Lena's symbiotic belt reacted, the bud-tips spraying a mist that made the creatures recoil. Corin began humming, a low, resonant tone that made the moss itself tremble. The creatures on it stumbled, disoriented.
Kael, their spectral scout, pointed upward. "Above!"
Kai looked up. More of the creatures were dropping from the underside of a larger island floating above theirs, using silk-like threads to descend. They were being surrounded.
"Kai, we need a path!" Anya yelled, beheading two creatures with a crossed-blade slash.
His predictive ability flared. He saw their positions, the swarm's density, the island's layout. The optimal path wasn't to fight through, but to…
"To the bridge!" he shouted, pointing to one of the crystalline spans connecting their island to a larger one nearby. "They're avoiding the bridge material! It hurts them!"
They fought their way toward the span, which glowed with soft blue light. As predicted, the creatures gave the bridge a wide berth, hissing and chittering but not crossing onto it.
They staggered onto the crystal surface. The creatures massed at the edge but didn't follow. Safe—for now.
"Everyone whole?" Kai asked, breathing hard in the thin air.
A quick check. Minor cuts, bruises. Jax had a nasty bite on his forearm that Lena immediately began treating with salve from her belt.
"That was a welcome party," Bren grumbled, retracting his bone shards. "This place is lovely."
Sera was staring at the bridge beneath their feet, her normal eye wide. "The crystal… it's not just a bridge. It's listening."
"What?" Lena asked.
"It's part of the system. It's measuring us. Our cohesion." Sera pointed to where their team core, which Kai carried in a pouch at his belt, was glowing slightly brighter. "It's feeding the core data."
Kai pulled out the seed-core. It had indeed grown minutely, tiny root-like filaments extending. Cohesion metric: +3.2%. Survival response: efficient.
So the arena was grading them in real time. Their every action was being judged.
"Which means," Kai said slowly, "the system is watching everything. Not just if we survive, but how."
A roar echoed across the expanse, distant but powerful. Not an insect. Something much, much larger.
"Let's move," Kai said. "We need shelter, and we need to scout. Kael, take point. Rylan, keep listening. Sera, watch for probability shifts."
They moved across the bridge. The crystal was warm underfoot and hummed with energy. Halfway across, Kai looked down through the semi-transparent material. The drop was thousands of feet to a churning sea of violet clouds below. A fall here was final.
On the far side, the new island was larger and had terrain—rock formations that rose like teeth, patches of strange, wind-stunted trees with glass-like leaves, and a small cave mouth at the base of the largest rock formation.
"Potential shelter," Kael reported, his enhanced vision scanning. "No large heat signatures inside. Some small life forms, rodent-sized."
They approached cautiously. The cave entrance was narrow but opened into a chamber large enough for all of them. The walls were the same white stone as the Spire, veined with glowing blue lines. Ancient technology, perhaps.
"Set up a perimeter," Kai ordered. "Rylan, listen at the entrance. Bren, Anya, secure the back. The rest, catch your breath."
While the team settled, Kai approached one of the glowing veins on the wall. He touched it. Cool to the touch, but information flashed in his vision:
System Node: Auxiliary.
Function: Environmental monitoring and team tracking.
Access: Limited (Team Leader permissions detected).
He focused, and a holographic display flickered to life on the wall. It showed a map of their immediate area, with ten pulsing dots—their team. Other dots appeared at the edges of the map, too distant to identify teams, but there. And in the center, the Spire, with a blinking marker indicating the fragment's last known location: not at the top, but somewhere in the middle levels.
"Guys," he called softly.
They gathered as he manipulated the display. "This is a system node. It shows teams. And the fragment isn't at the top—it's mobile. It's been moved."
"By what?" Taren asked.
"Or by whom," Anya said grimly.
As they watched, one of the distant dots—a team identifier code OPT-01 (The Optimized, Silas's team)—began moving rapidly toward another dot labeled EMBER-01 (Vex's team). The two dots converged.
"Are they teaming up?" Lena asked.
"No," Kai said, his predictive ability running scenarios. "Look at the movement pattern. Silas is flanking. Vex is holding position. This isn't a meeting. It's an ambush."
On the map, the dots collided. For several minutes, they swirled together. Then one dot—EMBER-01—began moving away, faster, fleeing. Two of its dots had disappeared. Casualties.
The other teams watched. Everyone had access to these nodes, then. Everyone could see the butcher's bill in real time.
A new message scrolled across the display, system-wide:
First Team Conflict Resolved.
The Optimized: Cohesion +12%. Resources acquired.
Ember Guard: Cohesion -8%. Two members lost.
Note: Competition accelerates evaluation.
Cold, clinical words for what had just happened. Vex had lost two people in the first hour. And the system called it "accelerated evaluation."
Bren's face was stone. "So that's the game. Kill or be killed. Take from others."
"Not just that," Sera said, her prismatic eye fixed on the map. "The system is testing social dynamics. Who allies, who betrays, who leads efficiently. It's not just about surviving the environment. It's about surviving each other."
Kai felt the stabilizer's equilibrium tremble inside him. The cold, efficient part of his mind saw the logic: eliminate competition early, gain resources, boost cohesion metrics. The human part felt sick.
"We don't play that game," he said firmly. "We survive. We find the fragment. We don't hunt other teams."
"And if they hunt us?" Anya asked.
"Then we defend. But we don't start fights."
He saw the doubt on some faces—Bren especially. But he also saw relief on Lena's, agreement on Corin's. They'd chosen this path. They had to walk it.
Rylan, at the entrance, suddenly stiffened. "Movement outside. Not insects. Big. And… voices."
They silenced, weapons ready.
Footsteps, careful. Then a voice called out, echoing slightly in the cave entrance: "Hello in there! We're friendly! Can we talk?"
Kai motioned for the team to hold positions. He stepped to where he could see the entrance without being an easy target.
Three people stood outside, hands visible. They were from one of the smaller, independent teams—the one that had called themselves "The Drifters." Their leader was a woman named Elara (no relation to Lena's mentor), with correction that gave her prehensile feet and exceptional balance—perfect for this environment.
"We saw you on the node," Elara called. "We're not here to fight. We're here to propose something."
Kai stepped out, keeping his team covering him. "Propose what?"
"An alliance. Not a merger. Just… non-aggression. Information sharing. We both know Silas is hunting. He just took two from Vex. He'll come for the smaller teams next to boost his metrics."
"Why us?" Kai asked.
"Because you're the only team that didn't look at that system message about the conflict with hunger," Elara said simply. "You looked sick. That means you might actually honor a deal."
Kai's predictive ability ran probabilities. Alliance with The Drifters: increased survival chance by 15%, increased resource acquisition potential, but also increased visibility as a larger group. Risk of betrayal: low-medium based on their observed behavior.
He looked back at his team. Lena nodded. Anya gave a curt nod. Bren shrugged—not a no.
"We agree to non-aggression and information sharing," Kai said. "But we maintain independent command. We don't fight each other's fights unless we agree beforehand."
Elara smiled, relief evident. "Agreed." She tossed him a small data crystal. "That's our map data so far. There's a resource cache two islands over. Food, water purifiers. Silas doesn't know about it yet."
Kai caught it. "In return?"
"Warn us if you see us heading into an ambush. And if you find a second fragment—there are rumors the Spire had multiple pieces—you share the location."
"Deal."
They clasped hands briefly. The aversion was there, but manageable. Kai's stabilized state held.
As The Drifters moved off, fading into the terrain with impressive stealth, Kai returned to the cave.
"Can we trust them?" Taren asked.
"For now," Kai said. "Trust is a resource here too. And we just got more."
That night, as they took turns keeping watch in the glowing cave, Kai sat awake, studying the system node's map. Silas's team was now stationary, likely consolidating. Vex's team was licking its wounds somewhere to the east. Other dots moved, some converging, some avoiding.
And high in the Spire, the fragment's marker blinked, moving slowly, as if carried.
Something else on the map caught his eye—a faint, almost invisible dot, not labeled as any team. It moved erratically, disappearing and reappearing in different locations. A glitch? Or something else?
Sera sat beside him, following his gaze. "You see it too."
"The ghost dot," Kai murmured.
"It's not a ghost," she said, her voice soft. "It's a Broken. Like us. But further along. So Broken the system can't track them properly anymore. They're… between states."
Kai remembered Alistair's words about Broken ones who became untrackable. Was this what he meant?
"What are they doing?" he asked.
"Watching," Sera said. "Waiting. For what, I can't see. The probabilities around them are… torn."
A chill that had nothing to do with the thin air settled over Kai. The arena had its native threats. It had the other teams. And it had this—something outside the system's own categories.
He touched the team core at his belt. It had grown a little more, its roots feeling stronger. Cohesion.
They would need it. All of it.
Because in the distance, through the cave entrance, another roar echoed—deeper, closer this time. Something was stirring in the Floating Expanse. And it was hungry.
The Choosing had begun. And the price of their choice was coming due, hour by hour, in blood and broken promises.