Later that morning, the others gathered for their usual training rotation. Varik insisted they keep routine, "Discipline is what keeps you sane when the world starts bending."

Lucen didn't argue. He stood off to the side, arms crossed, watching as Rynn sparred with Kale. Her arrows bent midair now, curving unnaturally, as if guided by invisible lines.

Lucen's eyes narrowed. 'That's not her doing. That's the Node.'

Across the field, Garrik was lifting his shield again and again, slower this time. The gravity ripple from his anomaly was thicker, heavier. Each slam against the training dummy cracked the ground beneath his feet.

Varik noticed too. "They're amplifying."

Lucen nodded. "Not by choice."

Rynn's next shot shattered mid-flight, spraying shards of light. She cursed, lowering her bow. "The air's wrong. My aim's bending even when I account for the wind."

Kale reappeared beside her, his usual calm fractured by unease. "It's not just you. My phasing's dragging. Feels like there's… pressure between dimensions."

Lucen exhaled slowly. "Yeah. The Node's leaking."

They turned toward him.

"What do you mean?" Rynn asked.

He pointed toward the ocean. "It's not contained anymore. It's syncing with us, our mana signatures, our anomalies. It's copying and feeding energy through the air."

Varik's expression didn't change, but his hand settled lightly on his sword's hilt. "Then we stabilize it before it stabilizes us."

Lucen gave a humorless smile. "That's one way to phrase an exorcism."

By midday, they were descending again, not to the pit this time, but to the cliffs below where the ocean veins met the rock. The glow there was stronger, spilling from cracks like liquid light.

The sound of it was worse than the sight, a low, droning hum that made teeth ache.

Rynn grimaced. "Feels like it's under the skin."

Lucen crouched near one of the fissures, tracing the air just above it. Mana bled through his fingertips, reacting to the resonance. His system flickered.

[Environmental Hazard Detected: Unstable Abyssal Resonance.]

[Synchronization Rate: 12% … 13% … 14%…]

He hissed under his breath and pulled back. The hum in his veins spiked.

Varik's voice cut through the noise. "Lucen."

"Yeah, yeah," Lucen muttered, standing. "It's fine."

"It's not fine," Varik said evenly. "You're doing something with it again."

Lucen forced a grin. "Maybe it just likes me."

The older man didn't smile. "That's what worries me."

The hum deepened.

Then the light changed.

What had been a steady blue pulse flared bright, white-hot, before snapping inward, like a heartbeat contracting too hard. The ground vibrated beneath them.

"Move!" Varik barked.

The cliff edge split open. A geyser of light erupted upward, blinding and sharp. Lucen shielded his eyes as the world trembled.

When the light faded, a figure stood where the fissure had been.

It wasn't a monster, not exactly. More like a shape of condensed mana, humanoid but translucent, its body rippling with streaks of blue and black. Its face was smooth, eyeless. But when it turned its head toward Lucen, the hum in his chest synced perfectly with it.

'Oh, hell,' Lucen thought. 'That's me again.'

Varik's sword was already drawn. Rynn raised her bow.

Lucen lifted a hand. "Wait."

Varik didn't lower his blade. "That thing is part of the Node."

"I know." Lucen took a step forward. "But it's not attacking."

The figure tilted its head, the same gesture his abyssal shadow used to make. Then, in a sound like fractured glass, it spoke.

"You carry what we buried."

Rynn took a step back. Kale's dagger flickered in his hand.

Lucen exhaled slowly. "Yeah. We've covered that."

The figure raised a hand, pointing directly at his chest. "Return it."

Lucen blinked. "What?"

"Return it, or the island falls."

Varik's grip tightened on his sword. "Lucen."

Lucen's jaw flexed. "If I knew how, I would."

The figure's form wavered, its voice turning fragmented. "You are the vessel. The door. The mistake."

And then it lunged.

Varik met it mid-stride, blade flashing. The impact didn't sound like metal against flesh, it was like striking a bell. The shockwave hurled dust and seawater skyward.

Lucen staggered back, eyes wide. The figure moved fast, too fast, weaving between strikes, each step leaving ripples in the ground.

Rynn fired, arrows bursting into blue light as they struck, but the thing just reformed, unbothered.

Lucen's mana flared instinctively. He could feel the Node's pulse inside him now, matching every heartbeat.

Varik blocked another strike, boots sliding back through sand. "Lucen!"

"I know!"

He raised his hand. [Nullbind Grasp.]

Abyssal tendrils erupted from the ground, coiling around the figure's limbs. It struggled, briefly, before shattering through them, sending shards of black energy in every direction.

Lucen grit his teeth. "Figures."

Then, suddenly, the figure stopped. Its head turned, body flickering like unstable light. Its voice came again, softer this time.

"Return… or drown."

And it collapsed, not into dust, but into water. It hit the ground, melting into the fissure, vanishing beneath the surface.

Silence followed. The hum in the air eased slightly.

Lucen stood there, breathing hard, hands trembling faintly.

Rynn lowered her bow. "What the hell was that?"

Varik's eyes stayed on Lucen. "A warning."

Lucen's laugh was quiet, but it didn't sound amused. "Yeah. And I think we just ran out of time."

Night fell faster that day. The ocean no longer glowed blue. It pulsed red now, faint but steady, like a wound starting to bleed.

And in the dark, the Node whispered again, just at the edge of Lucen's hearing.

Return it…

He didn't sleep.

He just sat there on the shore, watching the light flicker beneath the waves, knowing something had started that he couldn't stop yet.

—

The morning fog clung to the island like a veil. The air had changed overnight, heavier somehow, tasting faintly metallic, the kind of stillness that made even the sea forget to move.

Lucen stood at the edge of the crater. The others hung back, silent, their breaths clouding faintly in the cool dawn.

What had once been a smooth stretch of rock now yawned open into a hollow throat of shadow. The Node pulsed below, faintly visible in the depths, an organ of light buried in a body of darkness.

Varik adjusted the strap of his blade and looked over. "You sure you're stable enough for this?"

Lucen smirked. "Define stable."

"That's what I was afraid of," Varik muttered, but he didn't press it.

Rynn crouched beside the rim, peering down. "It's not just mana. It's distortion. The kind that messes with perception."

"Guess we'll see how bad it gets," Lucen said. He rolled his shoulders, exhaled once, and stepped forward.

The descent began.

—

The air changed immediately.

It wasn't cold, not exactly, but it felt wrong, like the atmosphere itself was too dense to breathe. The further they went, the darker it grew, but the light didn't fade evenly. The walls seemed to shift, bending and stretching, moving when no one was watching.

Rynn whispered, "I'm seeing double edges. The cave keeps—"

"Don't focus," Varik said sharply. "Anchor your vision. The distortion feeds on attention."

Lucen chuckled under his breath. "So basically, ignore the nightmare. Got it."

They continued, step by step. The rock underfoot wasn't just stone anymore, it pulsed faintly, almost like a heartbeat echoing through the ground.

Mana signatures warped with every few meters, the readings on Rynn's scanner glitching and resetting until she finally gave up and shoved it into her pack.

At about thirty meters down, the first whisper came.

Lucen froze mid-step.

It wasn't sound exactly, more like a vibration that crawled along his skin, threading through his mind.

"…Lucen…"

His eyes flicked to the others, nothing. Varik was scanning the corridor ahead, expression tight. Rynn was focused on her bowstring.

No one else heard it.

Lucen inhaled slowly, letting his hand drift toward his dagger. 'Not real. Just the Node poking around. It wants attention.'

Still, he couldn't help glancing back into the dark behind them.

There was movement there.

He didn't mention it.

—

When they reached the first chamber, it became clear this wasn't natural at all.

The space opened wide, circular, like a cathedral carved from obsidian. Floating shards of light drifted in the air, crystals suspended midair, glowing faintly blue, casting long slashes of illumination across the walls. Runes flickered between them in slow rotation, almost like a heartbeat.

Rynn's voice was barely a whisper. "This is… older than the Association's records."

Varik nodded once. "A precursor Node."

Lucen frowned. "As in, built before dungeons started showing up?"

"Before humans had a name for them," Varik said.

They moved carefully into the center. The mana was oppressive now, dense enough that even breathing took effort.

Lucen knelt, brushing his fingers against one of the runes on the floor. It pulsed faintly beneath his touch, warm, almost gentle.

Then it changed.

The pulse quickened. The air crackled.

Varik's voice snapped out: "Step back!"

Lucen moved on instinct, throwing himself backward as the entire rune circle ignited. The walls shuddered, mana flaring up in a spiral that raced toward the ceiling. For a split second, the entire chamber lit up in brilliant white—

—and then the light collapsed inward.

The space twisted, and suddenly they weren't in the same chamber.

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