The room felt too heavy for a Vienna morning.I stood by the window, fingers resting on the spot over my chest.
That strange pull was back again.Not pain.Not pressure.More like someone tapping on the compass inside mefrom an impossibly long distance.
Emilia spread out the map on the table.Points lit up one by one.
"Try sensing again," she said, voice steady but never relaxing.
I closed my eyes.
The Source didn't flare—it leaned.Like a magnet catching on a direction too far to fully picture.
Not the station.Not the city center.
Something outside the city.
A line stretched quietly through the back of my mind.
I pointed at the map."This direction. Far. Feels like… outside the grid."
Emilia didn't jump to conclusions.She pulled out ARC's regional energy diagram,three reference markers labeled A, B, C.
"Turn toward A."
I faced the door.Nothing. No reaction.
"B."
I turned east.A tiny flick—like the Source saying no, not that one.
"Last one. C."
I faced southwest.
The pull snapped into place.Not violent.Just extremely clear.
Emilia paused two seconds.Not because she was shocked—but because she had already expected this answer.
"Direction confirmed," she said, tapping the map.
Neusiedler See.Lakeside. Wetlands. Forest.The exact place she'd marked as a potential outbreak zone.
My throat dried a little.I wasn't sure if it was fear, or something even worse—recognition.
"So we're going there?" I asked.
Emilia folded the map with a decisive motion.A decision, and a warning.
"Not just us," she said, glancing out the window."The energy readings jumped too sharply.ARC will move.Abyssal entities may move.And Recovery Division… if they haven't already."
I looked outside.
Everything appeared normal—tourists taking photos,coffee drifting in the air,trams clicking past the intersection.
But the pull in my chest wouldn't fade.
Maybe I wasn't being dragged there.Maybe…
that place was calling me.
And that thought was far more unsettling than the anomaly itself.