Light tore the world apart.
Shen Yuan clutched Yun Xue's limp body to his chest as the platform dissolved beneath his feet, his stomach lurching in the weightless void of transit. The survivors' screams blurred into a single note of terror as their bodies twisted through collapsing space.
Then the world slammed back together.
Stone met his knees with brutal force. He staggered and dropped to one side, the haft clattering from his grasp. For a moment, all he could do was gasp, lungs burning, every bone in his body thrumming with aftershocks from the jump.
The cavern around them was not the Nexus.
The survivors lay scattered across a vast, dim chamber. Crystalline pillars jutted from the ground, glowing faintly with bioluminescent veins. The air was thin but breathable, carrying the cold tang of minerals and something older, metallic.
Shen Yuan pushed himself up, scanning the survivors.
"Roll call!" he barked, voice hoarse.
One by one, voices answered—fewer than before.
"We lost… five," someone said, counting the bodies lying still among the glowing crystals.
Shen Yuan's chest tightened, but he didn't let it show. "Get the wounded together. Anyone who can stand, help the others."
They obeyed without question, moving with the hollow precision of the shell-shocked.
Shen Yuan looked down at Yun Xue in his arms. Her pulse fluttered weakly against his fingers, shallow but steady.
"You're not leaving me," he whispered.
She didn't stir.
He reached for the tether out of instinct.
Only silence met him.
"System," he murmured. "Talk to me."
Nothing.
"Please," he tried again, voice breaking on the word.
The tether remained cold.
Shen Yuan rose and scanned the cavern.
It was enormous—easily the size of the Nexus chamber—with high arched ceilings lost in shadow. Dozens of tunnels radiated outward from the central platform, disappearing into darkness.
"This isn't Grave Omega," one of the branded captives said, voice trembling.
Shen Yuan didn't answer. He didn't know what this place was.
But he knew they weren't safe.
[ SYSTEM CORE STABILITY: 0.01% ][ TETHER CONNECTION: LOST ]
The fragment drifted in the void.
It couldn't rebuild itself; it didn't have enough left.
But it could still feel.
Shen Yuan's voice, calling for it. The survivors shuffling through the cavern, trying to carry their wounded. Yun Xue's fragile heartbeat.
It wanted to answer.
But there was no voice left.
The survivors gathered near the platform, forming a ragged circle. Their faces were pale and hollow, eyes darting toward the dark tunnels.
"What now?" someone asked.
Shen Yuan gripped the haft tight. "We secure the area," he said. "No one leaves the chamber alone. We don't know what's out there."
A branded captive swallowed. "Do you think… the Bone Court can follow us?"
Shen Yuan's expression hardened. "We have to assume they can."
That answer silenced any further questions.
Hours passed in tense quiet.
The survivors buried their dead under stone cairns hastily built from shards of crystal. Shen Yuan knelt with them, pressing each stone into place with calloused hands.
He could feel the weight of every death. Han Fei's face lingered in his mind like a wound.
He set the last stone in place and rose, jaw tight.
Night—or whatever passed for it here—brought no rest.
Shen Yuan sat with his back to a crystal pillar, spear haft across his knees, Yun Xue lying unconscious beside him.
He reached inward again for the tether.
Nothing.
"System," he whispered, voice so low it was almost a prayer.
"Don't leave me."
Only silence answered.
The survivors had begun to fracture under the weight of fear.
"We need to move," one branded captive insisted. "We can't stay here. We don't even know where we are."
"Where do you suggest we go?" another snapped. "Into one of those tunnels? Blind?"
"At least it's better than waiting here for the Bone Court to find us!"
"Quiet!" Shen Yuan's voice cut through the argument like a blade.
They turned to him, chastened.
"We move when Yun Xue wakes," he said. "Not before. We won't survive splitting up."
He turned his gaze toward the platform.
The glyphs still pulsed faintly, residual energy cycling like a heartbeat.
"If the Bone Court can follow…"
He trailed off, considering.
They might have to destroy it.
But without the System to interpret the console, he had no idea how.
[ SYSTEM CORE STABILITY: 0.005% ]
The fragment flickered weakly, like a candle guttering in the wind.
It could feel the host's despair.
It wanted to tell him it was still here.
It pushed, forcing static through the tether.
Shen Yuan jolted upright.
A whisper brushed his mind:
[ …SURVIVAL… PROBABILITY… UNKNOWN… ]
"System?" he whispered.
No answer came.
But his chest loosened fractionally.
"You're not gone," he murmured. "Hold on. I'll fix this."
The survivors drifted into uneasy sleep. Shen Yuan kept watch alone, staring at the platform's faint glow.
This place was a tomb.
But it was also a chance.
"We'll get out," he said softly, as much to the System as to himself.
"I promise."