I took the center tile.
Boots down. Formation "complete."
The System purred its approval:
All participants in formation
Then came the rumble.
Metal-on-metal, heavy machinery dragging open the gate across the arena.
Red light spilled like a wound.
Something behind it growled. Several somethings. Hungry.
I shifted into stance. Axe ready. Breath steady.
Something moved beneath my skin.
Not just a twitch. A crawl.
Like something wet dragging claws along the inside of my ribs, testing seams.
A weight pressed against my spine, vertebra by vertebra, as if checking where it could split me open.
The hairs on my neck shot upright. My shoulders locked, then rolled without permission.
Heat spread under the skin, not warmth, not adrenaline.
Fever.
Infection.
Trespassing?
I sucked in air. Too much. Too sharp. My chest rattled like it was forgetting how to breathe.
My heart stuttered, then lurched forward with a double-beat that didn't belong to me.
This wasn't fear.
This wasn't even mine.
This was the Root, reacting.
And with it... the bear.
Not rising.
Pushing.
Shoving at me from the inside, daring me to hold it back.
Every pulse another demand: let me through.
Hair sprouted up my forearms in bristling clumps. Not soft. Not human.
The follicles screamed, burning as they forced themselves outward, coarse and black.
My skin crawled, muscles bunching and releasing like they were chewing on their own tendons.
Joints cracked out of rhythm, sharp pops like misfired gunshots.
I staggered. My legs didn't bend the way I told them to.
Knees bowing wider, hips rolling too far forward, balance tilting me toward the ground.
Like something wanted me on all fours, muzzle-low, ready to bite.
A spasm tore through my jaw.
Cartilage shifted. Bone grated.
Teeth pressed against gums until they throbbed, pressure building like they wanted to push out of my mouth and sprout anew.
"Nh-ghhh..."
The sound that leaked past clenched teeth wasn't mine. Not fully.
Half-snarl, half-choke.
My hands followed. Swelling, fingers flexing and locking, nails peeling back.
Black seeped into the keratin, tips splitting like they were rotting alive.
Not claws yet. Just the idea of claws.
A promise.
A threat.
The axe felt too light. Too toy-like.
It belonged to someone smaller.
Someone human.
The veins in my forearms swelled thick and dark, pushing against skin that already didn't fit.
Every heartbeat felt like a hammer swung by something else, driving wedges into bone.
And then the healing began.
Not comfort. Not relief.
Just meat knitting too fast, blood boiling through arteries, pain stretched taut and smoothed thin.
Not because I rested.
Because I raged.
Because Berserksúlur was active.
It drank my fury and vomited it back as strength.
A gnawing opened in my gut, deep, sharp. Hunger that belonged to something bigger than me.
My stomach clenched, empty, already devoured. I could taste the ration bar I'd eaten hours ago dissolving again, chewed twice, burned like tinder.
The air around me thickened. Bent.
Like the space itself flinched away from what I was becoming.
Like the arena didn't want to host this thing any longer.
The thought screamed inside my skull like a siren bouncing off steel walls.
This is mine. I control it.
But the words didn't echo right.
Each time I said them, something else said them back. Deeper. Hungrier.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Not a chant. A contest.
Every beat of my heart hit like a judge's gavel.
Every pulse, another vote on who owned this body.
If I stopped.
If I hesitated for even a breath.
It wouldn't just slip.
It would take.
Hagar's voice rasped in the back of my skull, gravel and warning:
"You don't train a Root like rage. You chain it to your spine and pray it doesn't eat your brain before breakfast."
I understood now. The burn behind my eyes. The split-thought. The way the world kept doubling, one image human, one animal.
Fury and feral, chewing through each other to see which stayed.
And then...
I slipped.
Not far. Just a blink.
But enough.
The world dropped out from under me.
No stone.
No gate.
No name.
Only breath that wasn't mine.
Heat blistering behind my eyes.
Blood pounding like war drums.
Claws, dragging furrows through whatever I still called me.
A hunger with no memory. No reason. Just need.
My legs buckled. Not knees giving way, knees folding, bending wrong, like something else had claimed them.
The weight in my gut dragged me down, demanding I crawl. Demanding I kneel.
For an instant I was seventeen again, a CO's knee in my back, my face ground into concrete.
The weight. The helpless rage. The way they wanted me broken, compliant.
Never again.
A snarl tore itself raw out of my throat.
Not words. Not yet.
Just defiance shaped as sound.
Fuck you.
You don't get me.
Not the System.
Not some half-dead bear gnawing through my spine.
You want me on my knees?
Fuck you. You kneel.
And while you're down, you better pray. Or choke.
The words didn't make it to air.
They just burned inside me, fire without sound.
I forced my head up.
Forced my eyes to see my world again.
The gate was nearly open now.
Red light bleeding out like a wound in stone.
Bootsteps. Steel. Breath. Snarls.
They were coming.
Good.
Let them come, before I forget who gets to kill them.
Breath ragged. Arms trembling. Rage still clawing through my chest like it wanted out, like it wanted to split me and wear me instead.
I held anyway.
Barely.
Every heartbeat felt like it could be the last one that was mine.
I didn't fall.
Not yet.
I never fucking fall.
My boots dug into the stone, more anchor than stance. The axe came up slow, deliberate, because if I moved too fast I wasn't sure if i were moving it.
Shoulders hunched, skin twitching as if something inside was testing for cracks.
My whole body screamed, not in pain but in demand, more. Always more.
Let it scream.
The growl leaking from my throat blurred, bear and human tangled together until it didn't matter.
They wanted a monster?
Fine.
I bared my teeth. Not a smile. Something worse. A promise.
My eyes locked on the rising gate. Red light spilling wider, bleeding across the floor. Shadows forming in the glare.
Five shapes stepped through.
Mock soldiers. Mock hunters. Mock prey.
Five-man encounter.
I hoped they screamed.
I really did.
They moved in unison, carved from light and bad code, limbs snapping into place too sharp, too clean, skipping the human parts in between. Precision without life, a marionette dance that thought it was choreography.
Porcelain masks. White, cracked, painted symbols:
A broken sword.
A flame, grinning.
A dagger, dripping red.
A haloed star.
And one, mouth open mid-cheer, frozen in applause it would never finish.
My lip curled. Of course.
The System didn't trust real monsters to teach teamwork.
So it built these.
Tutorial golems. Algorithmic ghosts.
And then the window popped up, cheerful as a teacher handing out pop quizzes in a burning classroom.
[TUTORIAL HINT — ENCOUNTER INITIATED 📘]
This scenario includes simulated opponents modeled after ideal combat role archetypes.
Observe their behavior to learn foundational strategy concepts such as:
Formation anchoring Threat cycling Coordinated ability deployment
💡 Tip: Every great leader starts as a careful observer! Understanding others is the first step toward mastering yourself. ☺️
Before I could snarl at it, the cheerleader-mask thing tilted its head back, way too far, and froze. Arms up. Like it was conducting a silent orchestra from hell.
Then it repeated the hint.
Word for word.
But not spoken.
Just... played. Like it had swallowed the System and was coughing up the flavorless parts.
The others began to move.
Not rushed. Not chaotic.
Scripted.
The cracked-sword one stomped forward in shining plate. Sword in one hand, shield in the other. It planted itself dead center, between me and the others, like a wall that thought it had purpose.
"STAY... behind me," it rasped, a voice made of stitched-together lines from old training vids. Flat. Glued together. Wrong.
Behind it, left side, the flame-mask. Standing still. Too still.
Then the fire lit in its hands, not flaring, not igniting. Running, like playback. Tongues of flame spiraling up its arms in perfect loops.
To the right, dagger-mask.
Flickering. Glitching.
It cocked its head at me and laughed, or something like it. A double-layered audio clip, just off-sync enough to make your skin crawl.
Further back, halo-mask drifted half a foot off the ground, wrapped in soft light like a knockoff saint. Nothing behind those eye holes but light and programming.
And in the center, still towering above them all, was the cheerleader-mask. Arms raised. Still frozen in the orchestra pose. Conducting nothing. Everything.
I could feel it now, not from them, but around them.
The air buckling. Thinning.
Something was wrong on their side of the line.
Like the formation logic was chugging.
Like the System was running too many processes at once.
That's right, I thought, baring my teeth.
Smell it. Feel it.
I am not a data point. I am the fucking exception.
Let them see what crawls out of their perfect balance chart when the math doesn't work anymore.
[TUTORIAL HINT — FORMATION INTEGRITY TRIAL: ACTIVE]
This challenge is designed to test coordinated party tactics.
Observe how enemies emulate role-based combat behaviors.
Strategy begins with understanding.
I bared my teeth as the pop-up faded.
Not a smile. At least not a human one.
My hands clenched the axe. Grip too tight. Skin tight over bone.
I could feel my nails scrape the wood. Almost claws.
The System didn't build this to fight me.
It built this for team comps. Role synergy. Shared cooldowns and clean victories.
Cute.
Guess that makes me the boss mob.
My blood ran hot and heavy, each beat like a war drum. The bear inside snarled, hungry, eager. My lips peeled back, too far, too sharp.
I let out a low sound. Not a word. Not a growl. Something between.
The knight's mask tilted, like it heard me.
No one moved.
Me, crouched behind crates.
Them, posed under the still-glowing gate.
Five frozen porcelain faces. Watching. Waiting.
I rolled my shoulders, the motion off, wrong. Something pulled across my spine like muscle wrapped over something else. The air tasted like copper and ozone.
Now or never.
The knight moved first.
Charged, shield raised, jerky, perfect. Like someone puppet-mastered a training dummy.
Straight into the funnel. Just like I'd hoped.
Just like I planned.
Just like prey.
I dropped behind the crate and roared, no tactic, no timing, just noise to drown the bear's chewing glee in my head.
Boots slammed down. Axe came up.
Steel met shield.
The clang rattled my skull. Arms shook. The knight didn't even flinch.
It pressed forward. Hard. I matched it, feet skidding. Axe bit into the rim of its shield. I shoved like I could saw it in half.
"AGGRO... acquired. AGGRO... maintained."
The words came out stitched. Wrong.
Old tutorial voice lines cut together with scissors and glue. Not speech. Noise trying to be command.
We locked there, two shapes in a grinder.
It leaned in.
I leaned harder.
Pain lanced through my arm.
The strain, too much.
Muscle tore.
Berserksúlur answered.
Not warmth, fuel burn.
Like I was throwing meat into a fire and it was choosing what healed.
I snarled. Spit flecked from my lips. I wanted to bite.
Bite the mask. Bite the face.
Break the thing's spine with my teeth.
No. No.
I held on. Just barely.
Then it twisted, inhuman fast, and slammed its shield sideways into the crate between us.
CRACK.
Wood shattered. The blast blew splinters up into my side. The crate buckled.
I stumbled.
The sword came in. Too fast. Too close.
I twisted, too late.
Metal kissed my ribs and bit deep into my left arm. I felt skin split. Felt it try to sever.
Didn't.
Would've for someone else.
I saw the muscle seal mid-scream.
Not all the way. Just enough.
I roared and slammed my head into its mask.
The impact made the world blur, but I heard it.
Porcelain cracking.
The knight reeled back half a step. Spine snapped upright again with a sound like wet sticks.
But I'd opened something. A fracture, right through the eye.
I didn't get a chance to follow up.
Whoosh...
Too late.
I turned. Flame-mask was already moving, too clean, too smooth. Hands glowing like a slow GIF on loop.
The fireball left its palms and tore across the arena.
It screamed. Or maybe I did.
"Shit!"
I dove sideways.
The blast hit where I'd stood a heartbeat ago.
WHOOOMPH.
Heat slapped me sideways. I landed hard, rolled. Something was burning.
I smelled it.
Fur.
Mine?
The crate I'd dropped behind me? Gone. Blackened splinters in the air.
A shard struck my shoulder and stuck. Burned through hair.
The bear roared through me, shaking bone, gnawing at the edges of control.
Every muscle begged to leap, to bite, to tear.
[TUTORIAL HINT] — Please remember: teamwork is key! ☺️