?The air inside the newly fortified Cradle felt artificial and crisp. It lacked the humid, predatory weight of the forest outside. Willis stood by the Mana-Well, watching the liquid light swirl in slow, hypnotic patterns.

  ?His mana pool had finally stabilized, the cool energy knitting together the frayed edges of his mental fatigue. He felt a sharp tug on one of the perimeter threads he had woven into the hospital’s structural skeleton.

  ?

  ?He signaled to Silas, who was currently practicing his shield-work near the pressurized airlock. The golden light of the Bastion’s aura had become more opaque, reflecting a solidness that matched his growing confidence.

  ?"We have company coming up from the third floor," Willis said. He didn't raise his axe yet, but his fingers hovered near the hilt.

  ?"More survivors?" Silas asked, his face brightening with a hope that Willis found dangerously premature. "If they made it this far, they must be tough."

  ?"Toughness isn't the only thing that survives the sifting," Willis cautioned. "Fear can make a person more dangerous than a Crag-Maw if they think you have something they need."

  ?The heavy hiss of the airlock announced an override attempt. Willis didn't wait for the door to open. He used his administrative rights as the Anchor-Holder to cycle the pressure and slide the plates back.

  ?A group of six people stumbled into the ward. They were led by a man in a tattered police uniform, his duty belt empty except for a heavy Maglite and a serrated combat knife.

  ?His eyes were bloodshot, and his skin was covered in the fine, grey dust of dissolved mutants. Behind him, a younger man clutched a heavy bag of looted pharmacy supplies as if it were a shield.

  ?"Don't move!" the officer shouted, raising the heavy flashlight as if it were a sidearm. His hand was shaking so violently that the beam of light danced across the matte-black walls.

  ?"Easy, Officer," Willis said, his voice echoing with a calm authority that seemed to irritate the newcomer. "You are in a restricted safe-zone."

  ?"Restricted by who?" the man demanded, his gaze falling on the glowing sapphire Anchor. "This is a public building. We've been fighting through hell for ten hours to find a place that isn't made of teeth."

  ?Silas stepped forward, his shield shimmering into a half-dome. "The boy saved our lives. He runs this floor. You want to stay, you follow his rules."

  ?The officer looked at Silas, then back at Willis. He seemed to realize that his flashlight was a poor match for the glowing energy fields and the reinforced alloy walls.

  ?"I'm Sergeant Miller," the man said, lowering his light but keeping his hand near the knife. "We have people downstairs who won't last the hour without a real roof over their heads."

  ?"How many?" Willis asked. He was already calculating the mana-drain. Each new person added to the population would put a strain on the Anchor's output until the base leveled up again.

  ?"Twenty. Maybe thirty," Miller replied. "They're holed up in the laundry facilities. The vines haven't found the scent of the detergent yet, but it's only a matter of time."

  ?Willis looked at the status screen hovering in his peripheral vision. The population capacity for a Level 2 Cradle was twenty. He was already at six.

  ?[Cradle Population: 6/20]

  [Warning: Incoming Load exceeds current capacity]

  ?"I can take fourteen more," Willis said. "The others will have to stay in the stairwell landing until we harvest more System Steel to expand the perimeter."

  ?"You're joking," a woman from Miller's group snapped. She pushed past the sergeant, her eyes burning with an entitled rage. "You have all this space and you're talking about quotas?"

  ?"I am talking about the logic of the Anchor," Willis said, his blue eyes turning cold. "If I overload the crystal, the dome fails and we all die in our sleep."

  ?The woman looked like she wanted to argue further, but Miller put a hand on her shoulder. He looked around at the sterile, high-tech ward and the calm faces of Willis’s group.

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  ?"Fourteen is better than zero," Miller muttered. "Willis, right? If you can get us down there and back, I'll make sure they listen to you."

  ?

  ?Willis turned to Silas and Leo. "We're going down to the laundry. Leo, stay with Dr. Aris and keep the airlock sealed. Don't open it for anyone but us."

  ?They moved back into the elevator, the atmosphere inside the small metal box thick with tension. Miller watched Willis with a suspicious curiosity, his eyes lingering on the fire axe.

  ?"You speak like you've done this before," Miller said. "The way you move, the way you look at those screens in the air. Who are you really?"

  ?"I'm a survivor who doesn't like to repeat mistakes," Willis replied. He didn't offer any more information, focusing instead on the threads of the floors below.

  ?The elevator stopped at the basement level. As the doors opened, the smell of bleach and stagnant water hit them like a physical blow.

  ?The laundry room was a vast, low-ceilinged space filled with industrial washing machines that looked like sleeping metal beasts. The lighting was a dim, flickering yellow.

  ?Dozens of people were huddled on top of the machines, their faces etched with a weary desperation. When they saw the elevator open, a collective gasp of hope rippled through the room.

  ?"Miller! You found a way out?" a man called out, standing up on a dryer.

  ?"We found a safe-zone on the fourth floor," Miller announced. "But there's a catch. We can only take fourteen right now."

  ?The hope in the room turned into a sharp, jagged panic in an instant. People began to shout, pushing toward the elevator with a frantic energy that Willis knew would draw attention.

  ?"Everyone quiet!" Willis projected his voice using a small burst of mana. The sound hit the walls like a physical shock, silencing the crowd.

  ?"The more you scream, the faster the Scuttlers find you," Willis warned. "We are taking the children and the injured first. No exceptions."

  ?He began to point out individuals, his showing him who was closest to death and who was most likely to survive the trip. He saw the threads of fear turning into threads of resentment in the others.

  ?Suddenly, a low, wet thud echoed from the ventilation ducts above the washers. Willis froze, his senses screaming a warning that was far more urgent than a population quota.

  ?

  ?"Get back!" Willis shouted, pushing Miller toward the elevator.

  ?The ceiling of the laundry room didn't just break; it dissolved. A thick, black ichor poured from the vents, followed by a creature that looked like a mass of human limbs stitched together with silver wire.

  ?It was a Flesh-Weaver, a grotesque parody of Willis’s own class. It didn't use threads to build; it used them to bind.

  ?The creature landed on an industrial washer, the metal buckling under its weight. It raised a cluster of pale, twitching arms, each one holding a jagged shard of glass or metal.

  ?"Move the chosen group into the elevator now!" Willis commanded, stepping forward and igniting the resonance on his axe.

  ?The Flesh-Weaver let out a sound like a dozen voices screaming in unison. It lunged at the crowd, its silver wires whipping through the air like lashes.

  ?Willis intercepted the first wire with his axe. The contact sent a jolt of foul, corrupt mana through his arms, making his vision flicker with static.

  ?[Warning: Corrupted Resonance Detected]

  [Mana: 140/250]

  ?"Silas, hold the elevator doors!" Willis yelled.

  ?He engaged the creature, his movements a blur of desperate strikes. The Flesh-Weaver was fast, its many limbs allowing it to strike and defend from every angle at once.

  ?Willis saw the red thread of the creature's heart. It was buried deep within the mass of limbs, protected by a cage of silver wires that pulsed with a dark light.

  ?He triggered , but the creature caught the blade between two of its armored arms. The metal groaned, and Willis felt his feet lift off the floor.

  ?"You... are... late," the creature hissed. The voices were distorted, but Willis recognized the cold, clinical tone of the System’s higher-level hunters.

  ?The Flesh-Weaver threw Willis across the room. He slammed into a row of metal lockers, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs and leaving him dazed.

  ?Through the haze of pain, he saw the creature turn its attention toward the elevator. Silas was struggling to keep the crowd back while maintaining his shield against the silver wires.

  ?"Willis! Get up!" Silas roared, his golden dome flickering under the pressure of the creature's assault.

  ?Willis reached out his hand, trying to find a thread to grab, but the air around the Flesh-Weaver was a chaotic mess of static and noise.

  ?He looked toward the elevator and saw Marcus Thorne standing in the shadows of the laundry room's exit. Marcus wasn't attacking; he was simply watching.

  ?The silver-eyed man caught Willis’s gaze and offered a small, mocking incline of his head. He raised a hand and pointed at the elevator cables.

  ?

  ?A thin line of obsidian light shot from Marcus’s finger. It didn't hit Willis or the creature. It struck the primary cable of the elevator.

  ?The steel snapped with a sound like a thunderclap. The elevator carriage, filled with the fourteen survivors and Silas, jerked violently as the emergency brakes tried to bite into the rails.

  ?"The weight is too much, Willis," Marcus’s voice echoed in his mind, smooth and cold. "Choose who to save before the floor gives way."

  ?The Flesh-Weaver lunged at Willis again, its silver wires glowing with a lethal intensity. Behind it, the elevator groaned as the brakes began to slip, the metal screeching in the darkness of the shaft.

  ?Willis gripped his axe, his blue eyes wide with the realization of the trap. He had to kill the Weaver, stop the elevator from falling, and deal with Marcus Thorne all at once.

  ?And his mana was dropping faster than he could replenish it.