On the other side of the field, units 007 and 008 were in a heated confrontation. "I will always be on top, ensuring that you will always be at the bottom, serving as the stairs for us!" sneered Subject 023 (Bagas), a thin line between pride and hatred etched across his face. "They are lower than stairs; they are the floor," added Subject 032 (Kira, leader of unit 007), as he deliberately stepped on the hand of a unit 008 member.

  Crack, like shattering glass.

  "Arghhh..." whimpered Subject 033 (Wawa, unit 10), his voice soft and small, suppressed like a woman's. Jep (leader of unit 008, subject 011) stood up and shoved Kira, the spiky-haired leader of unit 007. However, someone blocked him—Subject 026 (Dede, Unit 007), a square-headed young man with a perpetually stern face.

  Kira didn't just spit; he twisted the tip of his boot over Wawa’s bruised wound, as if extinguishing a cigarette butt on raw flesh. "Listen, Subject 011," Kira whispered coldly to Jep, "The world is no place for good people. Here, if you don't become the footing, you become the filth."

  Bagas laughed discordantly behind him, deliberately kicking pebbles at Wawa's helpless face. In that moment, the silence on the field felt sickening—not because of the sounds of blows, but because the rest of Unit 008 stood frozen, as if their souls had been forcibly ripped from their bodies.

  Watching Wawa groan with a pleading gaze at Kira, Jep screamed, "Why are you bothering us?" He rebelled, but Dede held him back.

  "Seeing Subject 033 still here, I feel insulted. How could there be a unit like him? Effeminate, weak, a disgrace to human dignity here!" Kira declared, lifting his foot and spitting on Wawa's bruised and bleeding hand.

  "I will never forgive you!" Jep roared, seeing the tears streaming down his member's face. Meanwhile, the other members of unit 008—subjects 029, 044, and 045—had trembling eyes, their bodies standing still like NPCs.

  "What?" Kira asked. Bagas approached the helpless Jep. A blow landed on Jep’s body.

  Two muffled thuds—Thump! Thump!—sliced through the cold air of the field, vibrating through the ground until they reached the ears of Unit 009. Those sounds weren't just noise; they were signs that in another corner, someone's dignity was being dragged into the dirt.

  "Does that mean we have to keep running without stopping?" Nugia asked innocently. "No!" Zilla looked down resignedly. "Listen, Nugia! What I mean by running is that we must be one step ahead of everyone in everything!" Zilla explained. Nugia pondered, looking at Reyna. "Reyna? What's wrong? Are your hands shaking? Does it hurt?" Nugia noticed Reyna clenching her fists.

  Meyra stood before Nugia. "You! Always diverting the conversation with your innocent tone, as if you're blameless!" Meyra barked.

  "Her..." Reyna’s mind screamed.

  Suddenly, Reyna stood up, prompting them all to stand and look toward the oppressed Unit 008.

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  "Stop it!" Zilla shouted.

  A deathly silence instantly blanketed the field, as if Zilla's shout had just severed the vein of Kira's wicked laughter. Kira slowly lifted his head, smoothing his sweaty, spiky hair, and glared at Unit 009 with a belittling gaze as if looking at an insect trying to bite his boot. Beside him, Bagas stopped laughing, his face hardening while Reyna’s trembling fists began to rise—no longer out of fear, but out of a rage that had reached its peak. "Oh, look who’s trying to be a hero," Kira mocked as he slowly stepped away from Jep’s limp body, leaving traces of dirt and blood on the floor he claimed as his dignity. "Units 00 N and 1 N, who don’t even know how to run... trying to teach us how to behave?"

  Meyra stood up, her ears straining and her pale complexion turning crimson; the words "1 Newton" were now her pride. She charged forward, but suddenly Reyna stepped ahead, lunging at them before she could.

  Reyna did not launch with a scream; she charged in a lethal silence, like a shadow that suddenly possessed solid mass. Before Kira could pull his foot away from Wawa's hand, Reyna's knee had already driven into the pit of the Unit 007 leader's stomach, cutting off Kira's breath in his throat with a choked ugh. Kira's body was thrown backward, dragging across the cold dust of the field, while Reyna stood tall in front of the trembling Wawa, her usually dull eyes now burning with a predatory aura that instantly silenced Bagas's laughter. Behind her, Meyra and Zilla moved in sync—no longer as losers who ran, but as a single unit ready to tear apart the dignity of anyone who dared to trample on their pride.

  The dust of the field, which had been still, now danced wildly, kicked up by the shockwave of Reyna’s sudden, near-invisible lunge. The atmosphere in Sector 7, usually filled only with the monotonous thud of running shoes, instantly transformed into a chilling arena of retribution. Kira coughed violently, a hoarse sound escaping his throat as he struggled to gasp for the oxygen that seemed to have vanished from his lungs due to the impact of Reyna’s precision knee strike to his solar plexus. Bagas and Dede were paralyzed; the arrogance that once adorned their faces crumbled instantly upon seeing the "fragile one" from Unit 009 move with the speed of a bloodthirsty predator.

  "You... how dare you!" Bagas (023) roared, throwing a raw, rage-filled punch at Reyna. However, before his fist could hit the target, a steel-like grip stopped him mid-air. Meyra (012) stood on firm legs, holding Bagas’s arm as if it were a dry twig. Her white face was now flushed deep red with overflowing anger. "What did you say earlier? The floor?" Meyra hissed, her eyes flashing sharply. "Then, let’s see how hard this floor hits your face when gravity takes back your dignity!"

  On the other side, Zilla took a tactical position beside the still-wincing Wawa, her gaze locking onto a hesitating Dede. However, the field's center of gravity shifted to Nugia. He stepped forward calmly, passing his teammates with a suddenly cold aura. Nugia's usually innocent eyes now displayed a faint blue glow—a remnant of a past memory triggered by the injustice before him. As Kira tried to stand and attack with his remaining strength, Nugia moved faster. With reflexes honed in the Slashing Test, he caught Kira's wrist, squeezing with a force that made the Unit 007 leader's bones feel as if they were trapped in a steel vice. "Kira," Nugia whispered lowly, his voice more terrifying than any scream. "You said earlier that this world is a place to tread or be trodden upon, right? Then today, you learn to be the floor."

  Bagas (023) felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. As he stared into Nugia's eyes, he saw no humanity there—only a cold blue glow, like a cutting laser ready to cleave through his soul. Meyra’s grip on his arm grew stronger, but it was Nugia's gaze that paralyzed him.

  "Dede! Help me!" Bagas screamed, his voice breaking, but Dede (026) didn't move; he was frozen, watching Reyna, who now stood in a low stance, ready to lunge at anyone who blinked.

  Amidst that silence, Jep (011) began to crawl up. With trembling hands, he grabbed the collar of one of the Unit 007 members. "You said we were the floor?" Jep’s voice was hoarse, a mix of blood and rage. "Then feel how this floor swallows you!"

  A single punch from Jep landed squarely on the jaw of a 007 member, serving as the signal that Unit 008 was no longer staying quiet. The field erupted into a mass brawl, yet Unit 009 stood in the center of it like calm gods of death.

  The silence that followed Kira's fall was not a sign of peace, but a silent warning creeping through the frozen concrete. In this world that had long since lost its human axis, acts of heroism were merely dangerous anomalies—a spark in a powder keg just waiting to explode. Unit 009 may have reclaimed their dignity, but they forgot that in a place where every breath is counted as an asset, showing one's fangs means inviting a more calculated death. Heroes are not needed in a frozen world; they are merely seen as disturbances in a coordinate system that has long been stable in fear.

  For the monitors standing behind the dark glass of the control towers, Reyna’s actions and the blue glow of Nugia’s eyes were not a moral awakening, but the emergence of prey far more interesting to study. True predators do not stop because they see a sheep suddenly bite back; they will instead lurk with a new hunger, preparing a crueler game to test just how long this "special" prey can survive. Under the red skies of Sector 7, today’s victory is merely bait, and Unit 009 has just surrendered themselves into a radar of a hunt that will never end.