The moment they stepped through, the air changed.
No one said anything at first, but they all felt it. The pressure. Like they'd dropped underwater but could still breathe. The colors were wrong. The sky above wasn't just dark—it was bleeding. Thick maroon clouds crawled across a red-lit sky, and the wind carried ash instead of air.
Reia stopped walking.
Her eyes narrowed, scanning the flow of ambient energy.
"…Wait."
Evelyn turned. "What is it?"
Reia's gaze sharpened. "This isn't right. The mana density just spiked. It was stable a second ago, but now… it's off the charts."
Silas cracked his knuckles. "So it's juiced up? Cool."
"No," she said, dead serious. "It shouldn't be this high. This isn't an S-rank gate anymore."
Lucian stepped forward, hands in his coat pockets.
He glanced up once, then nodded slightly.
"Yeah," he muttered. "This is SSS."
The silence hit like a slap.
