Alex froze, his face paling as the words registered.
Then his breathing steadied, and determination returned. He turned his sharp gaze back to Edmund.
"I'm going to take the fragments from our team. If they don't hand them over, I'll eliminate them myself."
"You shouldn't do that—"
"Shut up," Alex snapped.
At the same time, far from them, another conversation was happening.
Orvane Drixley leaned back in his chair within his camp, staring at his vice commander.
"I wanted all of us to proceed to the second objective," Orvane admitted. "More people means more options if it turns out team-based. But now, we don't have a choice. We need those fragments. If anyone refuses, we'll take them by force."
Across another stretch of the battlefield,
Cassandra Evermere was saying nearly the same thing to her own team.
The message was clear: the rules had changed. Cooperation was finished.
