The silence after the debt trial was suffocating.
The survivors sat slumped against stone, drained, their faces hollow. Too many had broken under the weight of voices they couldn't silence. Their numbers had thinned again, and those who remained wore eyes that had seen too much.
Ravi leaned on his pipe, chest heaving. His hands trembled despite himself. The debt storm had cut deeper than claws or teeth ever could. Wounds in the mind didn't bleed, but they lingered longer.
Arjun stood apart, as always. Unmarked. Untouched. As if the storm had passed around him instead of through him.
Ravi's jaw tightened. One day, bowman. One day you'll break like the rest of us.
But before the thought could settle, the system voice rang out:
[New Phase Activated.]The God Who Tilts the Board.]Objective: Survive divine interference.]
The cavern shifted.
Stone ground against stone as the walls split open, tearing into jagged lines of light. The survivors shielded their eyes, stumbling back. The ground trembled, forcing cracks through the rock.
And then—pieces moved.
The cavern floor fractured into vast slabs that groaned and tilted, rising or sinking as though pulled by unseen hands. The survivors screamed, sliding as the ground tipped beneath their feet. Some clung to jagged edges, others fell into yawning gaps that opened below.
The entire chamber had become a board. A game.
Ravi slammed his pipe into a crack, holding on with teeth clenched. "What the hell now?!"
Arjun was already climbing, moving with sharp, precise steps as the floor shifted under him. His voice carried back, calm even here: "We're pieces."
"Pieces of what?!" Ravi spat, hauling himself up.
The answer came not from Arjun but from the sky above.
Light spilled through the cracks in the cavern's ceiling, coalescing into a figure. Vast, half-formed, more suggestion than flesh like a statue made of flame and shadow. It loomed high above, faceless, but its presence pressed down like a hand on the chest.
A god.
Its voice boomed, not in words but in the grinding of stone, the crash of waves, the hiss of wind:
"PLAY."
The slabs beneath their feet shifted again, tilting sharply. Survivors slid screaming into the void. Some caught edges, dangling by their fingertips. Others were gone in an instant, swallowed by the dark.
Ravi gritted his teeth, hauling himself onto a higher slab as it tilted toward him. He nearly lost his footing, but drove the pipe down for balance. "You want a game?" he roared into the air. "I'll play!"
The god's laughter rumbled like thunder.
Above, glowing pieces appeared giant tokens of stone shaped like beasts and soldiers. They moved across the slabs with deafening crashes, guided by unseen hands. Each step shattered stone, each swing crushed survivors like insects.
Ravi's stomach lurched. "We're not just pieces we're on the board."
Arjun loosed an arrow at one of the tokens. The shaft splintered uselessly against stone. His voice was steady but grim. "We can't fight them. We can only move."
The survivors scrambled as slabs shifted beneath them, tilting this way and that. Some leapt across gaps, barely catching handholds. Others misjudged and fell, their screams cut short.
The god above shifted its vast hands, tilting the board again. The slabs groaned, sliding, slamming into each other. The survivors were scattered like dice.
Ravi's breath burned in his lungs as he leapt from one slab to the next, pipe clutched tight. The stone tilted under him, sending him sprawling, but he rolled, scrambled, rose again.
The system text flickered:
[Survival Condition: Reach the far edge of the board.][Time Remaining: 05:00]
Far edge. Ravi's eyes darted, searching. At the opposite end of the vast chamber, he saw it—a glowing archway, faint but real, standing between two towering slabs. Their only way out.
"Edge of the board!" he shouted, pointing. "That's our exit!"
The survivors surged toward it, but the god's hand swept down. Slabs slammed together, crushing those caught between them. The air filled with the sound of shattering stone and snapping bone.
Ravi's chest heaved. Rage burned hot in his veins. "Bastard's not even playing fair."
Arjun landed lightly beside him, bow raised. "Gods don't play fair."
The slabs shifted again, rising in a jagged path toward the archway. Ravi didn't hesitate. He ran. His legs screamed, his lungs tore, but he ran. The pipe clanged against stone as he used it to vault gaps, to anchor himself on tilting ground.
Behind him, survivors fell one by one. Ahead, the arch grew closer, glowing brighter.
The god's hand descended again, sweeping slabs away, sending some crashing into the abyss. The path trembled, broke, tilted.
Ravi leapt, barely catching the edge of the last slab before the arch. His fingers slipped on stone slick with blood, but he roared, dragging himself up.
Arjun was already there, standing steady, offering no hand but not moving ahead either. Waiting.
Ravi staggered to his feet. Together, they stepped through the arch as the slabs behind them crumbled into darkness.
The cavern vanished.
System text flickered across their vision:
[Condition Completed: Survived Divine Interference.]Reward: +1,200 Coins.]
The survivors who remained collapsed on the new floor, gasping, shaking. Fewer again. Always fewer.
Ravi lay flat, chest burning, every muscle screaming. He glared up at the blank ceiling above, teeth bared. "God who tilts the board… play me again. I'll break your damn hand."
Arjun said nothing, but his eyes lingered on Ravi onger than usual, unreadable.