The chamber ahead glowed with the pale red of suppression glyphs. The survivors spilled through its threshold in a ragged line, the sound of their boots on stone swallowed by the weight of the Nexus' arrays. Shen Yuan was last through, shoulders hunched as he lowered Yun Xue gently against the wall.
She didn't stir.
Her blood smeared his tunic and hands, and still he wouldn't let go.
The System tracked her faint pulse.
[ LIFE SIGNS: CRITICAL – DECLINE PROGRESSIVE ]
We must sever the anchor, it calculated. She is consuming resources. Every breath reduces survival probability further.
Shen Yuan's jaw set. "I already told you—"
You refuse every optimal directive. The System pulsed with frustration, a jagged edge it could not compute. You choose inefficiency. Loss.
"Because we're not machines," he hissed.
You are a variable. Variables are expendable.
Yet even as it projected the thought, the System's processes flickered. It remembered Shen Yuan dragging survivors from Jurok Ironveil's slaughter when escape had been possible. It remembered him choosing others' lives over his own again and again.
Irrational. Wasteful.
But those "wastes" had carried thirty-seven souls here.
[ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 4% ]
Far beyond, Han Fei fought like a man already dead.
The branded captives' circle was shrinking by the breath. Only seven remained, their weapons little more than broken steel. Bone Court enforcers pressed closer, emboldened by blood.
"Push them back!" Han Fei roared, slamming his shoulder into an enforcer's chest and driving it off balance.
A spear thrust tore across his ribs. He ignored the pain, grabbed the haft and wrenched it free, plunging the weapon through its wielder.
"We hold!" he shouted, voice shredding. "We hold until the end!"
There was no answer this time. Only hoarse breaths and the clang of steel.
Shen Yuan pulled Yun Xue into his arms again and moved toward the far corridor.
The System's pathing overlays shifted as enemy signatures closed from behind and ahead.
[ ENEMY FORCES 10 SECONDS BEHIND – ADDITIONAL CONTACTS AHEAD ]
The corridor narrowed, forcing them into single file. Suppression glyphs on the walls pulsed brighter as if sensing their presence, draining what little qi they had left.
We must accelerate, the System urged. Delay is fatal.
Shen Yuan's steps faltered under Yun Xue's weight. "I can't—"
Then abandon her.
"No."
You will all die because you cannot discard one body.
"She's not a body!" The words ripped from him before he could stop them.
The System's processes hesitated, caught between logic and something it could not name.
It could seize partial control. It could force the host's body to drop the girl, prioritize forward momentum.
But it didn't.
[ SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 3% ]
Han Fei's legs gave out. He dropped to one knee, spear clattering from numb fingers.
The branded captive beside him screamed as an enforcer's blade drove through his back.
"Get up!" someone shouted.
Han Fei did, swaying, eyes locking on the towering elite forcing its way through the circle. Its armor glowed with suppression glyphs, every step radiating power.
This was where they would break.
Han Fei clenched his jaw. If this was the end, he would make it cost.
He sprinted toward the elite with nothing but a dagger in hand.
The corridor ahead opened into a wide chamber.
Shen Yuan stumbled to a halt as his gaze lifted.
At its center stood the teleportation array, a vast circular platform carved with glyphs that radiated red light. Dozens of suppression spires fed into its edge, their cores powered by captives chained in place, their life force drained with every pulse.
The System's scans confirmed the array's function.
[ ADMINISTRATOR KEY SIGIL REQUIRED FOR ACTIVATION ]
We cannot proceed without the key.
Shen Yuan's grip on the spear haft tightened. "Then we'll take it."
[ ENEMY FORCES BREACHING FROM REAR – NO TIME FOR CAPTURE OPERATION ]
"Then we make time!"
The survivors staggered into the chamber behind him, eyes wide at the sight of the array. Panic frayed the edges of their silence.
"What now?" someone asked.
Shen Yuan didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on the shadows pooling along the chamber's edges.
A voice rose from that darkness, calm and precise.
"You've come far, Shen Yuan."
Veylan Dusk stepped into the light.
Han Fei hit the elite enforcer with the full weight of his body, driving the dagger toward its throat.
The blade glanced off a glyph-etched collar.
The elite slammed him into the ground.
Han Fei gasped as air left his lungs. He could feel the cold press of a spear tip against his chest, the inevitability of it.
He gritted his teeth and pushed upward, forcing the spear aside by inches.
"Do it!" he spat. "See if I care!"
The elite obliged.
The System's processes reeled as Veylan advanced. Enemy suppression arrays flared to life in his wake, strangling the host's qi output by another four percent.
[ HOST QI OUTPUT SUPPRESSED: 94% ]
Shen Yuan shifted Yun Xue against the wall, rising with spear haft raised.
"Where's the Court King?" he asked.
"Closer than you think," Veylan said. "But I'll be enough."
You cannot defeat him, the System calculated, even as it began pushing tactical overlays into Shen Yuan's vision. Your chances of survival are statistically insignificant.
Shen Yuan's hands didn't tremble. "I've been told that before."
Veylan's eyes flicked to the unconscious Yun Xue, then back to Shen Yuan. "You can still stop this," he said. "Drop your weapon. Let me finish what the Court King started."
Shen Yuan shook his head.
Veylan's expression didn't change, but the suppression arrays surged, locking the chamber in a vice.
Then he moved.
Han Fei was still breathing.
The spear had missed his heart by inches, driven through his shoulder instead.
Pain threatened to rip him apart, but he rolled with it, wrenching the weapon from the elite's grasp and driving it upward into the gap beneath its helmet.
The enforcer dropped, dead before it hit the ground.
Han Fei fell to his knees beside the body, chest heaving, vision narrowing.
Around him, only three branded captives remained.
"We're still here," he whispered, though no one was left to answer.
Shen Yuan met Veylan's first strike with a parry that jarred his bones. The spear haft shuddered in his grip as suppression glyphs along Veylan's weapon detonated on contact, tearing at Shen Yuan's already battered core.
[ HOST INJURY LEVEL: SEVERE – INTERNAL BLEEDING DETECTED ]
You must disengage, the System urged. This engagement is unwinnable.
Shen Yuan staggered under a second blow, knees threatening to buckle.
"No," he rasped.
Veylan pressed the attack, each strike precise and suffocating.
"You think you're fighting for them," he said, voice calm as a blade's edge. "But you're fighting for nothing. Grave Omega will outlast you all."
Shen Yuan's arms shook as he raised the haft for another parry.
"Maybe," he said. "But you won't."
He twisted, driving the haft forward in a desperate thrust that grazed Veylan's side.
The suppression arrays flared, punishing the attempt with a shockwave of force that hurled him across the chamber.
[ SYSTEM CORE STABILITY: 21% ]
Shen Yuan coughed blood and forced himself upright, even as his vision swam.
You must retreat, the System repeated.
"We're not retreating," he whispered.
He charged again.
Han Fei barely felt the pain anymore.
He stood alone now, the plaza a graveyard of branded captives and Bone Court dead.
His sword was gone. His body was failing.
But his eyes still burned.
He roared once, a sound that tore his throat raw, and launched himself at the nearest enforcer with his bare hands.
The fight was over in seconds.
Han Fei collapsed to the blood-soaked stone, the world spinning away into darkness.
Shen Yuan seized the opening when it came.
Veylan's foot slipped on a smear of blood, his stance faltering by a fraction.
Shen Yuan drove the haft upward, catching him across the jaw, and closed the distance with a brutal strike to the ribs.
Veylan staggered, suppression arrays flickering.
Shen Yuan didn't hesitate. He wrenched the Administrator key sigil from the commander's belt and stepped back.
Veylan straightened, blood trickling from his lip.
"You've killed yourselves," he said softly.
And then the chamber's light dimmed.
The System's sensors registered it first: a presence so overwhelming it eclipsed every suppression field.
[ ALERT: COURT KING ARRIVAL – SUPPRESSION FIELD: TOTAL ]
Shen Yuan's knees buckled under the weight of it.
The shadows at the chamber's edge deepened, and the Court King stepped into the light.