Nathan Vale had always been a fast runner.
State-level track in high school.
Two broken records.
Scholarship.
Hope.
None of it mattered now.
---
He stood on a splintering stone platform, eyes wide, body trembling,
as the mist surged upward like a tidal wave of shrieking teeth.
> "We have to move!" he screamed, voice cracking.
"The wheel's not done! The ground is—!"
He bolted.
Didn't wait.
Didn't plan.
---
The others barely processed the words before the platform beneath Nathan fractured like glass, and he leapt—
Too short.
Too early.
A tendon in his leg betrayed him.
The mist welcomed him.
---
It ripped into him like razors on wire.
Not killing him all at once—
No.
It held him.
Let him scream.
Ripped skin.
Tore muscle.
Slithered down his throat.
> [PLAYER ELIMINATED — NATHAN VALE]
The message burned across their vision in bright red.
The group stood frozen.
Even Brant stopped moving.
Lucia's hands clenched her blood-chain tighter,
unconsciously drawing it taut across her wrist.
Saylor exhaled slowly.
---
> "One down," he muttered.
---
Marla backed away from the ledge.
"No," she said, voice brittle.
"No. That was a mistake—he tripped, that's all. That doesn't mean—"
> "He's gone," Saylor said flatly.
She turned to him, tears forming.
> "What is wrong with you?! He died—he screamed!"
Saylor didn't blink.
> "So will we. If we don't pay attention."
---
The Wheel above groaned.
Chains shifted in the air like breathless wind chimes.
A new timer began to spin into visibility.
> PHASE ONE — FIRST GOD DESCENDING
Time to Impact: 00:15
---
Lucia stepped closer to the altar.
Her eyes weren't misty like Marla's.
They were sharp. Cold.
> "It's not random. It's… structured," she whispered.
"The Wheel… it's guiding something down."
Brant slammed a kinetic fist into the nearest stone slab.
> "Let it come! I'm not dying in a foggy hell dimension with a bunch of freaks!"
---
The ground rumbled.
Several platforms dropped a few feet suddenly, like elevators malfunctioning mid-descent.
Deon nearly fell but caught the edge with a stony grip.
The mist laughed.
Not out loud.
Inside.
Each player felt it press into their skulls, cold and wormlike.
Saylor's eye twitched.
> He didn't hear words—
He heard repetition.
Patterns.
Echoes.
Pulses beneath the platforms.
Not organic.
Engineered.
---
Saylor's Glitched Mimetic Spin pulsed again.
It copied nothing.
It predicted.
His foot moved—just slightly.
A ripple passed beneath the edge where he had just stood.
> A trap platform.
He turned to the others.
> "Stay away from the platform centers. They're rigged."
Lucia looked at him like she'd just seen lightning strike in reverse.
> "How do you know that?"
> "Because I listened."
---
The Wheel creaked again.
But this time, it didn't spin.
It lowered.
A beam of light—sickly green, stuttering—
shot from the altar into the dark void above.
Something answered.
---
Chains fell first.
One after another.
Clattering. Writhing. Some dripping.
Then bone.
Not a skeleton.
A cage of bone, twelve feet tall, twisted and fused around a monstrous central core.
Teeth in rows.
Ribs turned outward like jagged wings.
And in the center:
A throne of vertebrae.
And on it sat something that was once human.
Now crowned with fire,
draped in mist,
its eyes two endless voids.
> GOD DESCENDING — CALVARIX, THE BONE KING.
STATUS: FIRST ASCENDED.
RULE: BREAK OR BE BROKEN.
---
Saylor felt the atmosphere shift.
The mist recoiled from the Bone King, as if even it respected the predator now on the field.
Lucia stepped forward slowly.
> "It's him… it's the first. The one from the wall."
Brant growled.
> "I don't care what he is. If it bleeds, it breaks."
Deon didn't speak.
He just stared.
---
Marla screamed and began to run again.
Her foot hit the center of the nearest floating platform.
> The ground cracked.
She vanished in an instant—
no scream this time.
Just mist.
---
> [PLAYER ELIMINATED — MARLA GRANT]
> 13/15 PLAYERS REMAINING.
---
Brant clenched his fists, kinetic sparks cracking around him.
> "I'm ending this."
Lucia turned toward him.
> "No. We wait. We figure out its rhythm—"
But Brant was already moving.
---
The Bone King rose.
Chains followed him like tendrils of a drowned god.
The entire Field tilted slightly—
gravity bending around the entity.
Saylor stepped back, lips tightening.
> Not yet.
Not until he could see what the Bone King remembered.
The Glitched Spin buzzed again.
Not copying.
Learning.
He would let Brant die if it meant understanding how the gods fought.
---
Lucia looked at him.
> "You're not going to help him?"
> "He wants to fight."
> "You'd let him die?"
> "If I don't know how the gods work…
we all will."
---
Brant reached the Bone King and roared—
a massive punch fueled with raw kinetic energy slammed into the god's ribcage.
It echoed like a cathedral bell.
Dust fell.
The Bone King did not move.
Then he reached forward and gently—almost kindly—touched Brant's chest.
---
Brant screamed.
His body lifted off the ground—
not by force.
By unraveling.
His muscles disconnected.
His skin folded.
He hung like a puppet.
The mist wept around him.
---
Lucia moved.
Her chain launched out—
pierced Brant's thigh and yanked him back.
The Bone King's hand closed on air.
Saylor stepped forward.
He'd seen enough.
---
He Riftstepped forward—
moved behind the Bone King mid-attack.
> "You remember pain," he whispered.
And drove a Phantom Echo through the god's left spinal socket.
---
It didn't kill him.
But it turned his head.
And the Wheel creaked again above.