nagpurpolice Chapter 282
Chapter 282
Just the soft burn of false daylight, stretching on until it gave up the idea of having an edge at all.The ground beneath his boots was raw soil. Not artificial soil, actual soil and dark bedrock, leveled and packed dense into a massive, natural floor, giving the colossal space the rugged, uncompromising feel of a real battlefield despite the high-tech arrays humming far above.
"It’s as big as five big amphitheaters combined. Or arenas." Daphne explained.
Five amphitheatres? Zaeryn turned the number over in his head and it refused to sit right, refused to compress down into something his eyes could actually hold.
The citadel’s building above him had felt like its own city walking in, towers and wings and courtyards enough to lose a man in for a week. And somehow this one room, buried beneath all of it, was bigger than the entire structure sitting on top of it.
"What is this place built out of?" Zaeryn asked, running his fingers along the dark surface. He could feel a faint, rhythmic pulse beneath the material, like a dormant heartbeat.
The only thing that broke the open space was the observation gallery. It sat raised about ten meters above the combat floor, set along one side of the hall.
A long, curved wall of clear shielding separated it from the floor below. The shielding was made of the same dark material as the rest of the chamber, just tuned to let light through without letting force through. It was the only part of the room that did not disappear into the haze.
"It’s a force-dispersing material made from compressed Vitae," Daphne explained, not breaking her stride. "The entire sector is sealed off from the rest of the Capital’s structural grid. It’s very different from the other training facilities in the sector.
At your academy, students with the most destructive abilities have to constantly hold back to avoid cracking the foundations. Here, the architecture is built to absorb kinetic and energetic output completely."
Annalise nodded, stepping closer to Zaeryn. "It means you don’t have to worry about breaking anything. No holding back, no worrying about stray energy attacks vaporizing the room. This hall can handle two Lysaras fighting at their maximum powers without cracking the foundation. In fact, it’s where the most gifted students from the Lyceum come to train."
"Incredible, isn’t it?" Annalise murmured, watching his expression with evident satisfaction.
"It’s larger than it looks from the outside," Zaeryn noted, his voice sounding oddly focused in the immense space. "How does a space this big exist directly beneath the foundations without bringing the tower on top of it down?"
"Spatial dilation anchored by specialized Vitae weaving," Daphne answered, activating the room’s main console with a press of her palm. "The space itself expands dynamically based on the kinetic load detected. High Commander Lysara trains down here when she needs to stretch her abilities to their absolute limits. If she fought at full strength on the surface, she’d turn the city into a crater. Down here, she can let loose completely."
"Activate training perimeter," Daphne said, and the glowing lines across the floor answered her, shifting from a dull blue to a sharp, vibrant amber.
Far out in the center of the massive expanse, the air began to fracture and shimmer. Solid, hard-light constructs burst to life out of thin air, weaving together the terrifying, jagged silhouettes of an entire Vorthak swarm, complete with skittering limbs, armored carapace plates, and undulating energy conduits.
"The system can simulate authentic frontline data," Daphne said, watching the synthetic swarm pace the distant perimeter. "Every recorded frequency, every adaptive mutation the Vorthaks have ever deployed against us, can be generated here in real time. You can fight them at full lethality, and the room will absorb every ounce of the destruction."
Zaeryn looked at the simulated monsters, then back at the vast, open boundary of the hall. The residual energy of his newly ranked-up abilities thrummed beneath his skin, answering the raw potential of the room.
He could already tell he was going to enjoy being here. He wanted to start fighting the simulations right now, and some part of him recognized that this was exactly what he needed.
"Can I fight them now?" Zaeryn asked.
It struck him, even as he said it, how much had changed. There had been a time, not that long ago, when the idea of fighting anything had turned his stomach. Lately, though, getting stronger had become one of the only things that actually mattered. His life depended on it, every day he stayed in this world, and it would have been foolish to feel anything but eager for the chance to close that gap.
"Sure," Daphne said. "If you want to start, just give a voice command. Like this." She squared herself toward the open floor. "Activate combat simulation. Vorthak swarm. Tier 2, Class D. Single combatant."
The swarm in the distance shifted, splitting off a portion of itself, the constructs reorganizing with a speed that made the air ripple.
"They’re calibrated," Daphne said, glancing at him. "I made sure It’s a level you can handle. You won’t be in over your head, but you’ll have to actually work for it."
Zaeryn nodded and stepped forward onto the open floor.
A synthetic voice rolled out across the hall, even and unhurried. "Simulation initiating."
"Five."
"Four."
"Three."
"Two."
"One."
The Vorthaks broke formation in perfect synchronization, their skittering legs tearing up the packed ground as they lunged toward him.
Seeing the constructs hurtling toward him across the packed bedrock, Zaeryn felt a cold spike of unease tighten his throat.
They looked terrifyingly, uncomfortably real. The jagged hard-light carapaces gleamed with a predatory, insectoid sheen, and the fact that their undulating energy conduits pulsed with the exact, sickly hue of a real frontline invasion fleet didn’t make him feel any better.
His heart picked up its pace. He swallowed against a dry throat.
His system notification slid down to his vision.
»System Status: Threat Detected
»Target: Simulated Vorthak Swarm (Tier 2, Class D)
"I’ve got this," Zaeryn muttered to himself, grounding his heels into the dark soil.
He didn’t wait for the skittering horde to close the distance. He reached deep into the core of his newly assimilated abilities and triggered Kinetic Acceleration.