Chapter 149: Continuity Hunt
A narrow opening appeared in the wall as the metal lungs beneath the chamber drew another breath. A tall figure stepped through it wearing a white coat that had grown from its skin.
The creature looked human until it came close. Clear fluid moved through the veins beneath its pale face, and tiny numbers had been cut into every tooth. Its black eyes turned like polished coins whenever one of the survivors moved.
Jaro lowered his voice. "Old crews called these Continuity Bite Bodies. The white rooms sent them after injured workers who kept moving when the overseers expected them to fall."
Vaela raised her wrapped blade and watched the coin-shaped organ turn behind its open chest. "The coat is part of its skin, and every clear vein returns to the organ behind its ribs. Whatever it does to our bodies will begin there."
Orrek shifted his chain beneath his wounded shoulder. "A collector for people too stubborn to die. I have met the human version, and I disliked them as well."
The creature lifted one hand. The coin organ behind its ribs turned, and the air pressed down on every survivor.
The ash-lipped woman took one step and nearly collapsed. Renn tried to call her name, but his throat closed around the first sound. The boy’s arms weakened beneath the bowl, while Orrek’s injured hand shook until the chain slipped through his fingers.
Kael felt cold circles form beneath his skin. One appeared in his palm, another over his shoulder wound, and more tightened around his spine, knee, and heel. The creature was finding every place his body had continued working after injury and forcing the next movement through those wounds.
Its numbered teeth began to click.
TIK! TIK! TIK!
The coin organ turned faster when Kael stepped forward. A second wave of pressure moved past him and settled over the survivors he had kept alive.
Vaela saw the woman near the rear drop to one knee. "Keep everyone still for three breaths. Orrek, support the people who are already falling, but do not lift them unless the pressure changes."
"I can keep them upright," Orrek said. He wrapped the chain around his waist and offered his forearm to the nearest man. "Stay where I can support you while Kael has its attention."
Kael crossed the room.
The creature opened its coat. Clear veins wrapped the coin organ inside its chest, and every cold mark beneath Kael’s skin pulled toward it. His fist slowed a finger’s width from the creature’s face.
The Sovereign Root opened through the force trying to stop the strike. Kael chose the three exact attributes that would carry his body through it.
Core Mass Density. Gravity Vector Impact. Metaphysical Resistance.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRESSURE DETECTED: Continuity Bite Body Motion-Bite Organ
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +3
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 3
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +3 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Core Mass Density -> 43
- Gravity Vector Impact -> 42
- Metaphysical Resistance -> 45
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Motion-Bite Rejection Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
Kael’s fist moved the final inch.
BANG!
The creature’s face folded around his knuckles. Clear veins burst across its cheeks, and silver-white fluid sprayed over the wall. Its body struck the stone hard enough to leave a shallow hollow.
The tile beneath Kael’s lead foot sank around his heel. His body had carried more weight into the shortened strike than the creature expected, while Gravity Vector Impact kept the force travelling through its head instead of spilling into his shoulder. The cold circle around his wrist cracked at the edge, unable to stop the heavier motion once it had begun.
It stood without using its hands. The broken jaw settled badly into place while the coin organ spun behind its ribs.
TIK! TIK! TIK!
Every mark on Kael pulled again. The pressure spread through the chamber, forcing the survivors to carry part of his strike. A man at the rear dropped beside the ash-lipped woman, while Renn bent over with one hand against his throat.
Kael seized the creature by the neck. Its skin felt soft over rows of hard discs stacked through the flesh. Two fingers touched his wrist, and a white ring appeared beneath them.
The mark tightened until his grip should have failed.
Kael slammed the creature into the floor.
CRACK!
Stone cratered beneath its back. The coin organ skipped, and the weight over the survivors loosened long enough for Orrek to pull the fallen pair against the wall.
Vaela moved with him. She cut a pale line climbing toward Renn’s throat, wrapped the fresh burn, and kept her body between him and the nearest seam. "Save your voice until the pressure releases. I can see everyone from here."
Jaro caught the bowl when the boy’s hands spasmed. "I am borrowing this, not stealing it. You may watch both of my hands until I give it back."
The boy nodded and held Jaro’s sleeve instead.
The creature touched Kael’s ribs. Another cold ring puckered his skin, searching for the breath that had continued after the hooks attacked his jaw.
Kael drove his forehead into the creature’s face.
CRACK!
Its brow split. Clear fluid covered one black eye, but the numbered teeth continued clicking. The creature did not show anger or pain. Every moving disc inside it turned toward the next place Kael intended to strike.
He changed the attack before it could finish reading him. His knee entered the open chest and crushed the clear veins against the coin organ.
THUD!
The organ dented inward. Pressure vanished from Renn’s throat, and he dragged in a ragged breath.
"I can count again," he said. "Keep it facing away from the others."
The creature reached for him. Kael caught its wrist and bent the arm backward.
SNAP!
The hand broke, but the fingers kept moving. They crawled along Kael’s forearm and pressed new white circles into his skin.
He bit through two of them and spat the clear fluid into the open chest. The liquid struck the damaged organ.
HISS!
A seam opened across the metal surface. Kael pushed his marked hand through the clear veins and closed his fingers around the organ.
The branched mark burned from wrist to shoulder before answering through his chest, knee, heel, and breath. His authority seed remained unintegrated, but its unfinished connection helped his body resist the attempt to stop every motion at once.
The creature smiled through its broken jaw.
Kael pulled.
RIP!
The coin organ tore free. Clear veins snapped from the chest and struck the floor while the creature folded around the empty space beneath its ribs.
The organ screamed inside Kael’s hand.
SCREECH!
Its metal shell twisted toward the creature as if trying to return. Kael closed both hands around it.
CRACK!
The organ broke into sharp discs and wet silver grit. Every white mark in the chamber flashed once before fading from the survivors’ skin.
Several people sank to their knees. Renn remained standing long enough to touch every knot on the count cloth.
Renn counted through every knot. "Nineteen." A voice answered. "Twenty." Another hand met the count cloth. "Twenty-one."
Every person answered, and the walls remained silent around their living voices.
The creature lay at Kael’s feet with clear fluid filling the hole in its chest. Without the spinning organ, its face no longer looked calm or handsome. It looked unfinished.
Vaela checked the ash-lipped woman before examining the corpse. "The pressure exhausted every moving body before the killing blow. Change who carries the weakest whenever a joint begins to shake, because the next one may try the same method."
Orrek flexed his injured hand, recovered the chain, and moved beside the two survivors whose knees still trembled. "Put one on each side of me, and keep their weight below the shoulder."
Jaro returned the bowl to its owner. "Your property survived my inspection, although I found no soup and may have reduced its value."
The boy took it with both hands and tucked it beneath his coat. "You are not inspecting it again."
Jaro raised his empty hands and turned his attention back to the walls.
The broken organ clicked inside Kael’s palms. A thin white line crawled from the pieces toward Orrek’s heel.
TIK!
Kael ground the fragments together. Another line reached toward Renn’s cloth before curling back.
TIK!
The final line moved toward the bowl. Jaro kicked it aside, and the white mark burned through the leather of his boot.
HISS!
He pulled his foot back with a curse. Vaela caught his ankle before he stepped on the damaged sole and wrapped the burn while he stood against Orrek’s shoulder.
"You may laugh after she finishes," Jaro told the boy. "I have suffered greatly for your cookware and deserve a respectful audience."
The child laughed anyway. Two exhausted survivors joined him, and the sound loosened the fear that had kept them silent since the numbered teeth began clicking.
Vaela lifted a strip of the creature’s skin-coat with her blade. Tiny plates lay beneath it like scales. Each held the impression of a movement: a continued step, a raised arm, a hand closing around cloth, a wounded chest drawing breath.
"The white rooms grew this body from movements copied from people who refused to stop," she said. "It could only punish actions that another body had already survived."
Orrek looked at the clear fluid around the corpse. "Whatever made it still had to give it an organ. We can work with that."
Kael dropped the crushed pieces. The survivors watched them scatter across the floor, proof that the human face, numbered teeth, and crushing pressure had depended on something they could tear out.
The wall ahead opened into a chamber shaped like a rib cage laid on its side. A red and clear mass beat inside a white-bronze frame engraved with ancient spirals.
THUM!
The sound shook dust from the curved ribs as the suspended mass prepared to pull their bodies apart.