Chapter 143: Severance Reach
The first hanging mold opened before Kael reached it. A white wrist slid out, followed by an elbow, a shoulder, and a narrow body with a smooth plate where its face should have been.
SNIP!
Blades extended from all ten fingers. More bodies lowered until seven pale figures stood across the corridor, built like humans stripped of hair, eyes, and ordinary scars.
Their palms carried the same five lines burned into Kael’s hand.
Vaela drew her wrapped blade and moved beside him. "The joints are narrow, and the tendons are visible beneath the skin. They were made to cut carefully, not to survive a heavy strike."
Orrek brought the survivors closer to the wall with his uninjured arm. "I will keep their hands away from the people behind me. Watch the ceiling as well, because this shoulder will not let me reach anything above us."
Renn pressed the count cloth against his chest. "All twenty-one are together. I will call out anything moving above us."
The nearest servant crossed the tiles without a warning step. Every blade went for Kael’s marked wrist while his throat and chest remained open.
Kael waited until the last moment. The servant had chosen one hand so completely that the rest of his body had become invisible to it.
He caught its forearm.
The white skin split beneath his fingers. Polished cartilage covered thin black tendons, and dark fluid ran between them. The servant tried to release its own arm at the elbow.
Kael crushed the joint first.
CRUNCH!
White fluid and dark blood burst across his knuckles. A mouth opened beneath the blank faceplate and released a harsh scream.
SCREECH!
The other servants changed position. Two dropped low toward Kael’s legs, three spread across the corridor, and one climbed the wall by driving its finger blades into the tile.
Renn pointed upward. "Orrek, above you! It is crossing toward my wrist."
Orrek looked up as the servant released the wall. He planted his back against the survivors and raised both arms despite the swelling in his shoulder. The creature dropped onto him.
THUD!
The creature landed on him. Two blades punched through his sleeve and scraped along the bone beneath it.
GRIND!
Orrek roared and held the servant away from Renn. Blood ran down his arm, while the damaged shoulder shook under the weight.
Kael turned toward him. The servants near the floor had been waiting for the movement.
Blades cut across Kael’s thigh and calf. One opened the muscle above his knee, and another traced the turn of his ankle before he could pull away.
SLASH!
Blood struck the white tile. The floor did not absorb it. These bodies were learning from the way he moved, cut by cut.
Kael drove his heel into the nearest servant’s chest, but a second pair of hands closed around his wounded leg. The finger blades sank deeper when he tried to turn toward Orrek.
The Sovereign Root rose behind his sight. Kael chose the parts of himself that could break the grip and keep the torn muscle working.
Core Mass Density. Regenerative Dominion.
ALLOCATE!
====================================================================
[ SOVEREIGN ROOT INTERFACE OVERLAY ]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ HOSTILE PRESSURE DETECTED: Removal Hand Close-Combat Extraction
≫ EXISTENTIAL SHARDS EXTRACTED: +2
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------
▶ MANUAL ALLOCATION COMMAND RECEIVED
▶ SHARD ALLOCATION REGISTERED: +2 TOTAL
▶ ALLOCATION DISTRIBUTION:
- Core Mass Density -> 42
- Regenerative Dominion -> 31
--------------------------------------------------------------------
≫ POINT IMMENSITY RESPONSE: Grip Break And Wound-Seal Surge Confirmed
≫ UNALLOCATED EXISTENTIAL SHARDS: 0
====================================================================
The change reached him while the blades were still inside his leg. Heat pulled the torn muscle together, rough and painful, as his weight drove through both feet.
CRACK!
White tile split. The servants lost footing, but their fingers remained buried in his wounds.
Kael grabbed the nearest one by the neck and drove its blank face into the floor.
BANG!
The faceplate shattered. White fluid sprayed across the tiles, and the hands inside his calf went slack.
The other servant tried to roll away. Kael’s wounded leg held long enough for him to turn and kick through its ribs.
BOOM!
Its chest folded inward. The body flew across the corridor and struck two servants rushing the survivors.
CRASH!
Vaela entered the opening. She caught a set of finger blades near their base, turned the servant’s wrist past its safe angle, and cut through the exposed tendon beneath it.
SNAP!
The severed hand fell. Its fingers crawled across the floor until Vaela pinned the wrist with her boot and drove the wrapped blade through its center.
"The hands keep moving after they leave the body," she called. "Break the mark in the palm before you step past one."
Jaro pressed himself against the wall with three survivors. "I will keep every loose hand where I can see it. The medical reason may help me feel sensible rather than terrified."
Above him, Orrek’s servant stabbed again. He caught its wrist with his free hand, and the blades sliced across his palm before he could stop them.
"I cannot hold this thing much longer," he shouted. "The shoulder is giving way, and Renn is still standing where it wants to land."
Kael crossed the corridor. A servant raised both arms to catch him with a perfect guard.
He hit it with his shoulder.
BOOM!
Its chest collapsed around the impact. Kael kept moving and drove the broken body into another servant before either could recover.
CRUNCH!
Both creatures went down beneath him. He stepped through their arms and reached Orrek as the wall-crawler drew back its blades.
The creature saw the mark on Kael’s palm. Its fingers changed angle, abandoning Orrek and reaching for the target it had been built to remove.
Kael seized its face with his left hand and trapped its wrist with his right. The matching marks touched, and the pale lines in his palm pulled toward the servant’s fingers.
He tore in opposite directions.
RIP!
The creature split from its jaw to its shoulder. Orrek shoved the remains away and folded his wounded arm against his ribs.
Orrek pressed his bleeding palm against his ribs and fought for a full breath. "I felt the shoulder giving way before Kael reached me. Bind it close, and I can still stay between the wall and the others."
Vaela examined the new cuts without lowering her blade. "Keep pressure on the palm while I wrap the shoulder. You can guard from the floor, but lifting that arm again will finish what the blades started."
Orrek lowered himself beside the survivors and kept his uninjured hand on the chain. His attention remained on the ceiling while Vaela tightened the cloth.
Renn counted from one to twenty-one. Every survivor answered with a voice, a touch, a cough, or a raised hand.
The remaining servants stopped moving.
Their eye slits widened as they looked at the broken bodies. Small clicks passed between their mouths and the walls, and the molds above them began to twitch.
Kael stood among the fallen creatures. White fluid mixed with his blood across his marked hand, but his fingers still closed when he commanded them.
Vaela came to his side and watched the molds opening above the group. "They expected the hand to be easier than the rest of you. The next group has seen enough to change its approach."
Kael pointed to the fallen servants. "Move everyone behind the bodies before the ceiling opens. The broken frames will slow anything coming across the floor."
The farthest servant raised both palms. Tiny hooks turned inside the burned circles.
CLICK! CLICK! CLICK!
Every mold behind the formation opened, but only pale hands emerged. They dropped onto the ceiling, walls, and floor, moving on their fingers toward wrists, sleeves, and anything the survivors used to hold one another.
Jaro looked above him and pulled the older woman closer. "I preferred them with bodies. Bodies have the decency to show where the rest of the trouble is coming from."
The first crawling hand leaped from the ceiling. Kael caught it around the wrist and closed his marked fist.
CRACK!
The pale ring in its palm split. Every crawling hand froze for the length of one breath.
Renn saw the pause and raised one finger. "They stopped when the mark broke. We have one breath before they move again."
Orrek used the warning to drag the injured survivors behind the nearest fallen body. Vaela severed the cable above another mold, dropping three hands before they could reach the floor. Jaro and Sova overturned a broken plate and used it to cover the smallest people.
The bowl boy crawled beneath the plate with two older survivors and held his cracked bowl against his chest. A pale hand struck the cover above him instead of reaching Sova’s ankle.
CLANG!
The plate lifted under the impact. Sova caught its edge with both hands and pulled the child farther beneath the cover. "Press your shoulders against the metal with us. The hand cannot reach anyone if we keep this side down."
Another hand slipped around the opposite edge. Jaro stamped on its fingers, missed the first time, and brought his heel down again while the older woman held the plate steady.
CRACK!
Two fingers broke against the tile. The hand withdrew, but the movement made space for three more to gather along the wall.
Kael watched the servants at the far end. Their mouths clicked faster, reporting the cracked mark and the failed attack to something beyond the corridor.
The crawling hands began to move again.
Kael remembered the brief pause. The enemy had shown him where its control broke, and Renn had given the group enough time to use it.
A heavier impact sounded beyond the next wall.
THUD!
The tiles beneath the survivors trembled. Something larger had received the servants’ report and started toward them.
Kael stepped over the broken hands. His thigh still bled around the closing cuts, and Orrek could no longer lift his wounded arm, but all twenty-one protected people remained together.
The next creature knew his grip resisted removal. It would meet his whole body, not the hand it had been taught to cut.