There was no impact.
Eiran had learned to expect pain when falling. Sudden deceleration. Crushed lungs. Fractured bones. NULL denied him even that certainty.
They landed standing.
Stone stretched beneath their feet—smooth, dark, seamless. The corridor was gone. In its place stood a circular chamber, wide enough to fit a small plaza, its ceiling lost in shadow. Red light seeped from thin grooves along the walls, pulsing at an uneven rhythm.
No enemies.
No exits.
Lyra dropped to one knee, retching. Kael staggered, weapon raised, turning in a slow circle. Rook lowered his rifle slightly, confusion bleeding through his discipline. Maelin's prayers stopped mid-syllable, her lips trembling without sound. Dax laughed once—short, sharp, involuntary—then clamped his mouth shut.
Eiran checked his interface.
No floor number.
No map.
No status effects.
Only one line of text, newly added:
LOCATION REGISTERED: FLOOR ZERO.
"Floor zero?" Dax whispered. "That's not—"
"It's not supposed to exist," Rook finished.
Eiran raised a hand. Silence followed immediately. They obeyed faster than he expected.
That worried him.
Floor Zero was not in any record. Not classified, not rumored, not even dismissed as fiction. NULL raids began at Floor One. That was the only consistent rule anyone had ever agreed on.
The red light dimmed.
Then shifted.
The grooves along the wall rearranged themselves, sliding like veins beneath skin. A shape emerged—an outline rather than a door, traced slowly by the glow.
ENTRY CONDITION REQUIRED.
Kael swallowed. "What condition?"
The text did not respond.
Instead, the air changed.
Eiran felt it first—not as fear, but as pressure behind the eyes, the same sensation he felt during debriefs when analysts tried to reconstruct moments that should not exist. A pull, gentle but persistent, toward memory.
Lyra gasped. "I— I'm seeing my first raid."
Maelin's hands shook. "This isn't allowed."
Rook clenched his jaw. "It's digging."
The chamber filled with sound that wasn't sound—overlapping fragments of breath, steel, screams cut short. Not echoes. Replays.
Eiran understood.
"Don't resist," he said quietly. "Observe only."
Dax looked at him sharply. "That's your plan?"
"It's not a plan," Eiran replied. "It's compliance."
The glow intensified.
Before them, the wall dissolved into a series of silhouettes—human-shaped, incomplete, each frozen mid-motion. A healer reaching out. A vanguard bracing. A scout turning too late.
They were familiar.
Too familiar.
Eiran felt his chest tighten as recognition set in. These were not memories pulled at random. They were raid patterns—common failure points, distilled into form.
NULL was not testing strength.
It was auditing history.
SYSTEM NOTICE:
LEADERSHIP ROLE DETECTED.
ATTRITION RATE: ACCEPTABLE.
CONTINUITY POTENTIAL: CONFIRMED.
Kael exhaled shakily. "Leader… it's looking at you."
Eiran stepped forward.
The silhouettes turned.
Not toward the team.
Toward him.
For a brief, disorienting moment, Eiran saw faces layered over one another—men and women he had led, names he no longer spoke aloud, expressions caught between trust and realization.
Then the wall opened.
Beyond it lay a descending path, carved sharply downward into darkness.
The text changed one final time.
FLOOR ZERO COMPLETE.
CASUALTIES: PENDING.
Eiran tightened his grip on his equipment.
"Move," he said. "Stay close. Do not look back."
No one argued.
Behind them, the silhouettes did not fade.
They watched.
And somewhere deep within NULL, something finished taking his measure.