The shaking didn't stop.
Instead, it grew worse. Each beat of the ground came slower, heavier, as if the Fork itself was a giant heart struggling to keep up with some ancient rhythm. Dust rained steadily from the cavern roof, falling in soft gray sheets that made the air thick and gritty.
The shadows didn't move like normal shadows anymore. They snapped and bent in sharp, broken ways, sliding across the walls as if the stone itself was splitting apart from the inside.
Kaito's hand tightened on his sword until his knuckles popped. He could feel it—this was no ordinary quake. The Abyssal Root wasn't sleeping anymore. It was forcing itself awake, every pulse of the ground like a drowned creature taking in its first desperate breath after centuries beneath the surface.
"Too late," Nyra whispered. Her voice didn't tremble from fear—fear was too small for this moment—but from recognition, as though a part of her already knew what would come. "It heard us."
