Chapter 146: Champion Vault

Six hundred and fourteen cages opened, and six hundred and fourteen champions tried to kill Jace at once.

The vault became a sunrise made of weapons. Spears ignited. Axes dragged miniature storms behind them. A woman in silver armor drew a bow, and the arrow on its string grew until its point scraped the ceiling. Every collar flashed red at the same instant.

[CHAMPION VAULT: OPEN]

[PAIN COLLARS: ACTIVE]

[COMMAND: KILL JACE]

[LANDING ON THE SAFE ZONE: 3 MINUTES, 59 SECONDS]

[HEALTH: 266/420. CHARGE: 72/140]

Jace's six combat skills remained sealed. His precision control was still damaged, his Trial Knuckle was empty, and the only new weapon on his body was a chain that believed gravity could be grabbed.

The champions attacked.

Alexander planted himself on Jace's right and drove his sword into the floor. Scarlett struck the same point from the left. Falling Verdict and Ember Rend collided, rose, and became a red wall large enough to split the vault. The first hundred attacks hit it together.

The impact turned the folded sky white.

The wall bowed. Alexander dropped to one knee. Scarlett stayed standing because she was too angry to fall.

"They are fighting the collars," she shouted. "Their bodies are losing."

"Then nobody kills them," Jace said.

"That would have been easier before all six hundred attacked."

"Then improve."

Alexander laughed and stood.

Jace fired the Gravity Chain toward the nearest cage. His ruined precision pulled the hook six feet wide. It caught a spear instead, and the champion holding it used the connection to launch herself at him. Her shoulder struck his chest. Her spearhead tore through his left shoulder and carried him across the floor.

[HEALTH: 266 -> 252]

The champion landed above him, weeping while both hands forced the spear downward.

Jace recognized Penelope Ardent behind the red glare in her eyes.

"Cut it," she forced through clenched teeth. "Do not cut me."

Jace caught the collar with his burning palm.

[ROOK BLADE SEAL: ACTIVATED]

The silver ring opened. Penelope collapsed, and Jace ripped the collar away before the network could close it again.

One collar was free. Six hundred and thirteen remained.

The second wave crossed the vault. Fire beasts ran beside rotating blades. A tidal wall climbed the ceiling while a giant made of violet lightning punched through Alexander's barrier. The twenty-three champions freed on the lower deck formed Ninefold Wall around Jace, and every layer shattered in less than a second.

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Gold symbols closed around Jace's ribs.

He knew that technique.

[STOLEN COMBAT ECHO: CALEB MARR]

[ADAPTIVE CONTAINMENT]

The lattice tightened. One rib broke.

[HEALTH: 252 -> 243]

Caleb was dead. The ship had harvested his technique anyway.

Jace looked at the collar in his hand and understood what the vault had collected. It did not keep champions because it wanted prisoners. It kept them because every desperate attack became another move for the ship to steal.

"Cover me for ten seconds," he said.

Scarlett looked at the army gathering for its third assault. "You are getting five."

"I will take five."

Jace locked Penelope's collar around his own neck.

The vault accepted him as prisoner number six hundred and fifteen.

[COLLAR NETWORK: NEW HOST DETECTED]

[PRIMARY PAIN TARGET: JACE]

Every champion stopped screaming.

Jace started.

Six hundred and fourteen lives struck him from the inside. He felt every punishment the collars had delivered, every forced battle, and every command that had made a hand move while its owner begged it to stop. His broken rib shifted. Blood filled his mouth.

[HEALTH: 243 -> 235]

[CORRUPTION: 88% -> 89%]

[CAUSE: COLLAR NETWORK RETAINED]

The command frequency appeared inside the pain, but his degraded precision split it into a thousand overlapping lines. He could not mark one thread. He could not cut six hundred and fourteen collars individually.

He could hit everything.

[MASS COMMAND PATTERN DETECTED]

[NEW PROTOTYPE GENERATED: OVERWRITE PULSE]

[COST: 5 CHARGE]

Jace wrapped the Gravity Chain around his fist and drove it into the floor. The relic anchored him to the center of the folded world. He opened Mutual Shelter in one direction, gave the pain nowhere else to go, and forced his own command into every collar.

"Remember your name."

[OVERWRITE PULSE: ACTIVATED]

[CHARGE: 72 -> 67]

The pulse left him as a black ring edged in blue fire. It crossed the vault faster than sound, passed through all six hundred and fourteen champions, and climbed the ocean of cages behind them. For one impossible second, every fighter stood inside a pillar of their own power.

Then every collar exploded.

The blast split the vault from end to end. A silver cloud rolled across the folded sky. Six hundred and fourteen weapons struck the floor as their owners took their first uncommanded breath in years.

Penelope caught her spear before it landed. She spoke her name like a challenge. The answer spread through the vault as six hundred and twelve voices followed. Six hundred and thirteen champions reclaimed names the ship had reduced to inventory numbers. One remained silent. Their combined shout struck the ceiling hard enough to shake dust from the folded stars.

[CHAMPIONS FREED: 614]

[PRECISION CONTROL: RESTORED]

[OVERWRITE PULSE PROTOTYPE: UNLOCKED]

One champion remained on his knees.

Black-gold containment lines crawled across his skin. A broken House Sunchain insignia hung from his throat, and the face above it belonged to a man Jace had watched die.

Caleb Marr lifted his head.

[DECEASED CHAMPION IDENTIFIED: CALEB MARR]

[DEATH RECORD: CONFIRMED]

[CHAMPION FORGE RECONSTRUCTION: COMPLETE]

[BODY CONTINUITY: RESTORED]

[IDENTITY CONTINUITY: UNVERIFIED]

"You died," Jace said.

Caleb looked at his own hands as gold containment lines closed around his fingers.

"Apparently," he said, "the ship considered that correctable."

An ambulance crashed through the vault wall on the end of one of Mateo's crane cables. Its doors opened before it stopped sliding, and Emma Chen jumped out with a medical pack in one hand.

"I was told somebody had broken a rib," she said.

"Only one is broken."

"You sound disappointed."

Emma forced the rib into place, braced Jace's shoulder without restoring any Health, and moved toward the nearest freed champion.

Penelope stared past them. "The collars are moving."

Silver fragments rose from the floor and poured into the hole beneath the vault. They fused into an arm thicker than a building, followed by a smooth head without eyes or a mouth. The thing kept rising until its shoulders tore through the ceiling.

[ARENA ENGINE: COLLAR HARVEST COMPLETE]

[FACELESS CHAMPION: ASSEMBLED]

[COMBAT LIBRARY: 614 CHAMPIONS]

The Faceless Champion turned toward Jace. It wrapped an imitation chain around its fist and copied the motion he had used to free everyone.

[OVERWRITE PULSE: COPIED]

[LANDING ON THE SAFE ZONE: 3 MINUTES, 21 SECONDS]

Health: 235/420.

Charge: 67/140.