Chapter 249: The Unbroken Line
Jin spent the first preparation day mapping misses.
He went through Dalen’s recorded matches with a stylus and the arena schematic, marking every missed quill and what the opponent had been doing four seconds before it landed. Patterns began to emerge by the third recording.
Flint’s firing posture limited its arc. The Jackal braced with one flank toward the target, sending quills from its back and side in a wedge rather than across the whole arena. Heavy volleys required a deeper plant that took almost a second to establish.
That’s grounded. Glitch can feel the brace even if he can’t follow the quills.
The landing points changed with the opponent’s response. Breaking left pulled misses left; holding position let them pass and strike behind. Jin could not choose every miss, but he could influence enough of them to matter.
He picked his lane that evening: an eleven-meter diagonal from the center, where Glitch usually began, toward the outer section Flint preferred as firing ground. It was open poured floor, unremarkable except that Jin intended to keep a body-width path through it after the rest of the arena had become hostile.
Leaving it conspicuously empty would expose the plan. Dalen would notice and close it himself.
The other parts of the floor needed to look more useful.
The Training Instance did not know Dalen Rook. What it had was a configurable projectile course with fixed emitters, adjustable rates, and several spread settings. The Engine had offered it since the first month, and Jin had used it twice because until now he had never fought anything that shot at him.
He built a course and spent three days failing at it.
The first version was too simple. Fixed emitters taught Glitch where shots came from, and by the twelfth repetition he was anticipating machinery rather than reading an opponent. Jin randomized the active mounts, varied the delay between brace and release, and added harmless marker bolts that struck hard enough to be noticed without driving through avatar plating.
The second version was too busy. Jin tried to call every projectile himself while also directing Glitch’s feet. His commands arrived late, then contradicted information Glitch had already received through the floor. They finished the run with no clean lane and the avatar hit from three sides.
Jin reset the course instead of blaming speed. The failure was familiar: he had taken every decision back into his own hands because he could see the whole field. The answer from E-9 still applied even when the team contained only one beast. Glitch needed authority over the information only he possessed.
Glitch’s first mistake was trying to watch every projectile.
"You can’t see them fast enough. Stop trying."
Jin pushed attention toward the floor through the bond. Feel the brace. Leave the rest.
That proved incomplete within half a day. Tremor Sense reported when an emitter braced and when a projectile struck connected ground. It offered nothing during the fraction of a second in between, while the shot traveled through the air.
I handle the air. He handles the ground.
Jin rebuilt the drill around that division. Glitch supplied the grounded information—brace, reposition, impact—while Jin watched the projectiles. Each response became one of three commands: hold, shift, or take it.
Glitch hated the third.
Some shots would land in a worse place if he moved. A step left might save his plating while planting the projectile across the lane Jin meant to preserve. Holding allowed it to strike Harden and fall somewhere irrelevant.
Jin ran the choice forty times. Glitch resisted through nearly half of them, flattening against the bond with the reasonable objection that standing still while something hit him was a terrible strategy. By the second day, he would accept the command without losing time to the argument.
Acceptance did not mean passivity. When the floor reported a brace that Jin’s eyes had missed, Glitch sent the warning first. When an impact changed the footing behind him, he adjusted the set of his rear legs without waiting for permission. Jin chose which damage was worth taking; Glitch kept that choice physically possible.
That was the most useful result of the course.
The approach created a different problem.
The course ended with eleven meters of clear floor between fixed hazards. Glitch had to cross it at speed without breaking his route, because every correction required the turn that emptied his momentum.
He started slowly. A hundred and forty kilograms of Bronze anchor needed nearly a second to build proper speed, and a great deal could happen during that second.
Jin first sent the approach as a sequence. Glitch received four instructions, executed the first two, and had to be corrected before the third.
He compressed everything into one directed line: the route, the far opening, and full commitment.
Glitch went.
The sixteenth repetition triggered a response.
[Hidden Mastery Trial Unlocked: The Unbroken Line]
[Objective: Complete the trial route without breaking forward commitment]
[Potential reward: Compatible burst-movement skill development]
[Warning: Direction cannot be corrected after final commitment]
Jin read the panel twice, then returned to the warning.
The reward would not make Glitch generally fast. It promised one explosive movement along a direction chosen in advance, with no correction afterward. Used well, it could place Glitch somewhere before an opponent adjusted. Used badly, it would make one hundred and forty kilograms arrive at the wrong location much faster.
He entered the trial once.
The opening corridor contained moving obstructions. Glitch committed, began an ordinary physical charge, and reached two meters before a barrier shifted across the route. Continuing meant taking the collision. Correcting meant breaking the condition.
Glitch turned.
[Trial Failed — forward commitment broken at 2.1m]
[Attempts: 1]
Eleven seconds had been enough to establish the size of the problem.
Jin looked at the match schedule. Five preparation days remained, and spending all of them failing a newly discovered trial would leave him unprepared for the opponent he had actually challenged.
Not now.
He placed The Unbroken Line under its own heading in his notes and returned to the projectile course.
Flicker walked ten meters on the fourth preparation day, and Jin had not expected it.
Verrick moved the cone without warning him. By the time Jin arrived, Flicker was already staring at the new marker.
She covered the distance in about forty seconds. The final two meters were awful. Her left leg began wandering, she stopped twice without sitting, and both times she started again before anyone decided to end the attempt. Her wings opened three times on the return and stayed out longer with each correction.
Flicker reached the marker, took two additional steps out of what Jin could only describe as spite, and sat down.
"Ten," Jin said.
"Once," Verrick said, studying the display. "Her thermal peak went higher than I wanted and it’s coming down slowly. Breathing is acceptable. The pathways stayed quiet."
"So I’m allowed to call it good."
"Very good." Verrick glanced at him. "Don’t make me spoil the moment by explaining why it isn’t her new circuit yet."
Jin checked the recovery curve. "Six-hour readings first. Then stable weight and appetite before she tries it again. I remember."
"Good. Today I only have to argue with the patient."
Jin stayed while Flicker recovered. Glitch lay along the edge of the mat, and the room remained quiet for twenty minutes.
The night before the match, Glitch completed the projectile course six times out of ten. He had started at four.
Six was not comfortable odds against a stronger beast, but changing the plan now would give them two incomplete answers instead of one tested answer.
Glitch lay against the wall with his flank fully closed and his weight distributed evenly. He had understood the word tomorrow and radiated readiness through the bond.
"He’s going to make the arena smaller around you," Jin said. "We’re going to let him, and we’re going to keep one lane."
Glitch supplied a low, displeased sound.
"I know. Terrible plan." Jin touched two fingers to the side of Glitch’s neck. "When I give you the lane, take it. No turning, even if Flint runs."
The bond returned complete confidence that Glitch never turned for anything.
Jin laughed. "That wasn’t quite the reassurance you thought it was
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