Lahat ng Kabanata ng Bloodscript: Survival Game of the Reborn: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

The librarian didn’t fall so much as… come unbound.Once the lockbook was out of its chest, its whole body lost the logic that had been holding it together. Volumes that had been ribs and limbs and vertebrae a heartbeat earlier juddered, then shook loose, tumbling in awkward cascades.Hardcovers slammed into the sea of paper with sodden thuds. Paperbacks burst apart mid‑air, their spines popping, pages fanning out in chaotic sprays. Loose sheets tore themselves free and whirled up, then dropped in slow, disorganized drifts, no longer obeying any central gravity.The chains sagged.Their slack weight dragged them down into the drift, bookmarks and metal links sinking like debris.Ink leaked from the creature’s ruined eyes and joints, puddling under what had been its feet. The puddles met and merged, forming wide, black slicks that reflected nothing.The monster’s skull—if you could call that cluster of manuals and Bibles a skull—tilted once, as if it were trying to glare at me with its

The roar didn’t vanish.It just shifted.After the initial shock of the plaza and the armbands and the boards lighting up with our faces, the Game City started… directing us.Light bars along the ground—thin strips embedded in the scuffed stone—flared to life, pulsing in a specific direction. The same direction, for all of us.“Move along the guide paths,” a dozen identical mannequin‑voices intoned. “Selection phase initiating. Non‑compliance will result in forced assignment.”I didn’t like the sound of *forced* anything here.“Guess we’re window‑shopping our own deaths now,” Jax muttered as the crowd of survivors began to shuffle in the indicated direction, funneled by attendants and the architecture.We were herded down a wide avenue flanked by towering structures, the roar of the stands fading to a rumble behind us. The buildings here weren’t normal city blocks. They were… arenas in miniature. Each one styled around a theme, doorways gaping like mouths, signage glaring overhead in

The tunnel was too quiet.No crowd noise, no betting chatter. Just the hollow thud of our boots on metal and the low hum of whatever machinery kept this place pulsing. The crimson light that had bathed the plaza thinned into strips along the ceiling, throwing more shadow than clarity.The further we went, the more the city’s roar receded, muffled by layers of stone and steel. It felt like descending into a vein—into one of the Game’s arteries—leaving the gleeful, screaming face of it behind for whatever engine lay beneath.Jax walked a half‑step ahead, shoulders squared, pipe slung over one shoulder like a baseball bat he fully intended to use. Corvin kept to my other side, close enough that our arms brushed now and then.At the end of the corridor, a glow brightened: another set of jaws, these narrower, flanked by high digital panels.The instant we stepped within a certain radius, the panels flared to life.DISTRICT R-03: RED STREETS RUN MODE: RACE / SURVIVAL HYBRID PRIMARY OBJE

They didn’t give us much time to enjoy not being dead.A metal door irised open off the side of the platform and a segment of railing sank into the floor, creating an exit chute just wide enough for the three of us.“Contestants,” the city’s voice purred above the applause, “please clear the finish zone.”Translation: Get off the stage; your blood has been sufficiently admired.Corvin offered Jax an arm up first. Jax took it, grimacing as he put weight on his nicked thigh.“Ten out of ten,” he muttered. “Would not run again.”Then Corvin turned, hand already outstretched for me.I hesitated, every part of me still buzzing from the race, from the interference, from Selene’s slow clap and the way the whole city had watched me *bend* it.The pen was a warm line against my palm, my fingers cramped around it.I sighed and let him pull me to my feet.The moment my boots were under me again, the screen above us flared, wiping away scores and bet readouts.NEW MATCHES LOADING, it blinked.Beh

They didn’t even bother walking us back through the plaza. The cleansing chamber’s far door hissed open, and suddenly there was just another corridor—this one sloping upward, walls slick with condensation, lights pulsing in time with a distant bass thrum. Jax limped along beside me, his leg already stiffening. Corvin kept pace on my other side. The pairing text still hovered semi‑transparent in my peripheral vision like an afterimage. PAIRING A: WILLA ROANE + CORVIN VANCE PAIRING B: JAX “SML” MARTIN + SELENE VAELOR “Maybe it’s a trust fall exercise,” Jax said. “Fun corporate icebreaker. You and Corvin catch each other, and I get impaled by your ex‑girlfriend’s emotional baggage.” “Wrong ex,” Corvin muttered. “Right hazard,” Jax shot back. The corridor opened abruptly into a staging balcony. We stepped out into open air—and noise. The Co‑op Showdown arena took up an entire quadrant of the Game City’s central bowl. Two rings sat side by side, separated by a high wal