"The Toll of the Void."

  Brother Six lunged for the portal, a blur of reckless speed.

  But Aryan, who had demanded the safety check, was faster than his words implied. As Six crossed the threshold, Aryan didn't step back—he lunged forward. His hand clamped around the edge of Brother Six’s combat harness with a vice-like grip.

  "Grab! Hold!" Aryan roared, his muscles straining against the dimensional pull.

  Sister One reacted instantly. Her eyes flashed silver.

  “Skill: Temporal Stasis - Freeze”

  A ripple of grey energy exploded from her, freezing the chaotic motion for a heartbeat. The swirling colors of the portal slowed to a sludge. Brother Six hung suspended in mid-air, anchored only by Aryan’s grip.

  Seeing the window of opportunity, Amara moved. She dodged past the frozen air particles and locked her hand around Aryan’s free wrist.

  "Good! You paused time!" Amara shouted, her voice cutting through the silence. "Now! No time to waste! Let's go!"

  The command broke the trance. The remaining seven siblings took a collective breath, their discipline overriding their shock. Without a fraction of a second lost, they surged forward, grabbing shoulders, belts, and hands, forming a living chain.

  ZWOOP.

  The stasis broke. The chain of twenty entities plunged into the rainbow vortex.

  Inside the wormhole, reality dissolved.

  It wasn't a tunnel; it was a storm of fire and starlight. The floor beneath them felt like the soft, unstable clouds of a nebula, black and bruised with violet lightning.

  But for the Hunters, it was just transport. For Aryan and Amara, it was an extraction.

  "Argh!"

  Sweat poured from the two like rivers. Their knees buckled, hitting the nebulous floor hard. They weren't just traveling; they were, their bodies, flesh and blood, and even their consciousness is fueling the travel.

  Sister Eight looked down at them, her expression flat and unpitying, though her brow furrowed slightly.

  "This is the cost to travel to a destination that doesn't exist on maps," she said, her voice echoing in the void. "The portal is burning your life expectancy, your only remaining 44 days as coal. Bear with it."

  In the System Interface, alarms were screaming.

  "The portal is devouring your glucose levels to compensate for the life energy drain!" Nine shouted, her usual calm fracturing. "If you run out of energy, it starts eating organs!"

  She waved her hands, pulling massive crates of supplies from the inventory.

  "You two! Start eating! Eat as much as you can!" She turned to Sam. "Brother Sam! Drag the food to the System Space Main Hall! We need to move the consumption to the mental plane!"

  "And you two," Nine commanded the two. "Amara! Aryan! Shut your eyes! Project your consciousness and your physical sensation directly into the System Space!"

  "Why?" Aryan gasped, his vision blurring.

  "The Greed Vessel inside you doesn't want to die!. So it can't let you die." Nine explained rapidly. "It will delay the time perception inside your mind to slow the drain. Hold your body tight and shift! Move fast!"

  Aryan and Amara looked at each other, their faces pale and gaunt. They knitted their brows, tightened their grip on each other’s shoulders to maintain a physical anchor, and nodded.

  They slammed their eyes shut.

  Inside their system space.

  A fraction of a second later, they snapped their eyes open.

  They were no longer in the rainbow void. They were in the System Space—their shared sanctuary. But it was no longer the serene forest they knew.

  The golden Autumn season was withering before their eyes. The leaves turned black and crumbled into ash. The trees groaned and splintered. The sky was a bruised purple. It looked like a graveyard.

  "Our System Space is dying faster..." Aryan whispered, looking at the decaying world. "Markus said only two or three days from our remaining 44 days life expectancy would be lost. So why does it feel like we are dying right now?"

  He looked frantically at Sam and Nine, who were working with terrified speed.

  "Because this space is connected to your biology!" Sam shouted.

  He wasn't serving plates. He was throwing raw ingredients—fruits, dried meat, energy bars—into a massive digital blender. He pressed a button, turning it all into a thick, nutrient-dense sludge.

  "The portal is running through the Dark Matter and blood of your physical bodies, even your very soul," Sam explained, pouring the sludge into large beakers. "Even here, the drain exists, since the system space is connected to your whole being. But here, we can refuel faster than you can digest in the real world."

  He shoved a beaker into Aryan’s hand and another into Amara’s.

  "Drink!" Sam ordered. "Fast! Don't taste it, just swallow! We need to balance the energy running out with calories coming in. If the scale tips, you collapse. And if you collapse in the void, you are lost forever."

  Aryan looked at the sludge, then at the rotting trees. He tipped the glass back and drank.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Aryan gagged, slamming the empty bucket down. He had drank enough calories to feed a planet, but before he could even complain, Amara shoved another bucket against his lips.

  "Drink," she ordered, with a force that brooked no argument.

  Aryan choked it down, his eyes watering. The moment the bucket was empty, he grabbed a container twice the size, filled it with the nutrient sludge, and shoved it toward Amara.

  "Your turn, Sister," he wheezed, forcing the rim against her mouth. "We share everything, remember?"

  Amara glared at him but drank it without hesitation.

  "This is too much!" Aryan shouted, wiping the grime from his mouth. "That Markus guy... I swear, if we survive this, I will force-feed him this garbage! What kind of psychopath mixes dried meat, fruit, and energy bars into a smoothie? It tastes like liquid of despair!"

  Sam and Nine, who had been darting back and forth like manic blurred lines, suddenly stopped.

  They didn't stop normally. They slowed down in jagged, glitching frames, like a video buffering. Then, facing the two, the two System Avatars slowly collapsed onto the digital floor, their golden and blue glows dimming to a faint hum.

  "Good..." Sam wheezed, his voice sounding static-filled. "You two... are finally... not sweating."

  "Seriously," Nine added, her avatar flickering. "We almost calculated a 99% probability that this was a disposal chute. We thought Markus planned to get rid of all of us, including those Eight Siblings, by throwing us into deep space."

  Sam and Nine looked at each other, nodded tiredly, and remained on the floor.

  "Wait."

  Amara, who had been wiping the sludge from her chin, suddenly froze. She looked at her hands. She looked at Aryan’s forehead.

  "We aren't sweating?" she repeated softly.

  Her eyes widened as the realization hit.

  "The metabolic burn," Amara whispered. "It stopped. The portal isn't eating our energy anymore."

  Aryan looked at Sam. "That means...?"

  "The Eleventh Member."

  As they snapped their eyes open, their vision was immediately filled with a wall of armored backs.

  The Eight Siblings had already formed a defensive crescent formation around the siblings. Weapons were drawn, safety latches clicked off, and energy shields hummed with a low, threatening vibration.

  Before they could assess the environment, a voice drifted from the other side of the shield wall.

  "Why are you being so suspicious?"

  The stranger rubbed his forehead, looking more annoyed than threatened by the elite kill squad pointing heavy artillery at him.

  "We are just going on a hunt together. Is this level of aggression really necessary?"

  The Hunters didn't flinch. They didn't lower their weapons.

  Brother Six glanced over his shoulder at Aryan and Amara, who were struggling to stand on wobbly legs.

  "Something is wrong," Six reported, his voice low and tight. "Actually, too wrong. The atmosphere, the pressure... it’s off. How do you want to proceed?"

  Hearing the assessment, Amara and Aryan forced themselves upright. They looked past the Hunters and frowned.

  The forest greeted them with the heavy, metallic stench of blood.

  But when they looked, there was no carnage. The forest was pristine. It looked like an ancient, untouched Amazonian paradise. The leaves were a vibrant, glossy green, and the air was clear.

  "Do you feel the same?" Aryan asked inside his head.

  "Same," Amara replied, her eyes scanning the foliage. "The forest is too clean. It feels artificial."

  "Right," Aryan agreed. "I can even hear the sound of distant waterfalls. If not for the scent of blood and the floor looking like an award-winning evergreen garden, I would have built a vacation house here."

  "Sure. You would," Sam’s voice cut in, landing a dose of reality. "But we have no such luxury."

  "Of course. I'm talking about a hypothetical scenario where we aren't dying," Aryan retorted quickly ending the conversation. "Anyways, let us greet the friend before us."

  Aryan nodded at the Eight Siblings. It was a signal to hold fire but remain alert. The Hunters split slightly, creating a gap for the duo to step through.

  "So," Aryan asked, gritting his teeth. The vile taste of the nutrient sludge—the Liquid Despair—lingered in his throat, mixing with the phantom smell of blood from the pristine forest. "Who is the welcoming committee?"

  The stranger blinked, looking them over with mild curiosity.

  "Oh. Right. Sorry about that. I'm Jay. Call me J or Jay."

  He shrugged, acting as if standing in a blood-scented alien ruin was a casual Tuesday.

  "I was informed that ten people would be joining me for the hunt. I counted heads. Ten of you. So, here you are. You came through a portal. Standard procedure."

  Aryan glanced at Amara. She gave a microscopic nod.

  "What are the details?" Amara asked, stepping forward.

  "Uh, before that... will you introduce yourselves?" Jay laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. "I can't just call you 'You,' 'You,' and 'You with the big gun,' right?"

  The Eight Siblings furrowed their brows. The more casual Jay acted, the more dangerous he seemed. In the wild, only the apex predator is this relaxed in the presence of a threat.

  "Call me Aryan," he said curtly. "This is my sister, Amara. And these are the Eight Hunter Siblings."

  "Good. The details match."

  Jay pulled out a device that looked like a thin sheet of glass. He folded it neatly like a piece of paper—advanced tech—and turned the display toward them.

  "See? The brief says: 'Ten individuals, siblings, Rank 5, will join at the coordinates.' And apparently, some others will join us later in the journey."

  He handed the device to Aryan.

  Aryan and Amara scanned the text, their hearts skipping a beat.

  "Oh, sure. There it is," Aryan thought, his mind racing. "The details list ten people of Rank 5. We are definitely not Rank 5 yet, the greed vessel ruined it. If a fight breaks out, we are the weak links."

  "Let us observe for now," Sam’s voice echoed in their heads. "This 'Jay' scans as a Rank 5 entity. We outnumber him, but he is strong."

  "Still, be careful," Nine warned. "Ask him about the 'Hunt.' The name itself is suspicious."

  "Okay. You didn't finish the details," Brother Five interrupted, his patience wearing thin. "What is the objective?"

  Jay sighed, taking the device back.

  "Oh. You don't know either? I was hoping at least you guys would have the answers. Since there are ten of you and only one of me."

  "I can't detect any lies," Aryan transmitted through the connection. "Is he acting?"

  "We can't be sure," Amara replied, her mental voice sounding strained. "Our sensing abilities are degrading. As soon as we rejected the Greed Vessel, our faculties started dulling. This is the curse Markus warned us about."

  Aryan suppressed a sigh. He looked at the confused stranger.

  "Where do we need to go? Do you have any information?"

  "See for yourself," Jay said. "A message was just pushed to the local network group. I can see your device numbers in the log. Check your phones."

  "Oh. Gosh. Okay."

  Aryan relaxed his posture slightly, pulling out his phone. The Hunters did the same, checking their wrist-comms.

  A new message flashed on the screen. It wasn't a standard System Quest. It looked like an encrypted broadcast.

  “MESSAGE BROADCAST”

  TO: The New Arrivals & The Guide

  SUBJECT: The Hunt

  Go through the forest. Seers.

  The war has already begun.

  If you are not already Seers, you will be granted the ability as you proceed.

  WARNING: Do not stay in one place. You are new here. Stagnation is death. You will understand soon.

  Start moving.

  The message ended abruptly.

  "This is crazy," Jay muttered, reading the same text.

  "What is?" Aryan asked, pocketing his phone.

  Jay looked up, his eyes wide with genuine panic. He looked like he was about to cry.

  "I thought you guys were natives. Or at least... I thought you knew the geography."

  "What are you talking about?" Aryan asked, finally losing his patience. "Isn't this Planet Sean? We just teleported from the Capital Sector."

  Jay stared at him. Then he laughed—a hysterical, terrified sound.

  "Planet Sean?"

  Jay pointed a shaking finger upward, toward a massive crack in the ancient ceiling that revealed the sky above the forest canopy.

  "Buddy... look up. Does Planet Sean have two violet moons?"

  Aryan froze. He looked up. Hanging in the dark sky were not the familiar celestial bodies of home, but two massive, glowing violet orbs.

  "We aren't on Planet Sean?" Aryan whispered.

  "Forget that. Move now!"

  Amara’s voice cut through the shock like a whip. Her eyes flickered rapidly between their natural color violet and the glowing golden of her Seer ability.

  Before Aryan or Jay could answer, the ground beneath them lurched violently.

  It wasn't an earthquake. The ground itself—the pristine floor of the forest—was moving. And so were the eleven people standing on it.