The first team broke into a run from the eastern ridge.
They didn't bother with stealth anymore.
The moment the Fate Node pulsed brighter, concealment became pointless.
Mana flared in streaks of red, green, and pale gold as their formation surged downhill toward the glowing sigil. From the north and west, two more groups followed a heartbeat later, their silhouettes tearing through the fractured terrain like predators responding to the same wounded heartbeat.
Rex sucked in a sharp breath.
"Tell me that's an illusion."
Aether didn't look away from the field.
"It's not."
Seraphina had already stepped onto the outer ring of the sigil. The pale light beneath her feet spiraled upward in thin, trembling filaments as if the ground itself was attempting to breathe. The temperature dropped sharply around her, frost radiating outward in instinctive response to the violent mana pressure.
"They're too early," she said quietly. "The Node was not due for forced awakening yet."
My legs felt like they were sinking into wet cement.
"And yet it's waking up anyway," I muttered.
Her gaze flicked back to me for a fraction of a second.
"Yes."
The fragment at my side burned hotter. Not with heat—
With pull.
Like something beneath the earth had wrapped invisible fingers around my spine and was gently, patiently trying to reel me in.
Aether lifted his sword fully this time.
"Rex. High interference only. Don't engage in direct exchange unless forced."
Rex nodded stiffly, swallowing hard.
"Got it. No heroic sacrifices today."
Aether's eyes shifted to me.
"You don't move unless Seraphina says so."
I opened my mouth.
Closed it.
Then nodded.
The eastern team reached the base of the ridge first.
Four figures.
One in heavy armor leading. Two mid-ranged casters behind. One support hanging several steps back. Their movements were sharp and purposeful, eyes locked on the Fate Node rather than on us.
They weren't here to duel.
They were here to touch first.
The leader raised his arm.
"Hold only long enough to secure contact!" he barked.
They spread in a wide arc, trying to cut straight past us.
Aether moved.
He met the armored vanguard head-on, blue aura roaring to life along his blade. Their weapons clashed with a shriek of stress that echoed across the Node.
The other three tried to slip around the engagement.
Seraphina spread both arms slowly.
Frost surged outward across the ground like a silent tidal wave.
The earth flash-froze beneath the advancing casters, locking one ankle-deep in ice mid-step. He cried out in surprise before losing balance and crashing hard onto his back.
The second caster leapt cleanly over the frost line, cloak snapping behind him as he hurled a sphere of compressed lightning toward Seraphina.
Rex reacted on instinct.
Fire met lightning in a violent burst of steam and ash. The collision sent both spells veering harmlessly upward.
But the support kept running.
Straight for the sigil.
Straight past everyone.
My heart slammed painfully against my ribs.
"He's going for the Node!"
Seraphina turned too late.
The support reached the inner ring.
He extended his glowing hand—
And was instantly thrown backward like a broken doll.
The sigil flared.
Not violently.
Not defensively.
Almost… irritated.
The man crashed into the stone and slid to a stop, unmoving.
Silence rippled through all three approaching teams.
They felt it.
So did I.
The Node was no longer inert.
It was aware.
From the western ridge, the second team charged.
Six this time.
Their formation was tighter, their movements far more synchronized. A woman at their center carried a long hooked blade that shimmered with green poison light. Her eyes locked on me immediately.
Not on the Node.
On me.
"That's him," she said.
My stomach dropped.
Aether slammed his opponent to the ground with a brutal shoulder charge and pivoted instantly to face the new threat.
Seraphina stepped deeper onto the sigil.
The light beneath her feet intensified.
Her frost began to crack.
"Kyle," she said without looking at me. "The Node is aligning to you rather than to me."
"That doesn't sound right," I whispered.
"It is not," she replied. "But it is happening."
The fragment at my side pulsed again.
Harder.
The woman with the hooked blade shouted an order.
Two of her teammates peeled off to intercept Aether.
Two went for Rex.
One came straight for me.
I froze.
Not with fear.
With indecision.
Seraphina had told me not to move.
Aether had told me not to move.
But the enemy was moving.
Fast.
Too fast.
Rex screamed as one of the attackers slammed into him, knocking him hard across the frozen ground. His fire sputtered wildly as he struggled to recover.
The hooked-blade woman closed the remaining distance with terrifying speed.
Her eyes were sharp.
Focused.
Professional.
She wasn't here for glory.
She was here for certainty.
Her blade swept toward my neck.
The world narrowed.
My body tried to obey every command to freeze.
To wait for rescue.
To stall until Aether or Seraphina intervened.
But neither was close enough.
Something inside me snapped—not loudly—but absolutely.
I twisted aside.
The blade cut through where my throat had been a moment before and tore across my shoulder instead. Pain flared white-hot.
I staggered back.
Not far.
Not clean.
But alive.
The woman's brows lifted faintly in surprise.
"You do move," she said.
She pivoted for a follow-up strike.
Frost erupted from the ground.
Seraphina's ice surged up between us in a violent, jagged wall.
The woman crashed through it anyway, shards tearing into her cloak and skin as she forced her way forward.
Relentless.
Aether intercepted her at last.
Their blades met in a violent screech of metal.
The impact shook the air.
At the same time, the northern team entered the battlefield.
They didn't rush.
They spread out slowly.
Watching.
Waiting.
Calculating.
They were predators waiting for the right moment to strike exhausted prey.
The battlefield became chaos.
Spells collided.
Steel rang.
Frost cracked.
Fire surged.
All around the Node, three factions crushed into each other in a desperate struggle for position.
And above it all—
The sigil brightened.
The light surged upward in trembling columns.
The fragment burned so fiercely now that it felt like it was searing through my bones.
Seraphina faltered for the first time.
Her breath hitched as the light beneath her feet flared too violently to control.
"The synchronization is accelerating," she said through clenched teeth. "Kyle—your fragment is acting as the primary anchor!"
"I didn't do anything!" I shouted.
"You don't need to," she replied. "Your existence is enough."
The Node responded again.
A wave of distorted mana burst outward from the sigil in a wide circular shock.
Every combatant—friend and enemy alike—was hurled backward.
Aether skidded dozens of feet before digging his sword into the stone to halt his momentum.
Rex rolled hard across the ice and slammed into a ridge with a pained grunt.
The hooked-blade woman was thrown clean off her feet.
Only Seraphina remained standing.
And only because she forced herself to remain at the center of the storm.
The approaching teams froze.
All eyes turned toward the glowing sigil.
Toward the center.
Toward me.
I felt it then.
Not pressure.
Not pain.
A question.
Not in words.
In weight.
In pull.
In a gravitational certainty that demanded an answer from my existence itself.
The Node wasn't rejecting me.
It was evaluating me.
Seraphina looked back over her shoulder.
"Kyle," she said sharply. "If the Node completes alignment with you, it will register you as its provisional holder."
Aether's eyes widened. "He's not strong enough to anchor a territory."
"It doesn't care about strength," she replied. "It cares about compatibility."
"Then stop it!" Rex shouted from where he lay.
Seraphina hesitated.
For the first time since I had met her—
She hesitated.
"…If I interrupt it now," she said slowly, "the backlash could fracture his fate permanently."
Silence slammed into me harder than any blow.
Fracture my fate.
That sounded worse than death.
The hooked-blade woman laughed breathlessly from the rubble.
"So that's it," she called out. "The anomaly becomes a territorial core."
Her eyes burned with greed.
"We can't let that happen," she shouted to her team. "If he stabilizes it, this entire region locks under his authority!"
The northern team moved at last.
All of them.
Directly toward me.
Aether forced himself upright and stepped into their path with blood running down his arm.
"You will not pass," he said.
Seraphina's frost surged to form a half-dome around the sigil.
Rex staggered back to his feet, flames trembling weakly around his hands.
And I—
I stood at the center of a light I did not understand.
The fragment floated out of my pouch on its own.
Slowly.
As if lifted by invisible hands.
It drifted toward the glowing sigil.
My chest tightened.
Every instinct I had screamed that what was about to happen would change everything.
I reached out.
Not with power.
Not with intention.
With panic.
My fingers closed around the fragment just as it was pulled free of my control.
The contact was violent.
The world did not explode.
It rearranged.
The sigil beneath my feet brightened until I could no longer see stone—only infinite, layered symbols spiraling into one another.
The approaching teams froze.
Not because I attacked.
Because the Node had made a decision.
The light surged upward in a towering column.
The sky itself seemed to bend toward the sigil.
And deep beneath the broken stone, something ancient acknowledged the choice.
Seraphina recoiled sharply.
Aether's breath left his lungs in a stunned exhale.
Rex stared in disbelief.
The woman with the hooked blade fell to one knee.
The world recognized me.
Not as a ruler.
Not as a master.
But as something worse.
A Variable Holder.
The light died.
The sigil dimmed.
And suddenly—
The battlefield went silent.
Not because everyone was defeated.
But because every faction present understood the same terrible truth at the exact same time.
The Fate Node had been claimed.
And it had chosen the weakest existence on the field to anchor itself.
Me.