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  "···????."

  Aira lowered herself and closed her eyes.

  The cold of the stone floor touched her knee.

  She steadied her breathing once, then felt through the grain of the air.

  Mana was always a sensation of “flowing.”

  But this··· it’s pretending to flow.

  Pretending to be natural, laid on in a paper-thin layer.

  Her fingertips caught the wrongness at once.

  “This isn’t a locking spell. It’s closer to a barrier.”

  “What kind of barrier.”

  Ivela asked, clipped.

  Aira bit her lip slightly.

  Before answering, she swept the area again, as if listening.

  “Detection. If we move, the current follows.

  Someone might already be watching.”

  The instant she said it, her throat felt dry.

  In here, even a single word··· can’t be exposed.

  Ivela immediately pulled a small device from her pocket.

  A metal frame. A refined mana stone set inside.

  Palm-sized, but engraved with precise angles and patterns.

  Small and intricate, which meant expensive.

  “I prepared it. Just in case.”

  Click.

  No mechanical sound, only a shallow resonance.

  A thin vibration, like a passing breeze, spread along the wall.

  When that vibration touched the barrier’s flow, the waveform shifted slightly.

  It didn’t sever it completely.

  But an “exact view” could be blurred.

  If it changed from a clear image to a smudged kind of sensing··· a gap would appear.

  Ivela looked at Aira.

  “Aira. Can you disrupt it?”

  Aira opened her eyes slowly.

  Her gaze wavered for a moment, then locked in.

  “Not perfectly··· but enough to blur their sight.”

  Ivela nodded.

  Not hesitation, but a motion that hardened a decision.

  Her eyes were already calculating the next scene.

  The two of them lowered themselves at the same time.

  Not leaning on the wall, but “stuck” to it at the same height.

  So their clothes wouldn’t brush stone.

  So their toes wouldn’t scrape the floor.

  In the stillness, only tension rose.

  From here on, it starts.

  Ivela set the device on the floor.

  The instant it touched stone, the mana lines stretched through the air warped minutely.

  Part of the detection line lost direction and groped at nothing.

  Like someone rubbing their eyes, losing focus for a beat.

  “Aira. Now.”

  Aira held her breath and pressed close beside Ivela.

  Close enough to feel each other’s warmth.

  Her eyes sharpened.

  There was no room for jokes.

  “Priests··· there are two.

  Watching the upper left stairs.”

  “Distance?”

  “Close. Within ten steps.”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Ivela drew angles in her head.

  The height of the stairs. The shadow of the pillars.

  The overlap of their watch lines.

  The instant a blind spot formed.

  The cycle of the disruption wave.

  ‘Three seconds.

  It has to match the wave cycle.’

  One small hand signal.

  Aira gave the tiniest nod.

  They slid along the wall as if gliding.

  No footsteps.

  Even if there were, the temple swallowed them first.

  A drip of water falling somewhere in the ceiling,

  a faint residue of prayer seeping from afar,

  those sounds instead helped cover their movement.

  The priests’ gaze flicked once toward the disrupting device.

  One lifted a talisman and swept the area.

  His eyes moved fast, but out of habit.

  Not tension, more like “work.”

  “Just now··· didn’t something brush past?”

  The priest beside him murmured low.

  “Probably them experimenting downstairs again.

  Just watch our sector.”

  Unnecessary suspicion folded away.

  That single line seemed to explain the mood of this temple.

  Familiarity. Numbness. And “of course.”

  Ivela and Aira swallowed their breath in the shadow.

  Aira instinctively tightened her palm.

  Keeping the mana flow thinner, quieter.

  If it shows, it’s over.

  And again, they moved, very slowly.

  Then Aira flinched to a stop.

  The grain under her fingertips felt different.

  The mana ripple flowing along the wall wasn’t steady.

  The feeling of something hidden, and something layered on to hide it.

  Not one layer, but two.

  On the outside, the temple’s barrier. Inside, a different grain.

  Aira let a very faint light spread from her fingertips.

  She traced the wall’s rough surface, drawing out a thin stream of mana.

  Not a light, exactly··· more like a thread to find direction.

  She saw the intersection.

  Almost invisible to the eye, but mana “stuttered” there.

  A tiny gap where the flow broke once, then resumed.

  “···Here.”

  Ivela pulled a small amplification stone from her belt.

  When she held it near the pattern, a thin line reacted and lit.

  Concentric circles. Angles.

  Ancient markings.

  Too old, too blatant to be mixed into a temple.

  As if it had been left on purpose to say, “Here it is.”

  “Ivela, that···.”

  “A sealing sigil.”

  Ivela answered at once.

  “It feels like the ‘deep-structure barrier’ from the archives.”

  Aira set her palm on the sigil.

  The moment her mana touched quietly, a small vibration returned.

  Not “stone,” but the sense of something sleeping inside the stone reacting.

  The wall trembled.

  Like something exhaling.

  Like something pressed down for a very long time, finally stretching.

  As if stone were peeling away, a section of the wall opened into a slit.

  Dust drifted thinly.

  Beyond it, old dampness and a chilling smell pushed out in a single surge.

  Beyond that.

  A narrow, dark passage.

  Faded pieces of seal hung loosely,

  and beneath them, ancient script was carved.

  It couldn’t be read.

  But the meaning could be felt.

  ‘Do not enter.’

  ‘This is below.’

  Aira spoke softly.

  “···Is this really the right way.”

  Not fear, but confirmation.

  A question she had to ask once more··· to take a step.

  Ivela didn’t hesitate.

  “I’m not sure.”

  “But the sense that Rynel is that way is clear.”

  That wasn’t a hunch, it was close to certainty.

  Ivela’s eyes didn’t shake.

  Aira looked at them once, then nodded.

  They matched their breathing.

  And stepped into the darkness.

  The passage was narrower than expected, and sharply winding.

  They couldn’t pass without lowering their bodies.

  If a shoulder brushed the wall, stone dust smeared their clothes.

  The floor was uneven, with grooves that threatened to twist an ankle.

  Moisture grazed their skin.

  It smelled of mold.

  And mixed into it, something clearer.

  “···Blood.”

  Ivela said low.

  Aira’s eyes flickered.

  Her mouth went dry.

  But she didn’t stop.

  If she stops··· imagination moves first.

  And it always runs to the worst.

  Scratches marked the wall.

  Old scratches.

  Hasty scratches.

  Different “times” layered on the same surface.

  Some looked like fingernails.

  Others like the marks of being dragged.

  “Did someone··· come in here before?”

  When Aira asked quietly, Ivela answered at once.

  “They did.”

  Her voice was flat.

  “I don’t know if they walked back out.”

  Flat didn’t mean cold.

  Ivela’s flatness was··· how she hid what she felt.

  Her fingertips twitched once, then returned to normal.

  The floor was damp, and with every step, residue welled up.

  Not mana, but something like emotion clinging to mana.

  A sticky aftertaste that caught at their ankles.

  A stretch where the passage widened slightly.

  Through cracks in the wall, faint light and sound seeped in.

  Ivela signaled them to stop.

  They both lowered themselves at once.

  As if refusing to share breath, they inhaled thinly and exhaled thinly.

  Beyond the gap.

  “···The mana reaction in the experiment zone has risen sharply.”

  An unfamiliar man’s voice.

  Calm, but with an excited edge.

  Like a researcher waiting for good results.

  “It’s exceeding the control range.”

  A brief silence.

  Then, over that silence, a familiar cadence settled.

  “Good. Proceed as scheduled.”

  “There’s no reason to fear failure.”

  “This time··· we’re certain.”

  Ivela stopped breathing.

  That voice.

  The priest who had called Rynel “alone.”

  For an instant, even the look in his eyes returned.

  Acting kind, but looking at people like numbers.

  Ivela’s hand clenched into a fist on instinct.

  Tendons stood out along the back of it.

  Her nails dug into flesh hard enough to hurt.

  ‘Rynel··· hold on.’

  It didn’t become words.

  Instead, that feeling made their steps even quieter.

  Aira glanced once at Ivela’s fist, then looked away.

  Right now··· she couldn’t grab it.

  If she grabbed it, it would make a sound.

  They moved again.

  The destination wasn’t far.

  The density of voices and the stink of mana were drawing closer.

  Light grew clearer at the end of the passage,

  and human voices sharpened.

  And then.

  A very low vibration pulsed once from beneath the floor.

  It climbed through the soles of their feet, heavy up to the knees.

  As if··· something enormous inside was knocking on a door.

  Aira looked at Ivela.

  Ivela nodded.

  ‘This is it.’

  The two of them stepped deeper into the dark.

  ◇

  Rynel bent his knees.

  His breathing was rough.

  Fatigue hit first, and mana followed behind it.

  His wrists ached.

  His fingertips felt like they were losing sensation.

  But when he opened his hand, blue force still gathered.

  Not bursting like flame, but like a blade··· thin and straight.

  Even so, the blue light in his eyes didn’t go out.

  ‘It’s not over.’

  What he’d brought down felt too “light.”

  Not the weight of cutting through something living.

  Just··· breaking.

  Moving on command, then snapping.

  Every time he inhaled, the smell of blood lingered inside his throat.

  He couldn’t tell if it was his blood or someone else’s.

  Drops on the floor wet the tips of his feet.

  Rynel clenched his teeth and lifted his gaze.

  And only then did he feel it.

  This battle isn’t a fight to survive.

  It’s measurement.

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