The path did not feel like a path. It felt like a conclusion that had already been written.
Aurelion walked at the front, his pace steady, his posture unchanged, but the difference lay in what followed him. The system was no longer behind them, no longer around them in the passive sense it had held before. It moved with them now, every step acknowledged, every shift of motion integrated into something larger than the space they occupied.
Sally stayed close, her presence sharp, grounded, resisting something she could not fully name but clearly felt. Her instincts, honed through every layer they had crossed, told her this was not a continuation of what they had faced before.
This was something else entirely.
