The bridge behind them vanished.
They stood together no speeches, no orders.
Just readiness.
The ground ahead flickered with unstable material stone, metal, broken glass. The skyline bent unnaturally, and the light above glitched in slow pulses.
Rowan checked his scanner. "This whole zone's adapting in real time."
"It's watching us," Niko said, eyes narrowing.
They didn't get far before the first anomaly arrived.
---
It dropped from above tall, hunched, pulsing with data light. Its limbs shifted like it hadn't decided what shape to keep. It moved fast, screeching in broken code.
Kael reacted first, lunging in with both fists ablaze. He struck center mass forcing it back, but not down. The creature's chest reformed where he'd hit, adapting instantly.
"It's learning," Kael growled, falling back.
Rowan pulled a slip of paper from his pack and activated it. A light pulse scanned the creature, and data streamed into his glasses. "Every hit teaches it. Use something it hasn't seen yet."
---
Aya moved next.
She planted her palm against the floor. A vine node sprouted instantly, weaving into a curved wall of ivy that bloomed into sharp tendrils.
The anomaly charged.
Aya stayed focused, eyes locked. Her vines didn't just bind the creature they sensed its shifting weight, adjusting like a trap that rewrote itself mid-fight. Spikes shot through its joints before it could counter.
It staggered.
But didn't fall.
---
That's when Niko moved.
She stepped forward calmly, raising her hands.
Around the anomaly, echoes shimmered to life ghost images of Jaden, Kael, even Silas, charging in from all sides.
The creature panicked struck a fake Jaden. Then a phantom Kael. Each hit passed through nothing. Niko pressed her hand forward.
"Confuse it," she said softly.
The creature whipped around
Right into the real Kael's fist.
It exploded into glitch-scrap.
Kael turned. "That was you?"
Niko gave him a small smile. "I make noise in different ways."
---
New tremors echoed in the zone.
More anomalies emerged six total. One crawled on all fours. Two floated. Another was fused with terrain growing out of the walls like a sculpture with too many arms.
Jaden pointed. "Keep spread. We take them fast before they learn."
---
Rowan stayed back, flipping through pages like a deck of cards. He marked movement intervals for each creature with chalk and shouted timing patterns.
"Top-left one stutters every 3.2 seconds. Hit during the drop."
Aya nodded and sent a seed pod flying. It landed near the floating anomaly and burst into climbing vines that snared it midair.
Kael charged another, spinning mid-dash and throwing flame outward in a controlled arc. The blast hit wide forcing two anomalies to shift their shape.
He didn't let them recover.
He followed with a low tackle, igniting the ground beneath their feet.
---
Niko stayed in motion, weaving through the chaos. She whispered soft commands, and more echoes flared to life mimicking her allies' most aggressive forms.
Two anomalies became overwhelmed trying to strike down fakes.
Then Niko focused on one creature in particular a spiderlike construct glitching between sizes. She touched the air, and its last emotional residue lit up like a warning flare.
"You're scared," she whispered. "So am I."
The creature twitched confused by its own reflection.
That pause was enough.
Silas crashed into it from above, wings blazing, light spearing through its core.
---
One left.
The biggest.
It moved like a fusion of all the others legs sprouting then retracting, arms splitting into blades.
Rowan called out. "It's mimicking us all."
"I'll be the bait," Jaden said.
He moved forward with calm steps, letting the anomaly focus on him.
Behind him, Niko set echo-clones of the others in position. Kael to one side, Aya at the rear, Silas above.
Rowan marked a spot on the floor with chalk. "Here. That's where it resets."
Aya nodded. A seed sprouted instantly into a tangle of spikes.
Kael moved.
The creature turned to him
Then the real Silas dove.
Impact.
The spike trap triggered as the creature tried to shift.
And Jaden brought his blade down through its core.
It fell apart.
They regrouped.
Breathing hard. Checking each other.
No one was down.
No one had been left behind.
---
Rowan closed his notebook. "We're working better than before."
Kael cracked his neck. "Yeah. Guess we're a team now."
Aya knelt, recalling her vines. "Still more ahead."
Silas dusted off a scorch mark on his sleeve. "Can't believe I almost missed this disaster party."
Jaden looked at all of them.
"We're close."
He pointed ahead.
At the edge of the zone, a structure pulsed dim at first, but steady.
A place where memory and system code met.
"Let's finish it."
---
End of Chapter 23
Author's note:
Niko: I make noise in different ways
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