The ground continued to breathe.
Each exhale was slow, deliberate, heavy enough to vibrate through bone. Dust fell from the edges of nearby roofs, drifting downward like ash after a distant fire.
The substitute had stepped back, but it had not withdrawn.
It stood at the edge of the square, body flickering—no longer trying to stabilize into one form. Faces surfaced and dissolved across it in fragments: a jawline, an eye, a familiar scar. None stayed long enough to be whole.
NULL had changed tactics.
Eiran lowered his weapon slightly, but did not relax.
"Everyone," he said, voice measured, "we are moving. Do not run. Do not speak. If something blocks your path, you walk around it. If it calls your name, you pretend you never had one."
Karsen swallowed hard but nodded.
They moved.
The square resisted them—not physically, but psychologically. Every step forward felt like stepping away from something unfinished. The kind of discomfort that made people turn back just to confirm they had not missed a scream.
The substitute followed.
Not close. Not far.
Always at the same distance.
"Leader," it said again—this time using Eiran's voice.
Perfect cadence. Perfect tone.
One of the rookies stumbled.
Eiran caught him by the shoulder before he could fall.
The substitute stopped walking.
Its head lifted.
"That's inefficient," it said. "You lose less people if you don't slow down."
The words were clean. Logical. Almost reasonable.
Eiran did not look at it.
"Keep moving," he said to the others.
"But it's right," the rookie whispered. "If you hadn't stopped for the swordsman—"
Eiran tightened his grip.
"If I hadn't stopped," he said quietly, "you wouldn't be here to finish that sentence."
The substitute tilted its head again.
"You see?" it said. "They listen to you even when it costs them."
The breathing beneath the ground deepened.
SYSTEM NOTICE: FLOOR 11 — PRESSURE SCALING
TARGET VARIABLE: COMMAND RELIANCE
Karsen's hands shook.
"So what," he asked hoarsely, "it's trying to… exhaust you?"
Eiran nodded once.
"Leadership takes attention. Attention takes endurance. NULL doesn't need to kill everyone."
He glanced back for the first time.
The substitute's surface rippled in anticipation.
"It just needs to make me choose wrong once."
The alley ahead narrowed sharply.
No reflections. No windows.
A passage where sound went to die.
Eiran guided them into it without hesitation.
Behind them, the square groaned—as if disappointed.
As if something vast had wanted to watch him break more slowly.
The substitute did not follow immediately.
Instead, it spoke one last time, voice carrying unnaturally far.
"When you fall," it said, "I will lead them better."
Eiran did not respond.
He had already learned the truth NULL was circling.
The tower did not want him dead yet.
It wanted to see how many people it could make him carry—until leadership itself became the thing that crushed him.