Maldrick changed his approach.
He stopped firing individual fields at a moving target. Instead he began laying fields into the arena floor itself—not directed at Tyke's body, directed at sections of the stone, the gravity pressure increasing in specific zones across the floor, creating areas where the ambient gravity was higher than everywhere else.
Not invisible once Tyke stepped into them.
The floor didn't change visually—no shimmer, no indicator—but the weight that arrived the moment a foot crossed into a high-gravity zone was immediate and unmistakable. Tyke crossed the edge of the first one mid-stride and the step that should have covered two feet covered eight inches, his momentum dropping like a stone, his body suddenly operating under three times its own weight.
He snapped back.
But the tagged position was inside a second gravity zone Maldrick had laid while Tyke was moving.
Tyke reappeared in the tagged position—directly inside the gravity field.
