Around Caius, the world carried weight now—layers of dark crimson and shadow folding into one another, forming a shifting terrain that moved with him, responded to him, obeyed him like an extension of his own body.
Every step he took left something behind, not just a mark, but structure, and every motion reinforced the space he occupied, as if the battlefield itself was being rewritten in his favor with each passing second.
I moved again, not rushing or forcing momentum where it would only work against me.
The moment my foot came down, the surface beneath me gave a subtle ripple, like stepping onto ground that hadn't fully settled, something caught between solid and unstable. It held just enough to support me, but there was no certainty in it, no firmness I could rely on without question.
Still, I dashed in.
