Wind howled through the jagged ravine, carrying with it the bone-deep chill of Grave Omega's suppression arrays. Shen Yuan stood at the mouth of the canyon, spear haft braced against the ground as the survivors gathered in tense silence behind him.
The group had dwindled to thirty-seven. Thirty-seven souls who had followed him through blood and attrition, through Jurok Ironveil's slaughter and the endless hunt of the Bone Court. Each pair of eyes—gaunt, hollow, yet still burning with defiance—was fixed on him, waiting for his signal.
He hated that weight. But there was no one else to bear it.
The System's voice thrummed at the back of his mind, cold and precise. We must begin now. Delay will collapse the timeline.
[ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 17% ]
Seventeen percent. He tightened his grip on the spear until the leather wrappings bit into his palm.
"You all know what's at stake," Shen Yuan said, voice carrying in the brittle night air. "We split here. Diversion, infiltration, extraction. Once we move, there's no turning back."
Han Fei stepped forward from the branded captives' ranks, straight-backed despite the chain mail still faintly scorched from their last skirmish. His dark eyes scanned the group with a fervor that Shen Yuan couldn't summon anymore. "Then let's give them something they won't forget."
A few of the branded captives murmured in assent, clutching rust-pitted swords.
Shen Yuan nodded. "Han Fei, your group moves first. Engage the patrols and draw the enforcers out of position. Don't let them surround you."
Han Fei smirked. "We'll do better than that. We'll make them think they've already won."
"Don't get clever." Shen Yuan stepped close enough that their foreheads nearly touched. "If you see an opening to disengage, you take it. Understand?"
Han Fei hesitated, then dipped his head. "Understood."
Yun Xue moved to Shen Yuan's side. Her daggers gleamed faintly in the shadows, blades honed to a razor edge despite the scarcity of supplies. "We'll cover the gap. The infiltration team is ready."
She didn't say the other thing—that they would have no second chance if Han Fei's group faltered. She didn't need to.
Shen Yuan raised his spear and gave the signal.
Han Fei and the diversion group vanished into the darkness with a soundless grace born of desperation. Moments later, faint sparks of qi ignited in the distance—flaring lights that drew the attention of the Bone Court patrols. Screams rose, abruptly cut short.
The System's overlay blossomed in Shen Yuan's vision: a lattice of glowing pathways threading through the Bone Court perimeter.
[ PATHING OVERLAY ACTIVE – DETECTION AVOIDANCE WINDOW: 3 MINUTES ]
We must move now, the System urged.
Shen Yuan swallowed the knot in his throat and motioned to the others. "Stay close. No noise."
They slipped into the shadows, hugging the rock walls as patrol torches flared in the distance. Each step felt like a lifetime. The survivors' ragged breathing was loud as thunder in his ears, though they barely dared to exhale.
[ DETECTION RISK: 28% ]
The suppression arrays thrummed louder the deeper they went, the weight of them pressing down on Shen Yuan's core like an iron vice. He could feel the spear's spiritual patterns choking under the pressure, qi reduced to a feeble trickle.
Yun Xue drifted ahead, a ghost in the gloom, her keen eyes scanning every crevice. When she looked back, the flicker of doubt in her gaze was gone, replaced by the same quiet resolve Shen Yuan had come to rely on.
The canyon widened. Shen Yuan halted and motioned for the others to crouch low against the ridge. Beyond the jagged rock lip, a vista unfolded that turned his stomach cold.
The Nexus.
It wasn't a fortress. It was a city.
A vast sprawl of bone-white towers rose from a crater ringed with suppression spires, each structure pulsing with a dull red glow. Thousands of branded captives hung suspended in lattice frames, their bodies fused to the suppression arrays like grotesque ornaments. Their spiritual energy bled from them in thin rivers of light, feeding into the Nexus' core.
Patrols moved in precise, clockwork patterns around the perimeter. Elite enforcers, their armor etched with suppression glyphs, stalked the walkways like predators.
The System's voice was tight, almost reverent. This infrastructure… it is beyond what I projected. I calculate a ninety-two percent probability we are observing a fully self-sustaining suppression lattice.
[ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 12% ]
Shen Yuan's fingers dug into the rock until stone crumbled beneath his nails. He forced his breathing to steady as the weight of what they faced settled on his shoulders.
"We're supposed to slip through that?" one of the survivors whispered, voice fraying on the edge of panic.
"We don't have a choice," Yun Xue said sharply.
Shen Yuan didn't take his eyes off the Nexus. "We do this fast and quiet. The array's heart is somewhere inside that structure."
Correction: it is at the very core, the System said. The teleportation array will be heavily guarded. We must maintain stealth until the last possible moment.
Shen Yuan nodded, more to himself than anyone else. "Then we go."
They descended into the valley, the glow of the suppression spires washing over them like blood.
The path wound through jagged trenches carved by the Bone Court's architects. At every corner, the System's overlay flickered updates:
[ DETECTION RISK: 31% ][ HOST QI OUTPUT SUPPRESSED: 82% ]
The branded captives at the perimeter screamed as the diversion team's fighting reached a fever pitch. Shen Yuan forced himself not to look back.
Han Fei is holding their attention, the System observed. But the probability of his survival has decreased by thirty-eight percent.
Shen Yuan gritted his teeth. Don't.
Don't what?
Don't calculate them like numbers.
The System was silent for a heartbeat. If I do not, you will hesitate. Hesitation will kill you.
He had no answer for that.
They reached the final ridge. Beyond lay the Nexus' outer plaza, a flat expanse patrolled by four elite enforcers and lined with glyph-lit pylons. The suppression fields here were so intense that Shen Yuan felt his knees tremble with every breath.
[ DETECTION RISK: 41% – RISING ]
Yun Xue crept up beside him, her face pale in the glow. "We can't take them head-on. Not with everyone this drained."
Agreed, the System said. There is a maintenance conduit along the western edge. Narrow, but unguarded.
Shen Yuan eyed the conduit: a low tunnel barely wide enough for a single person to crawl through.
"It'll be a bottleneck," Yun Xue whispered.
It will also keep you alive. For now.
Shen Yuan exhaled through his nose. "We'll take it. One at a time, silent as you can manage. Yun Xue, you're first."
She slipped into the conduit without a sound, vanishing into the dark. One by one, the survivors followed, until only Shen Yuan remained at the edge.
A distant roar echoed through the valley—the sound of Bone Court reinforcements crashing down on Han Fei's group.
[ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 8% ]
Shen Yuan clenched his jaw, forcing the image of Han Fei's defiant grin from his mind. He could not look back.
He ducked into the conduit and crawled forward.
The tunnel was suffocatingly narrow, the stone walls scraping his shoulders with every movement. The System's voice was hushed, as though even it feared to break the silence.
We are now within the Nexus' primary lattice. Suppression levels are peaking.
[ HOST QI OUTPUT SUPPRESSED: 89% ]
The survivors ahead of him moved with agonizing slowness. Shen Yuan kept his breathing shallow, straining to hear past the pounding of his own heartbeat.
A vibration rippled through the stone. The elite enforcers in the plaza had stopped.
[ ALERT: ENEMY SENSES ANOMALY ]
Shen Yuan froze.
The System's whisper was razor-sharp. Do not move.
Footsteps crunched across the plaza above, heavy with armor. A guttural voice barked a command in the Bone Court's ancient tongue.
The survivors held their breath. No one moved.
The vibration shifted as the enforcer turned away.
[ DETECTION RISK: 19% – STABILIZING ]
Shen Yuan let out a slow, silent breath and pushed forward.
When they emerged from the conduit, they were inside the Nexus' outer wall. Towers of suppression pylons loomed around them, each one thrumming with the energy of the branded captives chained within.
A survivor gagged as they passed one of the pylons. The captive fused to its core twitched, hollow eyes following them, lips moving soundlessly.
Yun Xue's hands trembled on her daggers. "We can't just—"
"We can," Shen Yuan said, voice harsh. "We have to."
Correct decision, the System said. Engaging the pylons will trigger total alert.
Yun Xue glared at him, but she didn't argue.
They pressed deeper into the Nexus, the glow of the suppression arrays burning against their skin.
At the heart of the fortress-city, a single spire towered above all the others, crowned in a halo of blood-red light. Shen Yuan knew without asking that this was their destination.
The System confirmed it anyway:
[ OBJECTIVE: TELEPORTATION ARRAY LOCATED – DISTANCE: 1.3 KILOMETERS ]
We must reach the array chamber before the diversion group collapses.
"Then we move faster," Shen Yuan murmured.
He looked back at the survivors: exhausted, terrified, but still clinging to the fragile thread of hope that had carried them this far.
"We finish this tonight," he said. "No matter the cost."
[ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 8% ]
The number burned across his vision like a curse as they slipped into the shadows of the Nexus.
And for the first time, Shen Yuan wondered if even that was optimistic.