The chamber erupted into chaos as every shattered fragment across the floor flared to life at once, dozens of fractured presences tearing loose from three centuries of silence, and the first thing they did was turn on everyone in the room, not just the Warden.
"Get down," Xu shouted, and Wei Liang barely wrenched his hand back from the fragment in time to avoid a lash of raw, formless qi that tore a gouge into the stone where he'd been kneeling.
"They're not allies," Xu said, urgent and horrified. "I warned you. Centuries of fragmentary imprisonment doesn't leave anything stable enough to reach for. They're not fighting for us. They're just fighting, mindless, furious, at everything alive in this room."
The Warden herself staggered back from a wave of the same chaotic energy, genuine al
