Following Leo down the chosen tunnel, Ethan felt a deep, lingering sense of absurdity settle over him. He was putting his faith in a superstitious trinket inside a video game, and not even a particularly reputable one at that. Still, they had no better leads. At worst, it would turn out to be a dead end and they would retrace their steps, bruised pride included.
This passage was immediately different from the others. It was brighter, almost painfully so, yet the oppressive force that had followed them through the tomb did not lessen. Instead, it grew heavier. Ethan's perception, the in-game reflection of his real-world Soul Sense, shrank violently, compressed into a suffocating bubble barely a meter around his body. This place did not merely suppress perception. It throttled it, as if intent on crushing any awareness that dared intrude.
