Where the Past Bleeds

Emric wasn't watching. He was moving.

He slid across cracked ground, using the environment as extension of strategy. Three opponents converged—an Arcanist, a Kinetor, and one obscurant. With no time to hesitate.

He tapped his wrist-pad.

[Tactical assist: Smoke pulse / Delay charge]

A puff of dark vapor blanketed the alley.

They rushed out.

He crouched low behind a collapsed drone chassis. One came in too fast. Emric flipped the knife reverse-grip and slashed upward—but the Kinetor deflected it midair using a minor repulsion pulse. The blade missed. Emric rolled, avoiding a retaliatory strike, and swept a leg. The opponent stumbled. Emric scrambled to recover first then slammed the butt of his gun into the Kinetor's mask.

[ENEMY ELIMINATED - 5]

The arcanist having noticed the anomaly fired a scatter burst that scorched through the smoke. Emric barely dodged, the heat blistering his jacket. He dove over debris, landing hard. His arm screamed as three glancing shot past over him. Even with the narrow escape he still suffered minor burns.

The third initiate came charging. The obscurant didn't seem to have any abilities that would help him in combat but he was armed.

Emric pushed against the ground with his back and acrobatically used his two legs to swing himself upright, and conscious of the assailant swinging a reinforced baton towards him.

With no time and options he used his wrist-pad for cushion and blocked it with his forearm, he immediately ducked and caught the attacker's hip with a sideways strike from his combat knife then shoved him face-first into the wall.

One shot.

[ENEMY ELIMINATED - 6]

The Arcanist was repositioning—he saw the flare of energy forming again.

Emric ran.

He ducked through a broken scaffold, turned mid-step, and launched a detonation puck.

The blast threw the Arcanist sideways into a wall. He groaned and tried to rise but he was too slow.

One clean shot.

[ENEMY ELIMINATED - 7]

His legs ached now. The augmented boots weren't calibrated for extended engagements.

The wrist-pad also having suffered damage chimed

[Warning]

[Kinetic dampeners at 12%. Recalibration advised]

He ignored it.

High above, in the Academy's tiered viewing deck, elite cadets and staff watched the projections.

One wall showed sector 1189 in full, the same sector Emric was.

"He's up to seven," someone muttered.

Instructor Vorn, a two-star Arcanist tactician, leaned forward. "Still no sync flare. How's he reading zero?"

Professor Halveth smirked. "Because his sync node hasn't activated. Yet. But look at the decisions—trajectory prediction, angle recall, tactical inversion under fire. That's Cognivore behavior."

Beside him, Senior Strategos Eryl Datch—an Apex-ranked Cognivore and Academy Warden—watched in silence.

"Pull the full log from his wrist--pad," he said.

"Yes, Strategos."

Emric ducked into a breached corridor.

A dozen pulses rang through the space.

A Vanguard charged ahead, laughing. He carried a shock-hammer the size of a bench press bar. Emric's eyes flicked left. Power relay.

One well-placed shot.

Boom!

The corridor collapsed on top of the Vanguard.

[ENEMY ELIMINATED - 8]

He was able to take him out but not cleanly, he felt the shockwave.

With cascading rubbles coming his way, his left knee buckled, pain spiked.

He limped toward cover, favoring the leg.

[Warning: Motor output below efficiency threshold]

He winced. "Yeah, I noticed."

He wasn't just surviving. He was adapting, bleeding, thinking, improvising.

Sixty-five had become thirty-nine.

They were still too many.

He crouched, calculating.

His environment was a weapon.

And the Gauntlet was his battlefield.

Emric rolled into cover just as a pair of plasma bolts tore through the air behind him. Sparks exploded from the collapsed vendor stall he slid behind, and his back hit hard alloy with a grunt. His breathing was sharp now—fast but focused. The simulated cityscape had grown denser, tighter, each block a blend of ruined architecture and cover traps. He pulled his wrist-pad up with shaking fingers.

[Remaining Combatants: 39]

The number wasn't dropping fast enough.

Across the plaza, a team of four initiates had formed a rough triangle. Two Kinetors, one Vanguard, and—he squinted—a Cognivore by the way she was issuing precise flanking orders. Dangerous mix. Their formation was too tight to approach head-on.

Emric ducked low, crawling under a torn metal awning. His fingers grazed a discarded supply pack—he popped it open.

One microflare, two shrapnel caps, and a collapsed smart-trip wire.

He smiled thinly. "Good enough."

He set the tripwire between a support beam and a cracked scaffold walkway, then lobbed the microflare across the square.

The Cognivore's voice snapped out: "Redirect south! Possible target shift!"

They moved fast—but not fast enough. The first Kinetor rushed through the alley, and the tripwire activated.

Snap—pulse—boom!

He didn't fall. But his shield flickered. Weak spot.

Emric emerged with guns blazing. The plasma repeater barked twice, then once more.

[ENEMY ELIMINATED - 9]

The Vanguard roared, charged—Emric rolled to the side, let him crash into a post, then activated the shrapnel puck.

It burst just as the brute turned. Not a kill—but enough to blind. Emric sprinted, slammed his knife into the soft seam between shoulder armor and collar. The Vanguard howled. One more shot into the visor.

[ENEMY ELIMINATED - 10]

The Cognivore reacted instantly. She anticipated his movement, fired a corner shot—and caught him across the ribs. His jacket seared. Flesh blistered.

He fell behind a broken drone frame and groaned.

[Warning]

the wrist-pad whispered.

[Right side dermal impact. Internal bruising. Response slowed]

Another plasma bolt cracked past.

"Come on, come on..."

He spotted a ventilation shaft and fired a pulse into it. A delayed burst. The Cognivore adjusted position—exactly where he'd predicted.

The shaft ruptured.

She stumbled.

He didn't hesitate. He ran, vaulted a barrier, caught her at the knees and slammed her head into the side of a beam.

[ENEMY ELIMINATED - 11]

His breath hitched. The skin along his ribs felt like it was on fire.

In the observation deck, Professor Halveth adjusted the zoom on Sector 1189.

"He's adapting faster than his scenario allows. His predictions are clean. He baited a Cognivore into a misstep."

Instructor Vorn frowned. "Still not awakened?"

Strategos Eryl Datch watched in silence. His hand hovered near the console, hovering over a secure query code.

"Not yet," he said. "But look at his neural tracking."

The data streamed: Emric's reaction times, visual recalibration, stress variance.

Eryl's eyes narrowed. "Tag him for deeper post-scenario analysis."

"Yes, Strategos."

Down in the simulation, a shadow loomed behind Emric.

A Kinetor. High resonance.

Metal floated around her—a dozen broken weapon pieces rotating like orbiting moons. She grinned. "You're the wildcard."

He raised his repeater. She snapped a hand forward. His gun ripped from his grip.

He dove sideways. A metal rod whipped past his face.

A close call.

She advanced, her steps measured. Her debris storm flared—bits of shrapnel and plating aligning into a wall.

Emric tapped his wristpad mid-roll.

[Deploy: Terrain disruptor / Anti-lev pulse]

The panel at her feet detonated. Her field flared—but faltered.

He closed the distance, slipped inside her range, grabbed her shoulder—and shoved a discharge knife into her side.

The shock sent her rigid. Her field collapsed.

One more blow to the head.

[ENEMY ELIMINATED - 12]

He coughed, spat blood. He didn't feel pain anymore. Just calculation.

Above, in the crowd of watching initiates and instructors, Cadet Virell Suna crossed her arms, sweat drying on her brow.

"Who the hell is that?" she asked, watching Sector 1189.

Beside her, another senior cadet leaned in.

"No clue," they murmured. "But he's chewing through mid-tier opponents like they forgot how to dodge."

Onscreen, Emric dragged himself into cover again, checking ammo.

Eight rounds.

One knife.

One broken leg.

Twenty-two opponents remained.

His odds were falling fast but so was the time.

And for the first time, his confidence cracked—just slightly.

This wouldn't be enough.

He needed more.