defensible hollow between massive roots. Vex's people took watches. Kai sat apart, running simulations.
If they reached the Heart Tree, what then? Sanctuary, the system promised. But sanctuary for what? To prepare for the next game? To be studied? To be "corrected" further?
Lena came to sit beside him, keeping careful distance. "You're drifting away, Kai."
"I'm becoming what I need to be to survive."
"At what cost?"
He looked at her. In his enhanced vision, she glowed with soft blues and greens—life, resilience, compassion. But he could also see the stress fractures in her aura, the places where the corrections were changing her. Making her harder. More pragmatic.
"You're changing too," he said.
"I know. But I'm fighting it. You're... embracing it."
"What choice do I have?"
She had no answer.
That night, Kai dreamed. Not of memories, but of data. Streams of numbers, probabilities, branching paths. In the dream, he saw a thousand possible futures, each leading to different versions of himself. In some, he was a savior. In others, a monster. In most, he was simply... efficient.
He woke with a start. The camp was quiet. The watch was alert. And in his mind, a new Broken Question had formed:
Broken Question Logged: #003
Query: If survival requires becoming something other than human, is it still survival or simply replacement?
Status: Unanswered
He looked at his hands in the dim bioluminescent light. They were still human hands. For now.
But somewhere ahead, the Heart Tree waited. And beyond it, the true game.
And Kai Mori wondered if the person who began this journey would be the same one who finished it.
Or if that was the point all along.