The floor didn't collapse all at once.
It parted.
Stone folded inward in wide, deliberate plates, opening a descending path that spiraled down into heat and shadow. Not a pit. Not a fall.
A passage.
Those who had weapons felt it first—the pull. A subtle pressure behind the sternum, like gravity choosing a direction.
Caelum stood at the edge of the descent, Red Amendment held low at his side. The blade no longer screamed. It listened.
Behind him, chaos thinned into survivors.
Not many.
The first to step beside him did so without hesitation.
She moved quietly, posture relaxed but alert, blood drying dark along her forearms. Her weapon—a slim, narrow blade—rested against her shoulder as if it weighed nothing.
She didn't look at him.
She looked down.
"Floor One was mercy," she said.
Her voice was calm. Flat. Not numb—measured.
Caelum glanced at her throat.
A thin black mark curved just beneath her jawline, elegant and deliberate, like it had always belonged there.
"Mireya," she added, finally meeting his eyes. "If we're moving, we move now."
She descended first.
The second didn't follow immediately.
Heavy footsteps approached instead—slow, uneven.
A man twice Caelum's width stopped near the opening, leaning heavily on a massive weapon that looked more like a slab of iron than a blade. Blood seeped through fresh markings along his ribs, each breath visibly painful.
He grinned anyway.
"Well," he said, coughing red onto the stone, "that was unpleasant."
Caelum watched him carefully.
The man noticed.
"Aurelian," he said. "And before you ask—yes. It hurt. No. I don't regret it."
His tattoo burned across his chest in jagged lines, still angry, still fresh. He rolled his shoulder, winced, then stepped onto the path without another word.
A smaller figure lingered at the edge.
She hadn't killed openly. Caelum had noticed that. Had noticed how others around her died instead.
She knelt briefly near the descent, fingers brushing the stone as if listening.
"This place punishes greed," she murmured. "And noise."
She stood, eyes sharp.
"Ysara."
Her mark traced delicate symbols along her wrist, half-hidden beneath dried blood. She smiled faintly—not kind, not cruel.
Curious.
The fourth came with authority rather than strength.
She didn't rush. Didn't hesitate. When she arrived at the opening, others unconsciously stepped aside.
She surveyed the descent, the survivors, the blood.
"Formation," she said calmly.
And people listened.
Seraphine's tattoo burned up the side of her neck, stark and visible. She didn't touch it. Didn't react to the pain.
"Stay close," she added. "Hell separates the slow thinkers first."
She descended without waiting for agreement.
The last almost didn't make it.
A man knelt near the edge, hands shaking as he gathered scattered ritual tools from the stone—small charms, broken metal, a cracked censer.
He looked up at Caelum, eyes hollow but steady.
"I'm Iscahrel," he said quietly. "I don't fight well."
He hesitated.
"But I endure."
His tattoo glowed faintly beneath his collarbone, incomplete, as if still deciding what it wanted to be.
Caelum nodded once.
That was enough.
They descended together.
The passage sealed behind them with a sound like a breath released.
Below, the air thickened. The walls widened. Corridors branched into plazas, stairways, dead ends—a floor meant to be lost in.
No enemies yet.
No voice.
Just distance.
And for the first time since waking—
Time.
They stopped in a wide chamber where sound died unnaturally, a Quiet Zone carved into the stone like an afterthought.
No one spoke at first.
Aurelian sat heavily, armor beginning to form in jagged plates along his shoulders. Mireya cleaned her blade. Ysara watched the corridors. Seraphine studied the walls.
Caelum leaned Red Amendment against the stone and exhaled.
This was no longer a crowd.
It was a group.
And Floor Two hadn't even started teaching yet.