The Predator Crown sealed the central circle.
Leon, the little dragon and the Chain Basilisk were thrown beyond the white wall. Inside were Kane, Styx and me, with Styx barely clinging to my collar.
Two lines appeared before my eyes.
"Kane Li. Bonds absorbed: forty-one thousand eight hundred and twelve."
"Rex Wang. Bonds absorbed: zero."
The Crown did not count the free swarm. You could not absorb what did not belong to you.
"You came to the predators' judgement with no prey," Kane said.
White plates closed over his face. Behind him appeared the silhouettes of the beasts and people whose energy the Crown had drawn out. They did not scream or beg for help. The System had turned them into identical shadows so their owner would not have to remember their faces.
Kane raised his hand.
The first blow punched through my shoulder. It hurled me to the edge of the circle, where the white wall scorched my back. Styx tried to cover the wound with her wings, but her body could no longer summon its defensive form.
The System offered a solution:
"Temporarily designate seven independent cores as property. Owner's projected strength: sufficient."
The captains did not hear the offer. One confirmation from me would have been enough to turn their decisions into my resources.
I dismissed the panel.
Kane struck again, and this time the white blade cut across my thigh. He was in no hurry to finish the fight: every refusal left me weaker and proved to the spectators beyond the wall that freedom could not protect even its own defender.
"How many people will die while you preserve your pure right to lose?" he asked.
I tried to close the distance. The armour threw me back before my sword touched the plates.
A red point flared above the circle.
The captain from the archive floor had reached the outer wall, and six more appeared behind him. They could not enter and gave me no strength. Each had brought his own core and his own refusal to belong.
The Crown recalculated the conditions.
"Voluntary representatives: seven."
Kane looked up.
"Representatives of what?"
The System did not answer. Its rules allowed for owners, property and witnesses to a transaction. A creature representing only itself fitted on none of its lines.
The captains began sending images into the circle.
The medical quarter. Clutches beyond the wall. Flooded homes. Wounded beasts by the river. Seven different reasons not to obey me, and seven different reasons to come.
Kane's white armour wavered.
For an instant, the shadows behind him had faces.
Kane struck the wall and knocked down two captains. The others did not retreat.
Their presence gave me no strength to win.
It forced the Crown to see those it had treated as a number.
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