[All exit routes removed.]
The platform trembled.
The walls began to move.
They didn’t collapse. The metal plates, black roots, and stone blocks separated into complete sections. The tunnel they had used to enter rotated ninety degrees and disappeared behind the ceiling.
The old tracks rose.
The broken train sank into the floor.
Evelyn jumped toward Adrian, but a transparent barrier appeared between them.
Her hand struck the surface.
"Adrian!"
Rift Sense reacted.
Hundreds of silver lines appeared around the station. Space wasn’t merely rearranging the physical structure. Each part of the sector was being dragged through a different rift.
Adrian punched the barrier.
[Fracture: 1/4.]
The platform beneath Evelyn descended.
Second strike.
[Fracture: 2/4.]
A wall began closing in front of her.
Third strike.
[Fracture: 3/4.]
Evelyn drew her sword and attacked from the other side. Flowing Edge left three cuts across the same area.
The barrier held.
"Get back!" Adrian ordered.
Evelyn jumped away.
The fourth punch shattered the surface, but the spatial opening closed before Adrian could pass through it.
Evelyn disappeared.
A wall took her place.
[Spatial separation completed.]
[Connection to party member lost.]
Lyra drove her spear into the floor to maintain her balance. The section of platform beneath them rose several yards before joining another corridor.
"The structure is categorizing the intruders," she said.
"By strength?"
"By temporal signature."
Adrian activated Hunter’s Mark on the point where Evelyn had disappeared.
He couldn’t mark her directly without seeing her, but Rift Sense retained the trail left by her displacement. A silver line passed through the wall and descended toward another sector.
"I can find her."
His communicator emitted static.
Then a fragmented voice came through.
"...Vale... can you hear me?"
Adrian adjusted the frequency.
"I hear you."
"I’m not alone."
A roar drowned out the rest of the message.
Adrian and Lyra exchanged a look.
"How many?" he asked.
"Six students. A training group from the public sector. The structural shift dragged them here."
That explained why the dungeon had altered more than the special sector.
Hollow Station was absorbing its upper levels.
"Instructor?"
"Separated. No response."
Another roar came through the communicator.
Then several more.
"Enemies?" Adrian asked.
"At least forty. Spinecrawlers, Ash Mites, and something I can’t identify. More are coming through three tunnels."
"Can you hold your position?"
There was a pause.
"I can hold the position."
Adrian heard the difference.
She hadn’t said she could protect them.
"Evelyn."
"Find an exit. I’ll keep them away from the students."
"There is no exit."
Silence.
"Then find one."
The communication ended.
Adrian studied the silver trail. Evelyn was beneath them, but the line crossed at least six displaced sections. He couldn’t reach her through a single portal.
He would have to carve a path.
Lyra pointed toward his dimensional container.
"The units are too damaged for another prolonged battle."
Adrian opened the Unit Archive.
[Unit 01 — Integrity: 31%.]
[Unit 02 — Integrity: 46%.]
[Unit 03 — Integrity: 39%.]
[Unit 04 — Integrity: 28%.]
[Unit 05 — Integrity: 34%.]
The damage from their battle against Lyra’s combat imprint remained. Their energy weapons also had less than twenty percent charge left.
"Can you repair them?"
"Not completely. Their armor requires materials that don’t exist yet."
"I need them capable of fighting for ten minutes."
Lyra examined the stored cores.
Five belonged to Railfangs. Two had come from Tunnel Stalkers, and one from the Ironhide Ravager.
"Sacrifice the lesser cores."
"Do it."
"They’re worth more than a hundred thousand credits."
"Evelyn won’t let me deduct them from the cost of dinner."
Lyra looked at him.
"I don’t understand why you’re trying to seduce a woman who threatens to stab you."
"You tried to throw me through a window."
"I wasn’t trying to seduce you."
"That explains the difference."
Adrian selected five C-Rank cores.
[Compatible energy sources detected.]
[Emergency Unit Restoration available.]
[Warning: Restoration will be incomplete.]
[Convert selected materials?]
"Convert."
The cores disappeared into the Unit Archive.
Their energy divided among the five spaces. The damaged armor began repairing itself, and the rifle crystals recovered part of their charge.
[Unit 01 — Integrity: 76%.]
[Unit 02 — Integrity: 84%.]
[Unit 03 — Integrity: 79%.]
[Unit 04 — Integrity: 71%.]
[Unit 05 — Integrity: 72%.]
[Equipment energy restored: 61%.]
Lyra raised her spear.
"Now open the way."
Adrian used Rift Sense to follow Evelyn’s path.
The first wall had no door.
Starbreaker created one.
Five strikes destroyed the metal plates, but the corridor they needed wasn’t behind them. There was only a black gap several yards wide between two fragments of the dungeon.
Adrian marked the other side with Hunter’s Mark.
Meridian War Step carried him to the edge.
He jumped.
For one second, there was no ground beneath him. Only roots moving through bottomless darkness.
His foot reached the marked section.
Lyra crossed behind him with a single step.
"Your distance improved," she said.
"You could sound more surprised."
"Your landing is still inadequate."
Adrian struck the next barrier.
The communication returned while he accumulated Fracture.
"...fifteen coming through the northern tunnel," Evelyn said. "Close formation!"
A young voice answered on the other side.
"My shield won’t survive another impact!"
"Then don’t block them head-on. Redirect their claws."
A shriek filled the channel.
Adrian delivered the fourth strike.
The wall collapsed.
Another fragment of the station waited behind it.
"Evelyn," he said. "Status."
A sword collided with something hard.
"Five students uninjured. One has a broken arm."
"And you?"
"I’m fine."
Lyra listened to the rhythm of her breathing.
"She’s lying."
Adrian had noticed it too. Evelyn’s breaths were too shallow. She probably had an injured rib.
"How long can you keep them alive?"
"Three minutes."
The answer came without hesitation.
She didn’t intend to survive for three minutes.
She intended to keep everyone else alive.
"I can reach you in two."
"I don’t need you to save me. I need you to get the students out."
Adrian destroyed another section.
"That sentence contains a request for help."
"Don’t start."
"I only want to hear you say it properly."
An impact interrupted the transmission.
Evelyn exhaled through clenched teeth.
"I can’t protect all of them alone."
Adrian kept moving.
"Continue."
"Adrian."
"One word."
Another roar.
Evelyn blocked an attack.
"Help me."
Adrian smiled.
"I knew you could ask nicely."
"I’m going to stab you when you get here."
"That sounded more affectionate too."
Evelyn had turned an old waiting area into a defensive position.
The six students remained behind a line of overturned metal seats. Two possessed combat classes. The others were a healer, an archer, a summoner whose only familiar had already vanished, and a young man with a defensive class who could barely maintain his shield.
Evelyn stood in front of them all.
Corpses surrounded her.
Twelve Spinecrawlers.
Three Tunnel Stalkers.
Dozens of Ash Mites cut apart by Flowing Edge.
There was also blood on her side.
Her sword moved more slowly than before, but her wrist remained closed during the third slash.
She had used Adrian’s correction.
"Left tunnel," the archer warned.
A new horde appeared.
More than fifty creatures filled the three entrances. Some belonged to species registered within Hollow Station. Others had white plates, black roots, or limbs that didn’t match any natural anatomy.
[Temporal Mutant.]
[Level: 8.]
[Temporal Mutant.]
[Level: 10.]
[Nullborn Larva.]
[Level: 11.]
Evelyn raised her sword.
The shield-bearing student fell to one knee.
"I can’t hold it."
"Then lower the barrier," she said.
"They’ll reach us."
"Not before they reach me."
The shield disappeared.
The monsters charged.
A wall exploded to their right.
Adrian stepped through the opening between fragments of metal. Lyra appeared behind him.
Evelyn cut a Spinecrawler’s throat before looking at him.
"You took your time."
"It was ninety-four seconds."
"It felt longer."
Adrian looked at the blood on her side.
"You look good."
"Don’t flirt with me while I’m bleeding."
"I was trying to be considerate."
The first row of monsters was less than sixty-five feet away.
Adrian opened the Unit Archive.
"Lyra."
She struck the base of her spear against the floor.
"Deploy the formation."
Five blue circles appeared in front of the students.
The Future Soldiers materialized.
The shield bearer occupied the center.
The lancer positioned herself behind his right shoulder. The swordsman protected his left, while the two riflemen knelt several yards behind them.
The blue strips across their helmets lit up.
[Future Soldier Lv. 12 ×5 deployed.]
The students forgot to watch the horde.
"What are they?" the archer asked.
Adrian took position beside the shield bearer.
"Reinforcements."
Lyra raised two fingers.
The soldiers reacted.
The shield bearer drove the bottom of his shield into the ground. A rectangular barrier extended to both sides, covering the full width of the corridor.
The first monsters crashed into it.
They didn’t break through.
"Fire," Lyra ordered.
Both rifles discharged.
Blue beams passed over the shoulders of the front-line units. Each projectile pierced more than one creature before stopping.
Five monsters fell.
The next volley killed four.
The lancer attacked from behind the shield. Her spear slipped through openings in the barrier, pierced cores, and withdrew before the creatures could reach her.
The swordsman wasn’t defending a position.
He executed anything that managed to get around the shield.
[Formation kill recorded.]
[Unit experience shared.]
[Future Soldier Lv. 12: 34%.]
The horde tried to push forward.
The shield bearer held.
One creature climbed over the corpses and leaped above the barrier.
Adrian applied Hunter’s Mark.
The swordsman turned before it landed.
His blade divided it in two.
The students remained silent.
They had entered Hollow Station to complete an E-Rank expedition. Now they were watching five unknown soldiers destroy a C-Rank horde with the precision of a unit that had fought together for decades.
Evelyn looked at Adrian.
"Your class produces soldiers."
"It registers them."
"Where did you register them?"
"From my territory."
"I’m beginning to hate that answer."
The rifles continued firing.
[Future Soldier Lv. 12 → Lv. 13.]
A current of blue energy traveled across all five sets of armor.
The remaining damage began repairing itself. The plates grew thicker, and the weapon crystals absorbed mana from the environment.
[Level increase restoration applied.]
[Formation integrity increased.]
The monsters retreated for the first time.
Lyra lowered two fingers.
"Advance."
The shield bearer’s barrier contracted.
The five soldiers took one step.
Then another.
They didn’t allow the horde to recover any ground.
The lancer pierced three creatures during the advance. The swordsman severed a Temporal Mutant’s legs, and the shield bearer crushed its skull with the edge of his shield.
[Future Soldiers reached Level 14.]
The units grew faster.
Their movements no longer resembled corpses repeating fragmented memories. Each was beginning to adapt its technique to Lyra’s commands and the positions of the rest of the formation.
A Nullborn Larva attempted to open a rift behind the riflemen.
Rift Sense revealed the route.
"Behind you," Adrian warned.
Both units turned simultaneously.
They fired before the creature finished emerging.
The portal collapsed with half its body still inside.
Evelyn leaned against one of the seats for a moment.
Adrian noticed.
"You have two fractured ribs."
"One."
"Your breathing is protecting your left side, and you aren’t completing the rotation after your fourth slash."
"Can you stop evaluating me?"
"I could, but then you’d get careless."
A creature appeared from the ceiling.
Evelyn impaled it without looking.
"I can still fight."
"I never said otherwise."
The final wave entered through the central tunnel.
Twenty monsters advanced behind a larger Temporal Mutant. The creature had four arms and black plates surrounding its torso.
[Temporal Vanguard.]
[Level: 15.]
[Classification: C-Rank Elite.]
Lyra pointed at the target.
The soldiers changed formation.
The riflemen fired at its legs.
The Vanguard raised two arms to defend itself. The shield bearer charged and struck its torso before it could recover its balance.
The lancer pierced its first joint.
The swordsman destroyed the second.
Adrian marked the core.
[Hunter’s Mark applied.]
Silver light appeared beneath the plates on its chest.
Both rifles aimed at the same point.
They fired.
The core exploded.
[Temporal Vanguard defeated by registered unit formation.]
[Elite target defeated.]
The creature’s energy divided among the five soldiers.
[Future Soldiers reached Level 15.]
Their armor released a pulse.
The remaining monsters stopped.
Lyra raised her spear.
"Finish them."
The soldiers advanced.
The final part of the battle lasted seventeen seconds.
When it ended, more than a hundred creatures covered the tunnels. All five units remained standing amid the bodies.
[Formation battle completed.]
[Registered units have defeated enemies above their original classification.]
[General command synchronization confirmed.]
[Future Soldiers Lv. 12 → Lv. 15.]
[Unit integrity fully restored.]
[Evolution condition satisfied.]
Five new symbols appeared above the units.
[Unit Evolution available.]
[Future Soldiers may evolve according to combat role, equipment, and General influence.]
[Available evolution selections will be generated after combat.]
The shield bearer struck his weapon against the ground.
The other four soldiers formed a line behind him.
Then they knelt before Adrian and Lyra.
No one spoke for several seconds.
One of the students slowly raised her hand.
"Did he Awaken yesterday?"
"Three days ago," Evelyn replied.
"That doesn’t make it better."
Adrian recalled the soldiers into the Unit Archive before anyone could approach their weapons.
The five circles disappeared.
The silence felt larger without them.
Evelyn sat on one of the overturned seats. The healer began examining her ribs, but she kept her eyes on Adrian.
"You had an army, and you chose to fight personally from the moment we entered."
"Five soldiers don’t make an army."
"They just eliminated a horde."
"A small platoon."
"How many other things can your class do?"
Adrian offered her a medical injector.
"I’m still discovering that."
Evelyn accepted the consumable and pressed it against her side.
"Thank you."
"I want to hear that again."
"Don’t take advantage."
"You asked me to save you."
"I asked for your help protecting the students."
"You were with them."
"That doesn’t mean you saved me."
Adrian pointed at the blood staining her suit.
"We can go back and see how much longer you would’ve lasted."
Evelyn held his gaze.
"I couldn’t protect them alone."
The admission cost her more than the injury.
Adrian stopped smiling.
"You didn’t have to."
She looked at the students.
None of them had died.
"What do you want in return?"
"Dinner."
Evelyn looked at him again.
"You spent five cores and revealed part of your class to get a dinner?"
"When you put it that way, it sounds like I negotiated poorly."
"It will only be dinner."
"We can discuss the terms over dessert."
"There won’t be dessert."
"That’s negotiable."
Evelyn shook her head.
"Fine."
Adrian extended one hand.
"The dinner?"
"The dinner."
She accepted his hand and stood.
Lyra watched the exchange.
"She could have promised you any reward, and you chose food."
"The company was the important part."
Evelyn released Adrian’s hand.
"I’m reconsidering."
The floor trembled.
This time, it wasn’t a spatial rearrangement.
Something struck from below.
Once.
The impact lifted the corpses several inches and opened a crack across the entire platform.
The students retreated.
Rift Sense traveled through the floor.
Adrian found a chamber hundreds of yards beneath them. Until that moment, it had remained sealed.
Now it was opening.
Two red eyes appeared within the darkness.
Pressure rose through the cracks.
Evelyn tightened her grip on her sword.
"That isn’t C-Rank."
Lyra stopped watching her and turned toward the floor.
Every trace of levity disappeared from her expression.
[Deep-level entity awakening.]
[Threat Classification: A-Rank.]
[Warning: Temporal Warden active.]