Zeus felt the route die before anyone named it.
The blackout fog had given them cover for a while, thick enough to scatter residual trail and thin enough to move through if they stayed careful. That balance broke at the next junction, the left cut sealed with fresh recovery law, the right cut carrying denser pressure than it had an hour earlier. Straight ahead, the fog itself felt narrowed, as if someone had started folding the usable space shut around them.
Wukong was the first to stop, tapping his staff once against the floor. "This path is finished. They are not chasing blind anymore. They are closing doors."
Athena stepped up beside him to watch the sealed left cut, jaw tight. "Sera's people learned from the last break. If we hit that seal head-on, we announce ourselves to every recovery line in range."
Poseidon wiped fog moisture from his face, looking back the way they had come. "Then we go back and take a different branch before the net finishes the circle."
