The road did not stay a road.
It never could.
By nightfall, the line Wu An had carved into reality began to fray. At first it was only a shimmer along its edges, like heat rising off stone. Then the ground beside it softened. Then it forgot which side it was meant to belong to.
A district on the northern fringe of Ling An began to sink.
Not collapse.
Sink.
Houses tilted. Wells elongated. People ran and found themselves running in place. A mother reached for her child and grasped air that had learned how to bend away.
No screams carried far.
The Presence did not move.
Wu An felt it immediately.
Not guilt.
Cost.
By the time Black Tigers reached the district, fifty-three people were missing.
Not dead.
Gone.
Wu Jin received the report in silence, fingers trembling as he read the names.
"They trusted us," he said quietly.
Across the city, Zhou observers recorded everything.
They did not intervene.
They marked the boundary of distortion, the rate of disappearance, the way stone behaved differently from flesh. They sent sacrificial teams of condemned prisoners forward and watched how the road unmade them.
"Range confirmed," a Zhou officer noted calmly. "Selective. Non-universal."
Wu An stood at the edge of the sinking street, Shen Yue beside him.
He could feel the being inside him align again—not toward remorse, not toward denial.
Toward containment.
"I can stabilize it," he said.
Shen Yue didn't answer.
Her eyes were on the empty spaces where people had been.
"An," she said softly, "did you know this would happen?"
"No."
The truth felt thin even as he said it.
"But you thought it might," she replied.
Wu An hesitated.
That was answer enough.
That night, she did not sleep beside him.
Not as a statement.
As a necessity.
In the tower, Wu Shuang walked through rooms that no longer held shadows. She was efficient, unhurried, and increasingly distant from the shape of a human. Zhou and Southern agents disappeared not because she hunted them, but because they were no longer compatible with the city.
The Lord Protector watched her pass without speaking.
For the first time in his life, he felt surplus to requirements.
Zhou adapted.
They sent scouts closer. Not to attack—but to test where the Presence's influence weakened. They discovered certain materials resisted distortion. Certain prayers dampened it. Certain patterns—old ones—made the air stiffen.
Wu An learned this through Liao Yun's intercepted reports.
"They're mapping you," Liao Yun said quietly. "Not fearing you."
Wu An nodded.
He had expected nothing else.
But Shen Yue's absence felt heavier than Zhou's encroachment.
When she finally returned, her voice was gentle, careful, almost diplomatic.
"I've moved some people out of the affected districts," she said. "Quietly."
"Good," Wu An replied.
"I didn't tell you first."
Wu An looked up.
Their eyes met.
"I couldn't," she added. "Not anymore."
Something in Wu An shifted—not violently, not loudly.
Alone.
That was the word.
For the first time since the Presence arrived, Wu An felt it.
Not because of the city.
Because of her.
The being inside him did not react.
It did not care.
And that was what frightened him most.
Above Ling An, Zhou's campfires burned steadily, closer now, disciplined and unafraid.
The road was learning.
The Presence was charging interest.
And Wu An, standing between power and the people it was devouring, realized something he had not expected:
He was no longer feared.
He was avoided.
And that was how gods lost their humanity long before they lost their thrones.