The drift gate pulsed.
Lucen stood just behind Maika as the shimmer field expanded, light flickering across their legs. A wave of static ran over his skin, not painful, just enough to make every tiny hair stand at attention like it thought it was important.
The entry threshold buzzed.
No one moved.
Then Kell stepped forward with way too much confidence for someone who had literally been accused of stapling his gloves together.
Maika followed, practically bouncing. Rin moved third, silent, already pulling a thin dagger from her belt like she expected to need it before the first corner.
Lucen took one step in and felt it hit.
That drop.
That sudden quiet.
The kind of stillness that didn't come from sound dying, but from sound being pulled away. The moment the drift sealed behind them, the gate outside disappeared like a door slammed shut in his ears.
He blinked once.
Then again.
The Hollow Zone looked exactly like the picture.
Half-ruined corridor, cement cracked with creeping moss, long hallways lined with broken pipes and scorched sigils.
The air had a faint gray fog that curled near the ground like smoke pretending to behave.
The light came from nowhere. Just a dull ambient glow that couldn't decide if it was day or night.
'Creepy but manageable. I've seen worse. That jungle gate smelled like feet and wet cabbage.'
The system pinged once in the back of his vision.
[Zone Stabilized – Drift Active]
Threat Level: Low
Visibility Rating: Fluctuating
Passive Spell Interference: 11%
Entry Party Registered: 4
He dismissed it with a blink.
Kell rolled his shoulders. "We go slow. Left wall pathing. Maika, eyes on distortions. Rin, front sweep. I'll hold anchor."
Maika threw a mock salute. "Yes, General Elbow Pads."
Lucen opened his mouth to ask something. Didn't bother.
He just walked.
Let them have their formation.
He stayed a few paces behind Rin, not close enough to look involved, not far enough to make it obvious.
His eyes swept the ground.
There were no sigil traces yet. No shells or beast fragments. Just dust and a few drag marks near the far wall. Not fresh. Probably from a previous run.
Maika glanced back. "You good, Lucen?"
He nodded.
'Define good.'
They moved into the next hallway.
The space narrowed. A metal pipe groaned above them like it had personal issues. The fog shifted slightly, rising just enough to obscure the floor tiles.
Rin paused.
She pointed with her dagger at a dark shape half-submerged in the fog ahead.
Kell raised a hand. "Visual. Elemental?"
Maika leaned sideways and squinted. "Nah. That's a static root. They spawn curled up. Doesn't pulse."
Lucen looked closer.
It didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't blink.
Just a lump of something black and crusted with soot.
'Or it's pretending. Or it's one of those ones that waits for you to step on it so it can ruin your week.'
He pulled up his spell grid. Just the quick overlay.
[Unstable Kinetic Point] – Primed
[Gravitic Snap] – Manual trigger
[Tension Mark] – Delayed branch active
He primed the third.
Didn't cast.
Just let the glyph hover, small and flickering against his palm.
Rin stepped closer to the thing.
It still didn't move.
Lucen tilted his hand slightly.
Targeting line bent inward.
Then pulsed.
He whispered, "It's charged. Stationary. Let me test."
Kell raised an eyebrow but didn't stop him.
Lucen stepped forward, crouched low, and released the spell.
Tension Mark drifted out like a slow breath.
It struck the side of the lump. For a second, nothing happened.
Then the entire thing twitched.
Folded once.
Then cracked open with a wet sound like someone stepping on jelly in a leather bag.
The top half burst upward.
A black limb snapped toward Rin.
Lucen didn't wait.
"Back!"
She dropped low just in time. The arm scraped above her.
Kell lunged and drove a reinforced punch into its side. The creature hissed like burning oil. A second limb writhed out, missed Maika by inches.
Lucen fired Gravitic Snap into the floor near its base.
The pressure burst knocked the thing sideways, just far enough to make it lose balance.
It screeched.
Then fell apart into sludge.
Steam rose from where it hit the ground.
No drop.
No sigil.
Just goop.
Maika groaned. "That was disgusting."
Rin stood. "Could've gone worse."
Kell grunted. "Could've gone better."
Lucen watched the fog settle again.
His hand still glowed faintly.
'Spell held. Trigger landed. Target died. Nobody saw anything weird. That counts as a win.'
He stepped back without a word.
Kell turned to him. "Nice reaction time."
Lucen gave the smallest shrug he could manage. "Got lucky."
He turned away before anyone could ask what spell he used.
The hallway twisted left.
The fog followed them.
Not fast. Not aggressive. Just there. Thick and slow like it had somewhere to be but couldn't remember where.
Lucen walked third in line now. Not in the front, not trailing. The awkward spot where you were just close enough to hear everyone breathe but not close enough to pretend to be useful.
His boots made soft thuds on the ground. The concrete tiles had fine cracks in them, like spiderwebs hiding under dust.
Old spell residue clung to the walls in thin streaks. Someone had fought here once. Not recently.
Kell stepped through the next doorway and raised a hand again.
Maika whispered, "Intersection. Three splits. Left and right are dark. Middle's half-lit."
Lucen glanced over her shoulder. She wasn't wrong.
The hallway ahead flickered like a hallway in a cheap horror movie. Lights half-dead, flickering in soft blue. Every few seconds, one buzzed like it was trying to die louder than the rest.
Rin crouched near the middle hall. "There's movement."
Lucen didn't move forward.
He looked at the fog instead.
It curled around his boots, like before.
Then it shifted.
Only slightly. But toward him.
He frowned.
Took half a step left.
The fog moved with him.
Just a thin tendril. Barely more than vapor. But it followed like a shy cat that hadn't decided whether it liked him yet.
'That's new.'
He didn't say anything.
Just watched it for another second.
It faded a moment later. No trace. No sound. No ping.
The system didn't alert him either.
'Why would it? It doesn't even know what this crap is.'
Maika whispered again. "Should we scout?"
Kell nodded. "We take middle. I'll push forward. Rin on his right. You two cover the rear angles."
Lucen stayed where he was.
Let them move ahead.
He brought his system window up again. Not the spell slots this time.
Just the general system log.
There it was. A faint line of code he hadn't seen before.
[Environmental Behavior Sync – Partial]
Arcane Ash Drift Detected
Passive Stimulus: Trace Reading Active
Observation: Unknown Entity Tracking Flux Signatures
Lucen squinted.
Then blinked.
'Okay. First of all, what the hell is a flux signature. Second, why is the system logging something that didn't even ping in real time?'
He tapped the log. It just faded into the archive. No warning. No prompt. No details.
He checked his mana pool.
Still full.
Spells still primed.
Passive field quiet.
'So it's not damaging. Not draining. Just… watching?'
He looked at the fog again.
It didn't move this time.
But now he couldn't unsee the way it curled near the corners. Not random. Not chaotic. More like it was brushing against the walls on purpose. Like it was feeling them.