Chapter 45: The Rule That Divides Allies!

Cecil woke beneath a blue‑white ceiling. He lay upon dry stone ground, with a folded coat tucked under his head for a pillow. The fabric was coarse yet clean.

He blinked twice, his blurry vision gradually clearing to reveal the vault overhead — the same blue‑white rune‑light as the trial arena, though far softer, dimmed down to lingering afterglow.

"Awake?" Gwendolyn’s voice came beside his ear. She crouched by his shoulder, her tail draped over the cuff of his sleeve, her blue eyes brighter than before he had blacked out.

"...How long was I out?"

"Not very long." Gwendolyn replied. "The trial grounds’ rules never reset. After you collapsed, it registered your victory and ran the settlement sequence. You just missed receiving your victory reward."

Cecil pushed himself up into a sitting position. His body felt lighter than he expected. Most of the soreness from the Strength attribute boost had faded.

A thin layer of white ointment covered the burn on his left shoulder, held in place by neat strips of clean white cloth. He glanced down at his shoulder; the dressing was carefully done with tidy edges, not some hastily torn scrap.

"Lena patched you up." Gwendolyn flicked her tail toward the group. "She keeps salves and bandages in her pack. Her sister said she stuffed half a medical kit into her bag before stepping through the portal."

Cecil followed the direction of her tail. Vera squatted on the stone floor before a stone platform, several fragments scattered in front of her.

Her amber eyes focused intently as she shifted their positions. Beside her crouched Victor. His dark‑purple bat nestled inside his collar, its silver‑veined wing membranes peeking out over the fabric.

The rest formed a loose half‑circle around them. Lena stood behind her sister, her ointment box still open on her lap. Her multicoloured butterfly perched lightly on her shoulder, beating its wings.

Martha stood off to one side with crossed arms, her rock bear Ollie dozing at her feet. Emon sat leaning against the wall, Silver‑Eye’s tail resting across his knees. Freddy, Lydia, Oliver and Edwin huddled together. Turner curled into a small grey ball on Freddy’s lap.

"What are you all looking at?" Cecil walked over, and Freddy shifted aside to make space for him.

Vera glanced up at him. Seeing he was awake, her eyebrows stayed still yet the corner of her mouth twitched upward. "Perfect timing. Come look at this."

Three fragments lay on the ground. Two were dark‑gold, matching the texture of the piece Victor had pulled from his collar earlier, etched with fine intricate patterns.

The third was silver‑grey, one size smaller, its markings mirrored against the dark‑gold pair. Victor took out his own dark‑gold fragment hanging from a thin silver chain and set it down beside them. Arranged together, the four pieces formed a curved arc — roughly one‑quarter of a full circle.

"A moon," Gwendolyn poked her head out from Cecil’s shoulder for a closer look. "Looks like a broken crescent."

"Exactly." Victor squatted and traced the arc with his fingertip. "This shape tells us several critical things. First: the complete object is a circle. Second: we only possess one‑quarter of it right now. Third —" he lifted his gaze toward everyone "— we need every fragment to open the exit."

Lena added softly. "And fragments only spawn after winning trials. Victor earned one, Cecil earned one, I saw one drop from Emon’s match too..." Her voice trailed off into a quiet mumble. "We probably still need many more."

Vera stood and brushed dust off her hands. "Let us count. One from Emon’s victory, one from Cecil’s, one Victor claimed earlier on his own. Three. Add Victor’s other piece he found elsewhere, total four. If the full circle requires at least eight shards —" she paused "— we are missing at least half."

Martha’s rough voice rumbled from the side. "What about the others? There are other groups inside these grounds. What if they hold fragments too —"

Her sentence was cut short by a deep metallic resonance reverberating from the vault overhead. Blue‑white light rippled outward from the centre like stones dropped into water, spreading in widening rings. The glowing runes on the floor lit up again, yet their pattern had changed. No longer concentric circles; two parallel luminous bands stretched outward on either side of the arena’s centre, like a dividing line unfurling across the ground.

Immediately afterward, a cold, emotionless voice boomed down from high within the dome. It sounded like metal scraping stone, like machinery turning for the first time after being oiled.

"Trial Ground Rules Updated."

Every head tilted upward toward the vault.

"Phase Two Commences. Mode Change — Cooperation Mode Terminated. Survivor Competition Mode Activated."

"Rules: Only one fragment shall spawn per trial victory. Fragment ownership is exclusive. Cannot be shared. Cannot be traded. Defeat opponents to seize their fragments. Progress calculated individually. Fragments may be stolen."

"During competition, team affiliations are dissolved. All participants are independent entities."

Blue‑white runes split down the arena’s centre, forming a slowly widening fissure. Strangers in the spectator stands, who had previously rested, chatted and sharpened weapons, all rose to their feet. Their gazes shifted in that instant — not outright hatred, nor pure malice, but a cautious re‑evaluation of who counted as ally and who counted as foe.

Cecil sensed the people beside him fall silent. This hush felt nothing like the applause after his fight. That warmth was gone, replaced by a chilling, waiting stillness.

Freddy spoke first, striving to keep his tone steady yet unable to mask his confusion. "...What did it say? Independent entities? Teams are disbanded?"

"In other words —" Victor’s faint smile lingered but grew flatter "— we cannot share fragments anymore. Winner takes all. Once obtained, the fragment belongs solely to them. Yet if someone else defeats you —" he glanced toward the dividing light crack in the arena centre "— whatever they gain will not go to us."

Lydia tightened her grip on Ivy. The green serpent tensed on her wrist. "But we just laid our fragments together to fit them —"

"That was then," Victor said. "Rules have changed."

Vera stood motionless, her amber eyes fixed on the four arc‑forming shards on the stone. She tapped her fingers lightly against her knees, then bent down, picked up each fragment one by one and slipped them into the small leather pouch at her hip. Her movements were unhurried, done openly for all to witness, with no attempt to hide them.

"I will hold onto these for now," she stated. "Leaving them on the ground is too risky."

Nobody objected.

Yet Cecil noticed: as Vera stored the fragments, Victor’s gaze lingered briefly on her hands. Only a moment, but long enough to register.

Groups all across the grounds began stirring. Some stretched their joints. Others moved toward different sections. Previously clustered parties silently rearranged themselves. Cecil spotted Leon descending from the platform, Thunder Griffin padding at his heels. Leon’s eyes swept over the crowd, paused briefly toward Cecil’s group, then moved away.

"...Seriously." Freddy’s voice dropped. "We only just got on decent terms, and now we have to fight each other?"

Lydia lifted Ivy from her wrist and set her onto her shoulder. The green snake rested its head against her collarbone and flicked its tongue. "It says competition mode. It does not force us to fight one another. We could choose not to chase fragments —"

"But if we don’t, others will," Oliver cut in, forcing calm into his voice. "Even if we gather some shards and stop hunting, sooner or later someone will come for what we have."

Edwin squatted down and touched the Rust Beetle’s shell with his fingertip. "What if we split up, each complete our own trials, and combine fragments once we have enough —"

"The rules explicitly state fragments cannot be shared or traded," Cecil said. His voice was clearer now, still carrying the faint hoarseness of just waking. "You cannot combine them before completion. Only once assembled can we leave."

A hush fell over the group. Martha drew her short axe halfway from its sheath then slid it back, metal scraping softly against leather. Emon straightened away from the wall. Lena hugged her book to her chest, and the butterfly folded its wings upon the spine.

Gwendolyn perched on Cecil’s shoulder, her tail brushing across the nape of his neck. Her tone was calm, focused, as though running calculations. "So your idea is: gather enough pieces first, and worry about ownership afterward?"

Cecil nodded. "Nobody gets out unless we collect enough. The exit will only open once the circle is whole. Until then —" he glanced at the fragment pouch hanging at Vera’s hip "— we keep working together to collect them."

Vera’s fingers rested upon the drawstring of her leather bag. Her amber eyes glinted under blue‑white radiance. She gave no verbal reply, yet she did not tighten the cord to seal it shut.

Once more the metallic toll of the dome echoed, deeper this time, like a giant bronze bell being struck. Blue‑white light surged out from the central fissure and coalesced into glowing text hanging mid‑air, characters sharp as laser‑etched marks burned into the atmosphere.

"Additional Rule: Once all fragments are assembled, the holder of the complete circle gains final choice. They may select up to six other participants to depart alongside them. Those not selected shall remain trapped within the trial grounds until the next cycle begins."

The luminous words hovered for roughly five seconds, then dissipated like smoke caught in wind.

Silence hung over the spectator stands for a heartbeat. Then chaos erupted, like gunpowder igniting. Voices exploded from every direction. "Six people?! There are more than twenty of us here —" Someone snorted. "This is forcing us to turn on each other." A cloaked woman folded her arms and remarked flatly: "Six get out. Everyone else stays. The rule could not be plainer."

Parties shifted within seconds. Some stepped backward to create distance. Others drew closer to trusted allies. The loose crowd reshuffled its boundaries, like sand stirred by a disturbance.