The warmth slid down into Kade and stayed like a coin in his chest. For a moment the world tasted simpler. Then something else followed — an undercurrent beneath the numbers and the glow.
It wasn't a smell of smoke or rot. Quieter: threads of feeling, thin as breath.
He didn't inhale them so much as notice them, like a window left open in winter. Little signals — copper on the tongue, the sharp tearing of fear, the sticky sweetness of relief.
Euthy smelled of cold iron and rain: clean, sharp, disciplined. Calculation, not pleasure. Vox was absent — his absence lay like a heavy plank in the air. The marbles where Elian had stood offered nothing familiar — only a faint candle scent, stale and too pure. Trust hung in the shaft of air like a single, fine hair. Useful. Dangerous.
Euthy's blade rose. She stood ready like a trained animal — coiled, waiting. Her lips were a line. Her eyes said: strike, but make it clean.
A sound cut the tension: the black sphere unfolded between the trees, and Crownface's voice flowed out — honeyed, practiced mockery, coldly calculated.
"Now, what a delightful chaos," he said. "Players, attention please."
The orb spat numbers into the air.
[SYSTEM BROADCAST — CROWNFACE]
Game One: CONCLUDED.
Survivors: 100
.Rewards: Distributing.
Return to staging — now.
He snapped his fingers.
No metaphor — the sound was an exact click; the world folded like paper. The leaves vanished. The air tightened, a stomach growled somewhere, and the clearing was gone.
Light flared on. Metal, cold gleam, walls they'd already learned to hate. They sat back in the beginning hall — the same arches, the same whirring panels — as if someone had struck the set. The sphere hung in the center like a detached fragment of moon.
The hall air tasted different — recycled, official. Elian's marbles were not with them. The place felt emptier, an absence no number could explain.
Crownface's laughter threaded through the hall. "One hundred survivors," he trilled. "How quaint."
Euthy's posture eased by a hand's breadth, then tightened again. Her gaze slid to where Elian should have been and lingered on Kade. The scent behind her eyes had shifted: curiosity, now with a small, sharp suspicion. She felt that something was off; that was her strength.
On the floating displays a system scroll ran: [RETURN COMPLETE — STAGING ACTIVE]. For a heartbeat a red line flashed, then vanished: FOREIGN RESIDUE — DETECTED (DETAILS PENDING).
Something fluttered in Kade's chest — the memory-thread of the boy, thinner now, tugging like a loose seam. The new perception hummed in him; greedy, hungry, and for the first time it felt like a tool that could betray him.
"Medchecks," Crownface said in a soft voice, but without warmth. "Identification, then rest. Time to admire your trophies — and ask yourselves what you've become."
Euthy edged closer in the press, not touching, only close enough that her scent brushed his. The curiosity in her was a small, dangerous flame.
Kade looked at the empty space beside him and tasted the clean hint of a decision not yet made. The hall lights burned like interrogation lamps.
He moved into the queue; the world demanded paperwork and answers. The new sense pricked at the edges of everything — a thousand tiny invitations, all whispering the same thing: take it.
A bright chime cut through and the sphere lit like a spotlight. Crownface's voice settled over the crowd, controlled and faintly contemptuous.
[SYSTEM BROADCAST — CROWNFACE]
Final kill ranking — Game One:
Vox — 7 kills.
Euthymia — 6 kills.
Kade — 4 kills.
[SYSTEM BROADCAST — REWARD DISTRIBUTION]
Relics awarded to all players with ≥3 kills this round. Forms: weapon, armor, or trinket — randomized quality and unique attributes.
Claim tokens will be issued at the relic desk.
The hall cooled a fraction. Vox's name rolled like a bell through the crowd. Some clapped automatically; others looked away, like witnesses who avoid fame.
A second overlay rose — the system's new evaluation scale. Crownface read the tiers with a smile Kade could not see.
[SYSTEM BROADCAST — RANK EVALUATION SYSTEM]
• Cinder — Novices...
• Hound — Scrappers...
• Blade — Proven fighters...
• Warden — Reliable killers...
• Regent — Elite combatants...
• Throne — Apex predators...
The list scrolled. Names were hung to the tiers with clinical efficiency.
[SYSTEM BROADCAST — ASSIGNMENTS]
Vox — Regent. — Relic: Heavy Relic Weapon (Axe-class).
Euthymia — Warden. — Relic: Relic Armor (Light Plate).
Kade — Blade. — Relic: Trinket/Cloak (stealth-tinge; stats pending).
The labels sounded clinical, but each name tasted like responsibility. Regent. Warden. Blade. Kade watched the icons flare. The relics remained vague — the system loved mystery — but they meant weight, access, leverage.
People around him hissed; someone groaned.
Crownface made a short, sharp sound. "Useful, isn't it? Now you know where you stand. And stand you must — sitting is not in the rules here."
Euthy's eyes found his one more time. Calm, weighing. Regent, Warden — the ladder between them was visible enough. She said nothing. She didn't need to.
Lines formed at the distribution stands; guards shepherded names with the polite brutality of routine. Claim tokens floated like small promises above screens. They handed out more than forms: standardized ration packs were issued — damp, neutral-tasting rations in sealed pouches, nothing to dream on, but enough to keep you from starving.
The thought of what the objects might do slid through the hall like a new appetite. Kade's new sense vibrated — the boy's smile flashed in his memory, clean and childlike. It tugged at him.
Forms waited. A relic table waited. A rank waited. Decisions stacked up in stamped boxes.
Crownface's voice slipped through one last time: "Enjoy your prizes. Game Two will be dreadful fun."
Kade stepped forward, the coin-clink of the boy's trust still in his chest. The smell of reward — metal, oil, and something more human — followed him. For the first moment, the new sense felt less like a tool and more like a shackle.