She settled onto the irregular stone.

Found her footing. Adjusted. Found it again.

The broken section was exactly as it had been left—the cracks, the gaps, the separated lower surface, the irregular edges that Sevon had attached new lines to in the final exchange before the pause. Standing in it required ongoing management rather than the automatic stability of flat ground. Every shift of weight was a small decision.

The crowd looked at both fighters. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

At the floor between them.

At the bracket on the screens showing Fight 7 — In Progress.

The referee raised a hand.

Sevon looked at the floor ahead of him—at the broken section, at the path between his intact grid and Cintra's position, at the irregular terrain that separated them and the lines he had attached to the broken edges last night.

Cintra looked at Sevon—not at the floor, at him. At his feet and his hands and the dark shimmer that moved along the stone beneath his feet as the lines refreshed with his presence on them.

The referee's hand dropped.

Neither fighter moved immediately.

The crowd held the stillness with them—understanding that the opening of this phase was different from the opening of yesterday, that both fighters had spent the night with the exact position they were resuming from and had arrived this morning with plans already formed rather than arriving to discover what the fight would be.

Sevon moved first.

Not toward Cintra—laterally, along the edge of his intact grid, his steps precise and specific, laying new lines along the boundary between the intact section and the broken section. Not expanding his coverage—reinforcing the boundary. Creating a line of traps at the precise edge where the broken stone met his intact grid, the boundary itself becoming a trap rather than just a dividing line.

Cintra watched him do it.

She understood what it meant—he was closing the approach path. Making the transition from her broken section to his intact grid a triggered line rather than a free crossing. If she tried to advance over the boundary she would hit a trap the moment her foot made contact with the edge.

She sent a pulse.

Directed and narrow—aimed at the boundary line Sevon was building, the pulse traveling along the broken stone, reaching the edge of the intact section and triggering the new lines he had just laid before they could fully consolidate.

Sevon pulled back from the boundary—the lines he had been reinforcing disrupted by the pulse, the energy discharging into the stone rather than into his intended configuration.

He looked at the boundary.

Looked at Cintra.

She's not going to let me close it, his expression said. Every line I lay at the boundary she'll trigger before I can consolidate it.

He moved back toward the center of his intact grid.

Changed approach.

Instead of reinforcing the boundary he began building density—laying lines throughout the intact section in overlapping configurations, the same area covered multiple times by different line angles, creating a grid so dense that crossing any section of it would trigger multiple lines simultaneously rather than one at a time.

If Cintra crossed into the intact section she wouldn't hit one trap.

She would hit six.

The crowd watched the strategy develop without being able to see the lines—watching Sevon's careful stepping pattern, watching the specific geometry of his movement across the intact section, understanding from the pattern that something was being built even if the something was invisible.

"He's layering," the announcer said. "The same territory covered multiple times—overlapping configurations. He's not expanding—he's deepening. Making the intact section so dense that crossing it becomes impossible rather than merely dangerous."

Cintra sent another pulse—aimed at the center of the intact section, trying to trigger the layered lines before the layering could complete.

The pulse traveled across the broken section and hit the boundary of the intact grid and the lines at the boundary triggered—the pulse discharging into them rather than passing through to the interior. The dense section was protected by its own boundary lines—the outermost layer absorbing the pulse before it reached the deeper configuration.

The interior layering was intact.

Cintra looked at the boundary.

The pulse had cleared the outermost boundary lines again—the same exchange as before, the pulse triggering the fresh lines before they consolidated—but the interior of Sevon's grid was now layered beyond what a boundary-crossing pulse could reach.

She needed to be inside the intact section to trigger the interior lines.

And getting inside the intact section meant crossing a boundary that Sevon was going to keep laying fresh lines on faster than she could trigger them with pulses from range.

The crowd felt the problem take shape without needing it explained.

"She's locked out," the announcer said quietly. "The boundary lines absorb the pulse before it reaches the interior. To clear the deep layering she has to cross the boundary. But crossing the boundary—"

He didn't finish.

He didn't need to.

Cintra assessed the problem plainly.

She was standing on broken stone with new lines attached to the edges around her—lines she couldn't see but could feel when she shifted her weight across the irregular surfaces, the slight resistance at certain edge contacts that told her where Sevon's overnight work had landed. Her footing was managed rather than stable. Her pulse range was limited by the energy loss across the broken section between her position and Sevon's intact grid. And now the intact grid's interior was layered beyond what her range-pulses could reach.

She had three options.

She could keep sending pulses at the boundary—clearing the outermost lines repeatedly, preventing Sevon from consolidating the boundary, keeping the edge open even if she couldn't reach the interior. It would cost her pulse energy and it would maintain a standoff rather than resolving it.

She could advance—cross the broken section toward the boundary, get closer, reduce the distance her pulses had to travel across damaged stone so they arrived with enough energy to push through the boundary lines and reach the interior layering.

Or she could break more floor.