They moved deeper into the zone, and the silence grew strange.
Not thicker. Not louder. Just… wrong. The deeper they went, the more the silence listened back. Every footstep felt like a question. Every breath like an announcement.
Varik walked ahead with the calm precision of someone who had cleared dozens of forbidden corridors just like this. He didn't look nervous. But he didn't speak either. And Lucen had learned to recognize when silence meant calculation.
He didn't break it.
Instead, Lucen walked in measured paces behind him, hands flexing occasionally, tracing spell-lines against the palm of his glove. His system whispered quietly behind his eyes.
[Mana: 84 / 120]
[Thread Drift: Saturated]
[Zone Influence: Active / Unknown Class]
[New Environmental Tag Detected: Signature Sync — Variant Response]
He frowned slightly.
That wasn't a warning. It was a reaction. Something in the zone had registered him—not his level, not his false class display. Him.
