The sentinel moved faster than anything human should. One moment it was still, the next it had closed half the distance between them, its crystalline spear arcing toward Kai's chest.
Time seemed to fracture. Kai's perception shifted—the world slowed, colors intensifying. His Broken ability wasn't just showing him threats; it was showing him paths.
Red lines appeared in his vision, tracing the spear's trajectory. Blue lines showed possible dodges. Green highlights marked vulnerabilities on the sentinel's body—joints where bark-like skin thinned, the base of its neck where neural connections might cluster.
He chose a blue path, dropping and rolling right as the spear whistled past his ear. The movement felt automatic, instinctive. His body was responding to data he wasn't consciously processing.
As he came up, he grabbed a fallen branch—not crystalline, just dead wood. Useless as a weapon against the sentinel's hardened skin.
Analysis: Sentinel's neural connection to grove requires constant bio-electrical signal. Disruption causes temporary paralysis.
How? How did he disrupt it?
The sentinel recovered, swinging the spear horizontally. Kai ducked again, but the follow-up kick caught him in the ribs. Pain exploded through his side—sharp, breath-stealing.
Rib fracture probability: 65%. Pain suppression recommended.
A new option appeared in his vision, glowing with that familiar violet static:
[PAIN GATEWAY] - Redirect pain signals into enhanced sensory processing. Cost: Temporary emotional numbing.
He accepted without hesitation.
The pain didn't disappear—it transformed. It became data. A precise map of the damage: fractured but not displaced sixth rib on right side. Muscle bruising. Breathing capacity reduced by 22%.
The emotional component—the fear, the shock—evaporated. He felt clear, focused. Deadly.
The sentinel advanced for another strike. Kai saw its pattern now—three quick attacks, then a momentary reset as it re-established connection with the grove network. During that reset, its movements were slightly slower, less coordinated.
He needed to create a larger disruption.
His eyes scanned the environment. The trees, the ground, the sentinel itself. His ability highlighted something—the sentinel's feet. Where they touched the ground, faint bioluminescent filaments glowed, connecting it to the grove.
Roots. It was literally rooted.
Kai feinted left, drawing a spear thrust. As the sentinel committed, he changed direction, bringing his branch down not on the creature, but on the ground where the glowing filaments were thickest.
The dry wood snapped, but it disrupted the connection. The filaments flickered.
The sentinel staggered, its movements becoming jerky, uncoordinated.
Now.
Kai closed the distance. He didn't have a weapon that could pierce bark-skin, but he didn't need to pierce. His ability showed him another vulnerability—the three facial slits. They weren't just for sensing; they were intake ports.
He grabbed a handful of dirt and the crushed remains of the toxic mushrooms he'd noted earlier. Without hesitation, he shoved the mixture into the sentinel's facial slits.
The reaction was immediate and violent. The creature convulsed, dropping its spear. A sound like breaking branches erupted from it—a scream without a mouth.
Kai didn't wait. He grabbed the pouch from its neck and backed away as the sentinel thrashed, tearing at its own face where the toxic spores were now inside its system.
Sentinel termination in progress. Neural feedback loop detected.
The creature collapsed, its body beginning to decompose at an accelerated rate—the bark-like skin cracking, falling away to reveal something pale and human-shaped beneath before that too dissolved into the gray earth.
It was over in seconds.
Kai stood breathing heavily, the pain-gateway still active. He felt nothing looking at the dissolving corpse. No triumph, no horror. Just efficiency.
He opened the pouch. Inside: a roll of actual bandages, a small bottle of iodine, a packet of antibiotics, and—most interestingly—a slender metal vial with no label, containing a clear liquid.
Analysis: Unknown compound. Biological alignment properties detected. Possible anti-parasitic.
"Kai!"
Lena emerged from hiding, limping. Her eyes went wide at the dissolving sentinel, then fixed on the supplies in his hands. "You... you killed it."
"It was already dead," he said. "Just wearing a human shape."
He handed her the antibiotics. "Take these. The packet says broad-spectrum."
"What about this?" She pointed to the unlabeled vial.
"Unknown. Might help with the parasite. Might kill you faster."
Lena didn't hesitate. "Give it to me."
"You don't know—"
"I have twenty-seven minutes before I become that." She gestured to the last fragments of the sentinel. "I'll take unknown over certain."
Kai handed her the vial. She uncorked it, sniffed—winced at the chemical smell—and drank it in one gulp.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then she gasped, clutching her infected arm. The black filaments writhed beneath her skin, as if trying to burrow deeper. The green glow in Kai's vision intensified, then began to pulse erratically.
Parasite distress detected. Compound is effective. Integration process reversing.
Lena cried out as the filaments began to withdraw from her flesh, pulling back toward the wound. They emerged like thin black worms, shriveling as they hit the air. The wound itself began to bleed fresh, clean blood.
"It's working," Kai said, monitoring the process. "Integration down to 9% and falling."
After two minutes of agony, Lena slumped against a tree, breathing heavily. The wound was just a wound now—deep, bleeding, but free of infection. The black filaments lay on the ground beside her, already dissolving.
She looked up at Kai, tears of pain and relief in her eyes. "Thank you."
He nodded, already scanning their surroundings. The confrontation had been loud. Other things would be coming.
"We need to move. Can you walk?"
"I think so." She struggled to her feet, using the tree for support.
Kai helped her apply the proper bandages and iodine from the medical supplies. As he worked, he noticed something else in the pouch—a small, flat stone with symbols carved into it. Not system text, but something older, more organic.
Analysis: Grove memory fragment. Contains experiential data from previous inhabitants.
"Touch this," he said, handing it to Lena.
"Why?"
"Just do it."
She touched the stone with her uninjured hand. Her eyes went distant. "I see... trees. Growing. A man... he's touching a tree, and it's accepting him. It doesn't hurt him. He's... happy to become part of it."
She dropped the stone as if burned. "What was that?"
"A memory. From someone who was corrected." Kai picked up the stone, tucking it into his pocket. "The grove doesn't just take. Some choose it."
"Why would anyone choose that?"
Kai thought of the system's words: The game is not trying to kill them. It is trying to fix something that was already broken.
"Maybe they were broken in a way the grove could fix," he said quietly.
They moved deeper into the grove, following Kai's instinct toward higher ground. The population counter continued its grim descent:
Population: 982/1,003
Twenty-one dead in two hours. The tutorial was weeding out the weak, the unlucky, the alone.
As they walked, Kai felt a change in himself. The pain-gateway ability had faded, but something remained. His emotional landscape felt... simplified. Colors seemed less vibrant. Lena's fear, her relief—he could identify them intellectually, but they evoked no resonance in him.
Empathic Dampening: 34%
Note: Repeated use of Broken abilities accelerates correction of emotional "inefficiencies."
He was being corrected too. Not into a tree-creature, but into something else. Something colder.
They reached a slope leading upward. The trees thinned here, revealing more of the cracked porcelain sky. From this vantage, they could see other sections of the grove—and the flashes of light, the distant screams, the occasional burst of flame where someone had managed to make fire.
"Look," Lena whispered, pointing.
Below, in a clearing, a group of ten people had formed a defensive circle. They were fighting off three of the grove sentinels, working together with surprising coordination. One man had developed claws—literal bone claws extending from his knuckles. A woman could move with unnatural speed, blurring between trees.
Corrections. But useful ones. Chosen ones, perhaps.
"They're adapting," Lena said. "Using what the system gives them."
"Or what it forces on them," Kai corrected.
As they watched, the group dispatched the sentinels. But then something happened. The man with claws turned on one of his own group—a younger boy who was wounded and slowing them down. The attack was quick, brutal, efficient.
The group didn't protest. They stripped the boy of useful items and moved on.
Lena made a small sound of horror. Kai just watched, analyzing.
Social contract reformatting in progress. Efficiency prioritized over morality. Early stage of systemic correction.
"Come on," he said, turning away from the scene. "We're almost to the ridge."
They reached the top as the artificial light in the sky began to dim—a "sunset" in this broken place. From the ridge, they could see the entire tutorial arena. It was circular, maybe three miles across. At the very center stood a single, massive tree, larger than all others, with luminous fruit hanging from its branches.
Objective updated: Reach the Heart Tree before tutorial completion.
Reward: Sanctuary and advanced choice.
Time remaining: 14 hours, 22 minutes.
A new objective. And a time limit.
Lena sank to the ground, exhausted. "We'll never make it. Not with my leg, not through all that."
Kai calculated. The distance: approximately 1.4 miles through increasingly dense grove. Threats would escalate near the center. Their current speed: too slow.
But his ability showed him another path—not through the grove, but along a series of rocky outcroppings that formed a natural, if dangerous, route above much of the terrain. Fewer direct threats, but a single misstep meant a fatal fall.
"Follow me," he said.
"Where? There's no path."
"There is. You just have to see it."
He extended a hand. After a moment's hesitation, she took it.
As they began picking their way along the first narrow ledge, a system message appeared for both of them—but different.
For Lena: Achievement: First Parasite Resistance. Reward: Minor regeneration ability unlocked.
For Kai: Broken Achievement: First Sentinel Termination via Unconventional Means. Reward: [ANALYTIC PREDATION] upgraded to Level 1. New sub-ability available: [THREAT SIMULATION].
Warning: Broken ability progression increases isolation parameters. Further social bonding will become biologically uncomfortable.
Kai absorbed the information. The system was literally rewiring him to prefer solitude. Making him allergic to connection.
He glanced at Lena, who was smiling faintly at her new regeneration ability—her wound was already knitting slightly faster.
Two paths. Two kinds of correction.
Her: given tools to survive with others.
Him: being stripped of the need for others entirely.
The game was trying to fix them both. Just in different ways.
"Kai?" Lena asked, noticing his stillness. "What is it?"
"Nothing," he said, turning back to the path. "Keep moving. We have a long way to go."
And he had a question forming, the second to log in his growing list:
If I become perfectly adapted to survive this world, what exactly will be left of me to save?
The ridge path stretched ahead, narrow and treacherous. Below, the grove waited, hungry and patient.
And in the distance, the Heart Tree glowed, promising answers Kai wasn't sure he wanted.