They fell into hell without a scream.
The descent was too slow for panic and too fast for prayer. Cael stood frozen on his drop pad, watching the thick clouds part beneath them. He couldn't feel his hands. Couldn't feel his breath. Only the burn building in his lungs, the hiss of pressurized wind rising like something exhaling from below. The temperature shifted in degrees that didn't make sense—cool in the pod, then suddenly blistering.
Then they broke through the final layer of smoke—and the Ember Wastes came into view.
Cael didn't breathe.
No one did.
It wasn't just vast. It was unthinkable.
They weren't being dropped into a quadrant.
They were being dropped into a continent.
The Ember Wastes sprawled like a scar across the world—blackened ridgelines that rose and fell like fractured waves, split by rivers of molten rock that flowed slow and glowing into bottomless ravines. Everything below shimmered with thermal distortion. Chasms bled fire. Ash spiraled in slow vortexes. Even the sky burned. Not with sun, but with smoke so thick it turned light into rusted gold. The air crackled with static and ancient heat. There were no landmarks. Just ruin.
And it went on forever.
They touched down on a high basalt bluff that rose above the crumbling terrain. The drop pads hissed as they anchored into scorched stone. Cael staggered as the pressure equalized. Heat slammed into him—like a wall, like a scream. His breath came out ragged, eyes watering instantly.
Elara dropped beside him without a sound, her braid coiled tightly against the back of her neck. Her uniform steamed slightly. Rune and Thorne followed, landing hard and fast, already scanning the ridgeline. Wren muttered something under her breath. Pax coughed and doubled over.
"Don't breathe too fast," she said quietly, dragging him upright. "You'll black out."
The team fanned out around the bluff, boots crunching over obsidian shards. The heat was omnidirectional—no wind, no shade. Just the constant press of fire and invisible weight. Even the shadows burned here.
Then they saw it.
The Base.
Black steel. Low walls. Built into the cliffside like it had been cut from the bones of the land itself. The shield dome shimmered faintly—a bubble of bluish heatlight around the structure. Vents hissed in sync, releasing clouds of superheated air that curled into the haze.
The Black insignia pulsed over the entrance: a single Pawn, gleaming red.
They entered through the gate in silence. A brief pressure change, a hiss of filtered air, then sudden cool. Not cold. Just… survivable. It was like stepping into a cave beneath a volcano—safe only because it was not yet on fire.
Inside: tight corridors. Five rooms. One command center with a glowing terrain map, two sleeping bays lined with matte-gray bunks, a ration wall with blinking lights, and a med station too clean for how quickly it would become soaked in blood.
But the one thing Cael noticed immediately was the promotion chamber—sealed, white-lit, marked with glowing emblems: ♞, ♜, ♝, ♛, ♚.
Pax stared. "Are we supposed to—"
"No," Elijah said. "That's not for us."
He stepped forward and tapped the console. The room remained locked. One line of red text scrolled across the screen:
ACCESS LOCKED: OUTSIDE PAWN ENTRY ONLY.
"For White," Elijah clarified. "Just like ours will be in their base."
Cael looked at the six glass pods within. Each contained swirling fluid—one for each role. Not bubbling, not sterile. Alive. It pulsed like a bloodstream under artificial light.
"Then why keep it here?" Wren asked, voice quiet.
"To make us look at it," Vera replied. "To remind us what we don't get."
She turned away, already walking toward the ration crates.
There were three of them. Each marked with golden crests and sponsor emblems: an open eye, a blood-tipped crown, a silver gear.
Cael opened the first.
Inside: black-sealed ration pouches, eight metal water flasks, and a series of dull gray tablets marked with nutrient counts. Enough to keep sixteen players fed—barely—for three, maybe four days.
"That's it?" Pax asked, voice dry.
Thorne grunted. "It's more than most get."
Wren held up a ration bar, squinted. "Compressed fiber. Two hundred calories, high salt, zero water content."
Sora flicked the display at the center of the command table. The arena map unfolded in dim red: 8x8. Sixty-four square kilometers in total, each tile one kilometer like the size of city blocks. Their current location pulsed—A1, southwest corner. Everything else remained unreadable. No enemy team indicators. No monster markers. No Revitalize Serum locations.
Just red, blank tiles.
"We have three days of food," Sora said. "Then we forage."
"In Ember?" Cael asked. "There's nothing here."
Rune looked up. "Then we hunt. Food capsules are out there. Buried, hidden, guarded. But they exist."
"And if we don't find them?"
Elara didn't blink. "Then we starve or die of exposure. Either way—we don't fight. We vanish."
The silence that followed was heavy.
Then the wristbands pulsed.
A flicker.
A ping.
Cael looked down.
A tiny red dot glowed at the top-right of his band screen. It was moving.
"What the—"
Wren exhaled sharply. "No way."
Elara tapped her own screen. The map zoomed out, and there it was: a moving signal. Tagged. Tracked. Labeled: WHITE KING.
Cael's stomach dropped.
"That's the enemy King," he said.
Rune's eyes narrowed. "They can see ours too."
Everyone turned toward Elijah, whose wrist glowed the brightest. His dot pulsed like a beacon.
"So," Lyndra muttered. "There's no hiding."
"Nope," said Thorne. "They want a chase."
"Not a chase," Vera corrected. "A hunt."
And then the second realization hit them.
Cael looked at the terrain. At the thousands of steps between where they stood and the glowing center of the board. d4, d5, e4, e5.
It would take days to reach the central tiles. Longer if the terrain fought them.
The enemy King was on the far side. And they were watching each other like twin wolves across a burning forest.
He opened his mouth to speak, but the room darkened.
A new sound bloomed from the wall.
Crk—kssshhh—kkkt.
The voice that followed was synthetic. Chilling. Not quite human.
"To all participants: arena synchronization complete. Perimeter stabilization failing in 5 hours. Environmental strain projected to exceed safe range. Recommend movement. Recommend engagement."
The floor vibrated slightly beneath them.
"Refusal to act will result in redirection events. Terrain will shift. Monsters will be deployed. Officials will monitor inactivity."
Vera's jaw tightened. "So if we wait…"
"They kill us," Elijah said.
No team fights. No coordinated assault lines. The arena was too large, too deadly, too unstable. And yet the Officials had forced a map that would inevitably collapse inward.
Forced movement.
Forced convergence.
Forced death.
A monster roared far in the distance—deep and echoing, like something with lungs the size of bunkers.
Cael turned toward the glass wall. Outside, the lava was rising in some places and vanishing in others—like the land was folding over itself. A new ashfall had begun, heavier now. The wind didn't blow. It pushed, dense and sulfur-laced.
"This isn't survival," he murmured.
"It's gravity," said Wren. "We're being pulled together."
You will fight, the arena said, without words.
You will bleed.
Or you will burn.