Chapter 574: Winner Takes the Weight
Chapter 574: Winner Takes the Weight
The Gauntlet swallowed us whole.
Fifty bodies crashed through the entrance like water through a broken dam. Chaos erupted instantly. The first obstacle rose from the ground in sections. Platforms. Gaps. Moving walls that threatened to crush anyone stupid enough to hesitate.
I wasn’t stupid.
My boots hit the first platform as it tilted forty-five degrees. Momentum carried me forward. Behind me, someone screamed as they missed the jump and plummeted into the safety nets below. Elimination number one.
The System hummed in my bones. Six thousand two hundred fifty across all stats. Hidden. Waiting. Ready.
A wall slammed toward my left side. I ducked. Rolled. Came up running. The platform beneath me dropped six feet without warning. My knees absorbed the impact. Kept moving.
Reyna appeared on my right. Her crimson hair streamed behind her like a war banner. Her regeneration sleeve glowed angry red from overuse. She shouldn’t be competing. She should be in medical getting that arm properly healed.
She caught my eye. Grinned.
Crazy woman.
"Still standing, Stray Dog?"
"Still breathing, Crimson Comet."
We ran parallel paths through the shifting maze. Platforms rose. Fell. Spun. The design made no sense from the ground level but I could feel the pattern. Three seconds up. Two seconds stable. Four seconds down. Repeat.
I timed my jumps accordingly.
The first checkpoint appeared ahead. A narrow bridge suspended over a twenty-foot drop. Single file only. Bottleneck by design.
Fifteen competitors reached it simultaneously.
I didn’t slow down.
My shoulder connected with the back of a Cobalt Vipers member. He stumbled sideways. Fell off the bridge. His scream faded into the nets below. Elimination number seven.
Reyna matched my pace on the opposite rail. Her feet barely touched the narrow surface. Lightning crackled around her ankles. Using her Aspect for balance rather than offense. Smart.
The bridge ended. The next section began.
Water.
A massive pool filled with floating platforms that bobbed and dipped with every movement. Some platforms looked stable. Others were clearly traps designed to flip the moment you committed your weight.
I studied the pattern for half a second. The stable platforms sat slightly lower in the water. The traps rode higher. Basic physics. Buoyancy revealed all.
My first jump landed on a stable platform. Then the second. Third. Fourth.
Behind me, elimination after elimination. Competitors who guessed wrong. Who panicked. Who didn’t understand that survival meant seeing what others missed.
Isabelle crossed on my left flank. Her Fujin lifted her just enough to glide rather than jump. Green wind wrapped around her like a lover’s embrace. She moved with the grace of something not quite human.
Julian struggled somewhere behind us. His quantum field disrupted the water around him but couldn’t make the platforms any more stable. Physics didn’t care about your Aspect when your Aspect couldn’t touch physics.
I reached the other side of the pool. Pulled myself onto solid ground. Checked the competition.
Twenty-three competitors remained. Twenty-seven eliminated in the first two obstacles alone.
The Gauntlet earned its name.
"HALFWAY POINT! TWENTY-THREE COMPETITORS REMAIN! THE FINAL SECTION AWAITS!"
The crowd roared. I couldn’t see them through the dome’s interior walls but I felt their energy. Their hunger. Their desperate need for entertainment.
Reyna landed beside me. Her breathing came harder than mine. Her arm hung at a slightly wrong angle inside the regeneration sleeve. The device was failing. Overloaded from constant use throughout the day.
"Your arm."
"Fine."
"It’s not."
"Didn’t ask."
She pushed past me toward the final section entrance. Her stubbornness would get her killed someday. Today, probably.
I followed.
The final section revealed itself through a massive archway. Beyond the arch, a vertical climb. Fifty feet straight up. Handholds that shifted positions every few seconds. A ceiling that slowly descended toward us.
Time limit. Pressure. Elimination by crushing.
"COMPETITORS! THE CEILING DESCENDS IN FIVE MINUTES! REACH THE TOP OR BE ELIMINATED!"
I started climbing.
The first handhold felt solid under my grip. I pulled myself up. Found the next. The pattern made sense after three movements. The holds shifted in a spiral pattern. Counterclockwise. Predictable if you watched for more than two seconds.
Most competitors didn’t watch. They grabbed and hoped. Some of them fell when their handhold disappeared beneath their fingers.
I climbed faster.
Isabelle passed me on the left. Her wind carried her weight. She barely needed the handholds at all. Cheating, technically. But the rules only prohibited offensive Aspect use. Defensive applications remained fair game.
Reyna struggled below me. Her broken arm couldn’t grip properly. The regeneration sleeve sparked and hissed with each attempt. She was falling behind.
I stopped climbing.
"What are you doing?"
Isabelle’s voice floated down from above. She’d noticed my pause.
"Something stupid."
I descended three handholds. Extended my free hand toward Reyna.
"Grab on."
"I don’t need help."
"Your arm is broken. The sleeve is failing. You have three minutes before the ceiling crushes you. Grab on or die."
Her emerald eyes burned with fury. Pride. Shame. Everything a competitor felt when offered assistance they desperately needed but couldn’t bring themselves to accept.
"This doesn’t mean anything."
"Never said it did."
She grabbed my hand. I pulled her up to my level. Her body pressed against mine for a moment. Warm despite the chill of exertion. Her breath hot against my neck.
"I still owe you dinner."
"Focus on surviving first."
We climbed together. Her good hand found holds while I supported her weight when necessary. The ceiling descended above us. Four minutes. Three and a half. Three.
"NINETY SECONDS REMAINING! FIFTEEN COMPETITORS STILL CLIMBING!"
My muscles burned. My cracked ribs screamed with every pull. The regenerator brace worked overtime to keep me functional.
Reyna’s face showed pain she couldn’t hide anymore. Her sleeve had stopped working entirely. Just dead weight wrapped around a broken arm.
"Leave me."
"No."
"You’ll lose."
"I don’t lose."
Thirty feet to go. Sixty seconds. The math didn’t work. I couldn’t carry her weight and climb fast enough to beat the ceiling.
Unless.
"Reyna. Do you trust me?"
"What kind of question is that?"
"The important kind. Do you trust me?"
Her eyes met mine. Something passed between us that neither of us would acknowledge later.
"Yes."
"Good. Hold on tight."