The pull wasn't violent. It was patient—like standing on a floor that tilted so gently you doubted it until you looked up and realized the walls had moved. Every surviving crystal—mine, my rivals', everyone's—slid along glowing lanes toward a central hex of polished stone. The Shield rings shrank with them, meter by meter, until each cell became a tight ten-pace circle. The middle rings kept their breach rule. The inner cores stayed invulnerable until three sigils sat. But now everyone could see everyone. No more ghosts.
Twenty-two crystals remained. The map above the arena shrank with us, icons clustering like bees around a queen.
I hit the central hex early and picked a corner that gave me grass to my left and rock to my right. My berm became a low crescent. My wind slits turned into three straight cut-lanes. The gravity drag deepened a hair because tight circles make panicked feet heavier.
