A beam of superheated plasma tore through the dust, scorching the rock inches from Zee’s face.
He threw himself behind a broken boulder as another shot shattered the surrounding stone into jagged shrapnel.
“Found another rat!” a voice barked.
A broad shouldered Creator jumped over the ridge, his eyes gleaming with aggressive excitement. Floating beside him was a Heavy Iron core, locked into an offensive cannon formation.
[ THREAT DETECTED: CANDIDATE BRAN ]
[ RANK: F TIER ]
[ DIRECTIVE: ELIMINATE HOSTILE ]
“Hand over your core points and your mining gear,” Bran sneered, stepping closer as his core gathered energy for another shot. “Or I burn your core to dust right here.”
Zee raised his hands, his breath coming in fast, shallow ragged gasps. “We can split the ore node. There’s plenty for both of us.”
“Split?” Bran laughed harshly. “This isn’t a classroom, kid. If I let you live, you become competition tomorrow.”
The core’s weapon array flared bright blue, locking directly onto Zee’s chest. Bran was going to kill him without a second thought.
A cold shock ran down Zee’s spine.
The trial wasn’t a school. It wasn’t a game with safety nets or reset buttons. If your core was destroyed out here, you died in the cold dark of space, forgotten by the System.
He didn’t want to die.
If I don’t kill him, he kills me.
Zee reached inward, locking his mind onto the murky, pulsing mud locked inside his World Core. He didn’t order it to shoot plasma or project shields. He simply unsealed the restraint on the unknown sludge and pushed his desire to survive straight into the core’s heart.
The black mud inside the floating sphere flared violently.
Before Bran could fire, a thick tendril of heavy black slime shot from Zee’s core like a harpoon.
It slammed straight through Bran’s plasma shield, wrapping around his neck with terrifying speed and crushing his throat.
Bran gasped, his eyes widening in sudden, violent panic. He commanded his core to fire, but the black tendril yanked him off his feet, dragging him violently toward Zee’s core.
The mud opened like a gaping, dark maw.
It swallowed Bran whole.
A sickening crunch echoed through the silent vacuum. Bran’s heavy iron core sputtered, fractured, and collapsed into raw energy, absorbed completely by the dark sludge.
Zee stood frozen on the blood stained rock, his body shaking violently as he stared at the empty space where a human being had stood seconds ago.
He had just taken a life.
Before the horror could fully settle in his mind, his vision flared with a sudden, eerie blood red light.
[ TARGET ELIMINATED ]
[ ANOMALOUS ABSORPTION COMPLETE ]
[ CONSUMED: CANDIDATE CORE METRICS + 500 CREATOR POINTS ]
[ WORLD CORE EVOLUTION PROGRESS: 1% ]