The air in the fort's ruined hall crackled with pre-combat tension. The fire cast dancing shadows on the chipped stone walls and on the two combatants facing each other. On one side, Nox, the deserter, the ghost in the machine, wielded his longsword with the familiarity of one born with steel in hand; his Value 67 was a silent promise of raw power and military experience forged in countless battles for the System he now despised. On the other, Lysa, the Renegade, the Zero Anomaly, held Veyla's black dagger, her body still recovering from recent trials, but her eyes burning with the crimson light of her hacked code and the cold determination of one with nothing left to lose.

  Kael, Andrel, and Selene watched from the entrance, tense, Rukk motionless like a stone gargoyle behind them. They knew intervening would break the implicit pact of this challenge. It was Lysa's test, and hers alone.

  "Ready to break, Anomaly?" Nox asked, assuming a classic System heavy infantry combat stance: feet firm, sword angled, ready to defend and counter-attack with devastating force.

  Lysa didn't answer with words. She just moved.

  And the duel began.

  Nox was strength and discipline. Each step, each parry, each advance was executed with the brutal efficiency of a veteran soldier. His longsword described powerful arcs, cutting the air with a heavy hiss, aiming not just to wound, but to dominate, break the opponent's stance, force errors through relentless pressure. He was a steamroller of steel and trained muscle.

  Lysa, in contrast, was fluidity and unpredictability. She didn't try to parry Nox's blows head-on – that would be suicide. She used her agility [Enhanced Strength I, Rapid Adaptation I] to slide, dodge, retreat, and advance from the most unexpected angles. Veyla's dagger was an extension of her will, seeking not flesh directly, but gaps, the joints of Nox's improvised armor, tendons exposed for a millisecond during a wider swing.

  She activated [Stealth I], trying to disappear into the hall's shadows, moving along the edges of Nox's vision, but he seemed to sense her presence even without seeing her clearly. Perhaps it was years of survival instinct, or perhaps his condition of being "ignored" by the System gave him a different perception of reality, less dependent on code signatures.

  "Hiding won't help!" Nox roared, swinging the sword in a horizontal arc that forced Lysa to leap back, nearly hitting a broken pillar. "I've fought invisible beasts in the frozen wastes. I feel the air you displace!"

  Lysa realized her abilities based on direct manipulation of the System or Value signatures would have little effect on him. [Minor Reality Tear] might affect the environment around him, but not his internal code, which seemed isolated, a blind node in the network. It would have to be tactics. Pure and simple.

  She studied him as she fought. Nox was powerful, but his movements, though efficient, followed military logic. There was a rhythm, a cadence to his attacks and defenses. He relied on the strength and technique that had always worked. Lysa, on the other hand, was made of patches, stolen skills, forced adaptations. She didn't have one style; she was several fragmented styles.

  At one point, Nox advanced with a direct thrust, the sword tip coming like lightning towards Lysa's chest. Instead of dodging sideways, she used [Rapid Adaptation] to propel her body downward, sliding under the blow, almost grazing the stone floor. As she passed him, she drove the dagger's point into the back of Nox's knee, not deep enough to cripple, but enough to cause pain and imbalance.

  Nox grunted, his knee buckling for an instant. He spun, the sword sweeping the space where Lysa had been, but she had already rolled away, using the momentum to get up near the opposite wall.

  "Shadow tricks!" he bellowed, irritation beginning to crack his discipline.

  "Survival," Lysa corrected, panting.

  She began using the environment to her advantage. Ran through the rubble, forcing Nox to navigate the uneven terrain. Used [Minor Reality Tear] not on him, but on the ground before him, creating small ripples or momentary fissures that almost made him stumble. It wasn't direct damage, but it broke his rhythm, forced hesitation.

  The fight dragged on. Neither gave ground easily. Nox managed to land glancing blows on Lysa, who felt the raw force behind them, each impact threatening to break bones. But Lysa also managed to find openings, small cuts that made the giant bleed, reminding him that even a Value 67 could be wounded by a persistent Zero.

  It was then Lysa saw the opportunity. A section of the ceiling, weakened by time and perhaps previous battles, hung precariously over the area where Nox often retreated to readjust his stance.

  She needed to lure him there. And she needed a distraction.

  She began pressing Nox with a series of rapid, erratic attacks, using the dagger and her own fists, forcing him back towards the desired zone. Nox, confident in his superior defense, retreated methodically, parrying the blows with apparent ease, but without noticing the subtle pattern in Lysa's withdrawal.

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  When he was almost under the unstable ceiling, Lysa suddenly stopped her attack. And screamed. A scream not of pain, but of command — a Root Echo, directed not at Nox, but at the fort's very structure.

  [Root Echo: Structural Resonance]

  It was a raw, instinctive use of the ability the old man in Telran had given her. She didn't control it, just... called. And the ancient stone, perhaps containing forgotten code fragments, responded.

  The ceiling above Nox trembled violently. Stones and dust began to fall.

  Nox looked up, surprised for the first time in the duel. Instinctively, he raised his sword to protect himself from the falling debris.

  In that exact instant of distraction, Lysa advanced.

  Not against his body. But against the sword.

  With a swift, precise movement, using the base of Veyla's dagger, she struck Nox's wrist with calculated force. The heavy longsword slipped from his fingers, clattering to the floor.

  Before Nox could react to losing his weapon and the falling ceiling, Lysa was on him. She didn't stab him. Instead, she used her momentum to tackle him, falling with him, pressing her forearm against his throat and the tip of Veyla's dagger hovering inches from his gray eye.

  Dust and smaller stones fell around them. Nox struggled for a second under Lysa's surprising weight, but met her gaze – cold, determined, lethal. He stopped fighting.

  In that forced contact, in the proximity of near-death, Lysa felt something happen. A spark. The [Essence Theft] ability activated minimally, almost by reflex, pulling not Value, not a complete skill, but a... fragment. A sensation.

  [Combat Style: Soldier Fundamentals I (Partially Absorbed)]

  [New Passive Trait: Residual Systemic Resistance I (Latent)]

  She felt an echo of Nox's discipline, the way he moved his body, the way he passively resisted the System's readings. It wasn't control, but an intuitive understanding.

  Lysa slowly moved the dagger away, but kept the pressure on his throat. "Yield," she said, her voice low, breathless.

  Nox lay still for a long moment, dust settling around them. His gray eyes studied Lysa's face. Then, he gave a single, short nod.

  Lysa got up, helping him do the same. He retrieved his sword, sheathing it with a resigned sigh.

  "You don't fight like a Zero," he said, rubbing his sore wrist. "You fight like someone who chewed stone and spat out blades. Dirty tactics. But effective."

  He looked at Kael, Andrel, and Selene, who were now cautiously approaching.

  "Right. You've convinced me. Dying alone is boring. Dying with a bunch of anomalies who piss off the System seems... marginally more interesting." He held out his hand to Lysa, not as a friend, but as a soldier acknowledging a reluctant commander. "Nox. At your service. For now."

  Lysa shook his hand, feeling the calluses from years of war. "Welcome to the group, Nox. We need all the strength we can find."

  "Speaking of strength..." Nox began, his tone suddenly more serious. "There's something else you need to know, Lysa."

  "What?"

  "While I was hiding here, I picked up fragmented transmissions. The System's on high alert because of you, obviously. But they're not the only ones looking for you."

  Lysa frowned. "The Glass Circle?"

  "Them too. But there's another. Someone who knows you. Or thinks they do. An old acquaintance of mine has been asking about the 'Zero Anomaly who defies logic.' A philosopher who lost his soul in exchange for arguments."

  A chill ran through Lysa. She knew who he meant even before the name was spoken.

  "Sario Ulven," Nox said.

  Lysa felt her blood run cold, then boil. Sario. The psychological torturer. The man who had dissected her searching for "fissures" in existence. Why would he be looking for her?

  "How... how do you know Sario?" she asked, her voice tense.

  Nox looked away for an instant, a shadow of something that might be old pain crossing his scarred face. "We... grew up together. Same forgotten wing of a low-Value orphanage, long before I dreamed of being a soldier, or he of being... whatever he is now. We were friends. Each other's only friends, for a long time. Saw the worst of the System together."

  "Friends?" Kael sounded surprised. "That Sario Ulven?"

  "He wasn't always like this," Nox continued, his voice low. "He was brilliant. Questioning. Wanted to understand why the System worked the way it did. But the search for answers led him to dark places. He started seeing pain not as something to avoid, but as data. A variable. Started detaching himself... from humanity. Last time I saw him, years ago, he told me the only truth was in cold observation, and feelings were just noise in the equation. He became one of the monsters we swore to fight when we were kids."

  Silence fell over the group. The revelation added an unexpected and tragic layer to one of the names on Lysa's list.

  "Why would he look for me?" Lysa asked again.

  "Maybe to finish his 'experiment'," Nox supposed, darkly. "Or maybe... he sees in you the final flaw that proves his theory about the inevitable collapse of any order. With Sario, you never know. But he's dangerous. Not for his strength, but for his mind. He can dismantle you from the inside without touching a hair on your head."

  "More reason to find power. And answers," said Andrel, who had approached, looking more stable. "Where do we go now, Lysa? The North is done. The Echoes are still a mystery. The Living Map..."

  "Maybe I can help with that," Nox intervened. He turned and pointed south, the opposite direction from where they came. "There are legends among deserters, stories whispered around campfires about places the System doesn't fully reach. Geographic and code flaws. One speaks of the Blind Desert. A vast expanse of sand and glass where the laws of physics and magic sometimes fail, where mirages show the past and future mingling."

  "And what's there?" Selene asked, Rukk hovering protectively beside her.

  "They say a figure lives there... ancient. Older than many of the System's current protocols. They call him the 'Whispering Renegade.' A hermit, an oracle, maybe just a crazy old man. But the stories say he hears what the Code doesn't say. That he knows the unwritten paths. That he survived previous purifications. If anyone knows about the Living Map, or the Echoes... maybe it's him."

  Lysa looked at her companions. Kael nodded. Andrel looked intrigued. Selene exchanged a look with Rukk, as if consulting the silent titan, then nodded in agreement.

  "Blind Desert," Lysa repeated the name. It sounded like another kind of prison, but also like a promise. "Then that's where we're going. To find this Whisperer."

  Nox gave a cynical half-smile. "Great. Trading snow for sand. At least death will be warmer. Lead the way, Anomaly. Just don't expect me to sing campfire songs."

  The gathered group, now five broken humans and a stone beast, turned their backs on the fort's frozen ruins. They had a new member, a new looming threat (Sario Ulven), and a new uncertain destination. The Purification continued outside. The Executor approached. But they still walked.