Chapter 392: Two Sides of the Trap

Sera’s recovery line came from the rear fog in a tight formation, denser then the previous squads and already oriented for capture rather than probe.

Tohu’s agent did not check back at them, he maintained his focus on Zeus and the others as if only the second pressure was confirmation of his expectations. The lane felt smaller to his awareness with both pressures at his sides and no soft edge, no side cut that he could trust, no more room for buying distance with clever routing.

Athena kept her voice low and firm, "If we split focus we lose both sides. We will break one line completely and survive the other to the best of our ability."

Zeus already knew she was right. He could sense the recovery team sealing intervals of the rear while the current agent in front held the only visible way through like a willed gate of will and armor. The pressure of chaos under his skin threatened to rise. He swallowed it and made a clean choice.

"We break the agent" Zeus stated. If they turned to engage Sera’s line first they would be fighting numbers in a dead end. If they could push down the agent’s front hard enough to pass through he and the others would take whatever followed with them.

Poseidon shifted his trident to hands that could both hold it. "Then stop giving him clean conversation and put him on his backside."

Wukong’s grin was all edge as he stated, "I have wanted that ever since he opened his mouth."

They began the move.

Kratos went first, chains swinging in a harsh cross meant to collapse the agent’s guard. The impact rung through the lane. The agent caught one chain and took the second across his plated shoulder and stayed upright. Athena used the partial opening to drive her spear into the same joint Wukong had cracked earlier. Sparks torn from the agent’s armor. Poseidon came in behind the push and drove the raw force of his attack into the agent’s core with enough power to knock him back two steps.

For the first time in contact Tohu’s agent had to give ground.

"Now" Zeus shouted.

Hades wrapped a second round of dark pressure around the agent’s legs, heavier this time and not as smoothly woven. Loki slid in under the edge of the binding and drove at the knee joint with a short blade that found a seam and took purchase. The agent snarled, crushed sideways and hit Loki across the chest hard enough to send the trickster into the wall. Hermes pulled him away before a finishing strike could be landed.

Sun Wukong vaulted the opening and brought the staff down like a falling beam. The impact cracked through the agent’s left pauldron. Odin’s spear followed from a sharper angle and drove into a heavier set of plating under his opposite arm. Not deep enough to end it, but enough to slow the next movement.

Zeus utilized the slowing.

He closed the distance, hitting the agent with all he could spare that wouldn’t fully release the chaos under his skin. His shoulder, his fist and knee, his raw stubborn weight. The agent blocked the first two hits and took the third hard in the side, forcing the plating on his ribs to flex inward. They locked eyes for a breath, face to helmet with pressure screaming between them.

"You should have surrendered him" the agent forced out.

Zeus drove an elbow into the cracked pauldron and felt it give. "You should have brought more of you."

Behind them Sera’s recovery line reached effective distance and let fly with capture bindings, thick bands of Continuum law that aimed to root and hold rather than kill. One band caught around Poseidon’s left leg and dragged him half way down before the god snapped it with a snarl. Another nearly closed around Athena’s spear arm. She cut through it on timing and kept moving.

"Rear is onto us" Hermes stated. "We do not have long."

"Finish the hole" Kratos stated, throwing his weight into the agent again.

This time his line held together. Wukong and Kratos pushed from the front. Athena and Odin worked the damaged side. Hades and Poseidon kept the agent from recovering his stance. Zeus took the center and refused to give him air to breathe. The agent was stronger one to one then any of them wanted to fight in this layer and for the shape he was built in. But he still stood as the lone piece against nine determined to force an exit.

The break came when Zeus finally allowed a controlled edge of chaos into a strike. Not the full flood, but just enough to unmake the damaged plate over the agent’s ribs. The plating failed and Athena’s spear drove in through the opening. Kratos lifted the agent off his feet. Wukong’s staff came down across the agent’s helmet like a temple bell cracking.

Tohu’s agent hit the floor hard and did not get up at first.

"Through" Zeus rasped.

They ran the opening.

Sera’s recovery bindings chased them in with the next gap, snapping at heels and armor and exposed limbs. One caught across Hades’ back and burnt a dark line through his cloak before he tore away. Poseidon took a glancing blow that cracked open his shoulder. Loki stumbled once and would have fallen if not for Hermes pulling him forward by the collar and keeping him moving.

Behind them the agent pushed to his knees, not finished but unable to hold the lane on his own. Recovery operators flooded into the space he’d defended and had to choose between securing him, sealing the break or continuing the chase. The pause in the middle of that choice provided all the time the nine needed.

They took it.

The lower route past the trap was ugly, half collapsed and trembling under larger pressure from both hunting sides reacting to the battle. The nine wasted no time, placing distance on the junction in a rough, bleeding line, each marked by the fight in some way. Nobody spoke until the immediate shouts and signal flares had thinned behind them.

Athena finally looked over her shoulder. "We broke one side. We did not clear the board. Sera’s people will reform. Tohu will not ignore an agent put on the floor."

Zeus wiped blood from his brow with the back of his wrist and continued walking. "I know. We needed out more then we needed pretty."

Wukong spat to the side and graced when his ribs answered. "He was tougher then the rest. If the next one is worse we will run out of blood before hunters."

"Then we find ground that favors us before that next one arrives" Poseidon stated.

Hades laughed once under his breath dry and low. "Ground that favors us. In this place...Sure."

They pushed through another stretch of the broken lane before Odin lifted his hand and slowed them.

"What is it?" Zeus asked.

Odin’s single eye remained on the deep dark ahead. "The small hunt is still behind us. That is not what troubles me. Something else has simply changed direction towards this section. Not an agent this time."

Loki’s face lost the little humor he had. "Name it."

"I can not" Odin admitted. "I only know the weight feels wrong for another recovery team."

Zeus felt it a moment later, a broader shift in the pressure of the Continuum far behind and above their route, as if the board itself was noting the agent fall and decided the game piece exchange was no longer appropriate. Sera might escalate, Tohu himself might come, Jehovah’s limits might already be straining under both of their tempers.

None of those options were good.

Athena moved closer to Zeus, her voice low enough that only the nearest could hear. "We can not keep winning lane fights and calling it survival. Sooner or later one of the real deal will step down here."

Zeus nodded. He knew.

Behind them the trap lane was full of recovery signals and the damage presence of Tohu’s agent. Ahead was the continuation of the route into darker Continuum structure with no promise of safety. And somewhere beyond both a larger attention of some kind had begun to move as if the nine had finally been expensive enough to call for a personal response.

They kept going anyway. There was nothing else left to do.