The first casualty on Floor Twelve was almost invisible.
No scream.
No impact.
No sudden burst of violence.
They were crossing a stretch of segmented stone when the priestess faltered—not from pain, but from delay. Her foot hovered half a second longer than necessary as she adjusted her balance.
That was enough.
The panel beneath her heel did not collapse. It softened.
Her leg sank to the knee before Eiran reacted.
"Don't pull—" he started.
Too late.
Instinct overrode instruction. She yanked her leg back, tearing free as the stone hardened instantly again. The movement left a shallow groove in the floor, like something had tried to remember her shape and failed.
She stumbled forward, gasping.
SYSTEM NOTICE: MICRO-DELAY DETECTED
LATENCY THRESHOLD: EXCEEDED
PENALTY APPLIED: LOCALIZED DAMAGE
The priestess collapsed to one knee, clutching her calf. Blood seeped between her fingers—not fast, not fatal, but deliberate.
Measured.
The third survivor swore under his breath. "That wasn't a trap."
"No," Eiran said. His voice was controlled, but his jaw was tight. "That was feedback."
They did not stop moving.
Stopping was no longer neutral behavior.
As they advanced, Eiran became acutely aware of time—not in seconds, but in margins. The Tower was no longer punishing wrong choices. It was punishing slow ones.
A step taken too carefully. A glance held too long. A question formed but not spoken.
NULL tracked all of it.
The corridor ahead rippled faintly, its geometry adjusting in real time. Not randomly—reactively. As if the Tower were syncing itself to Eiran's decision cadence.
He issued shorter commands now.
"Left." "Now." "Continue."
Each was followed by subtle environmental compliance. Panels stabilized. Lighting corrected. Hazards delayed themselves by fractions of a second.
Enough.
But only barely.
SYSTEM NOTICE: COMMAND EFFICIENCY — IMPROVING
WARNING: OVER-OPTIMIZATION RISK INCREASING
The warning lingered longer than usual before fading.
The third survivor noticed. "Over-optimization?"
"It means," Eiran said, "the Tower is adjusting to how I lead."
"And?"
"And if I stop," Eiran replied, "it won't know what to do with us."
They reached a temporary open space—no doors, no exits, just a widening in the corridor where the floor smoothed out unnaturally.
A holding area.
The priestess leaned heavily against the wall, teeth clenched against pain. "So what now?"
Eiran looked ahead.
Floor Twelve had stopped testing survival.
It was testing tempo.
Soon, it would no longer accept human pacing at all.
And when that happened, leadership would stop being a role and become a constraint—
one that NULL would attempt to remove if it proved inefficient.
Eiran straightened.
"We don't slow down anymore," he said.
Neither of them argued.
Because by now, they could feel it too:
In NULL, hesitation was no longer a mistake.
It was a liability with a measurable cost.