Splitting the Group

The campfire had long since burned down to embers, and the glow of dawn was beginning to bleed across the horizon. The morning carried an eerie stillness, a false calm that only heightened the weight of the decisions we’d made. We had uncovered the puppeteer’s plan to destabilize the virtual realm, but stopping him meant splitting up—scattering what little hope we had across different directions, each route filled with its own perils.

I ran the plan over and over in my mind, searching for weaknesses. Victor, Aria, Eve, Felix, Sasha—each of them would lead a team to one of the five key locations. The temples tied to the core had to be defended. I would take the path to the core itself. The visions had shown me that this would be where everything ends, but I didn’t know what awaited me there—or any of us, for that matter.