The Everwhite Abyss shifted.
The open plains of frost and scattered predators thinned, giving way to something older, something that felt less like wilderness and more like memory. The ice beneath him thickened, layered in bands of compressed centuries. It wasn't just frozen water. It was history pressed into translucence.
Bruce's perception expanded outward.
Nine kilometers now. His awareness had grown steadily through the relentless cycle of strain and recovery, and ten felt close, hovering just beyond reach like a door waiting to be pushed open.
The world unfolded inside his mind like a living, breathing map, currents of cold mana, clusters of slumbering life, pressure gradients shifting beneath the ice. He didn't merely see terrain anymore. He sensed intention. The Labyrinth wasn't passive. It reacted to them, reshaping itself in subtle ways, funneling threats and closing paths like a living organism protecting its core.
And then the ground moved.
