  Discretized landscapes can be mapped onto ranked surfaces, where every
element (site or bond) has a unique rank associated with its corresponding
relative height. By sequentially allocating these elements according to their
ranks and systematically preventing the occupation of bridges, namely elements
that, if occupied, would provide global connectivity, we disclose that bridges
hide a new tricritical point at an occupation fraction $p=p_{c}$, where $p_{c}$
is the percolation threshold of random percolation. For any value of $p$ in the
interval $p_{c}< p \leq 1$, our results show that the set of bridges has a
fractal dimension $d_{BB} \approx 1.22$ in two dimensions. In the limit $p
\rightarrow 1$, a self-similar fracture is revealed as a singly connected line
that divides the system in two domains. We then unveil how several seemingly
unrelated physical models tumble into the same universality class and also
present results for higher dimensions.
