They climbed three full flights before Cagaro slowed.
"Stop."
Henry turned. "What?"
Cagaro pointed to the wall beside the landing. A scratch mark ran across the concrete, three short lines carved diagonally.
Blyke frowned. "So?"
"I made that." Cagaro said quietly. "When we started climbing."
Arcee looked over the railing and then up the spiral. "That's impossible. We have been moving upwards."
Henry stepped down two stairs and examined the mark closely. The dust displacement was identical.
Blyke scoffed lightly. "You are imagining things."
Cagaro didn't reply. He just ran down the stairs, fast. Two flights. Three.
He stopped. The same spot, same scratch.
The same stain near the railing.
Arcee tested upward now, sprinting five flights with precise steps slowly.
The air felt subtly distorted, like pressure building behind invisible glass.
"We are being looped." Blyke said quietly.
"No." Henry corrected. "We are being folded."
Blyke looked at him. "That is worse. I don't want to bend."
Henry leaned casually against the railing as if mildly inconvenienced. "Congratulations, Blyke. You finally found a staircase that matches your sense of direction. You two could be a great duo."
Blyke stared at him. "Oh, very funny."
"You did insist on taking point earlier." Henry added mildly. "Perhaps the building trusted your navigation skills."
Arcee crossed her arms. "Focus on the anomaly for now."
Cagaro's breathing grew shallow. "This isn't physical architecture. It feels… spatial. An unnatural spatial distortion is caused."
Henry nodded once. "The one set trap probably has a 'Rune'. It is probably environmental illusion or dimensional overlap."
Blyke rubbed his temples. "So what, we just keep walking forever?"
Henry glanced upward again,
"No." he said calmly. "If it's a loop, it has a seam."
He pushed off the railing.
"Let's find where reality gets lazy."
Henry crouched near the railing and pressed his palm flat against the concrete. He closed his eyes, not to concentrate harder but to subtract sight from the equation.
"Do not trust what you see." he said quietly. "Trust what resists you."
Blyke ran a hand along the wall again.
Cagaro stood still at the center of the landing, breathing unevenly.
Henry opened his eyes and looked at him.
"That is it." he murmured.
Arcee glanced between them. "What?"
Henry stood. "Cagaro noticed the mines first. He sensed irregularity before any of us. Now he senses the loop."
Cagaro frowned. "I am not doing anything..."
"Yes, you are." Henry replied calmly.
He stepped closer. "Your emotional state has been unstable since underground. Fear, stress and eventually bearing too load of mental capacity. Your aura has been misfiring."
Arcee crossed his arms. "That sounds bad."
"Not necessarily." Henry said.
He looked directly at Cagaro. "He is an Impaired. His emotions have aligned his runic flow into Depersonalization dissociative disorder."
Cagaro blinked.
"Under overwhelming mental stress, the mind sometimes disconnects from stable perception." Henry continued. "It creates distortions of visuals, auditory, even tactile."
Arcee narrowed her eyes. "You are saying he is hallucinating the loop?"
"No."Blyke said. "He is saying his hallucinations may be closer to truth than ours."
Cagaro's breathing slowed slightly.
"In the mine corridor, your altered perception allowed you to detect layered runic flow we missed into walls."
Henry explained. "Your mind is slipping partially out of the imposed illusion. Meaning, you are currently in a state where you are a counter itself to illusions and deception."
Cagaro stood there, mouth slightly open, trying to process what Henry had just said. "So I am… glitching?" he asked quietly.
"Don't worry, it's okay. Once you learn an ability it will be easier using next time with less emotions needed." Henry corrected.
Blyke's expression shifted as realization dawned. He looked up the spiraling staircase again then back at the landing.
"This is very funny." he said slowly. "This place is bound to an Infinity spell."
Arcee stiffened. "That level of spatial recursion is not possible for a mere mortal caster."
"We all know that." Blyke replied. "Which means it was not a raw cast. They used a Rune."
Without another word, Henry slid his hand into empty space beside him and the space responded.
It rippled like disturbed water, folding inward to reveal a narrow spatial pocket. Cagaro's eyes widened as Henry's arm disappeared elbow-deep into nothingness.
From that invisible vault, he drew out a black, rough-edged katana. The blade looked unfinished, matte and devouring light rather than reflecting it, its edge was thin enough to feel theoretical.
The others instinctively stepped back.
Henry shifted his footing into a precise stance, one hand steady on the hilt, the other guiding the spine of the blade.
A low vibration hummed beneath the concrete, spreading outward in concentric pulses. Energy did not flare wildly; it condensed, tightening around him like a gravitational well.
"Nothing that exists in creation is infinite." Henry said like chanting some magic.
Runic currents along the walls flickered in protest.
He raised the blade in a sharp arc.
"My Astra..." he murmured and the katana drank the ambient distortion like ink absorbing water.
"And now, I prepare our endgame, Dimensional Cut!"
He swung the katana like a shogun giving a wide swing from upwards while one siding the body.
The motion was almost casual, a single vertical arc that seemed too simple for the force it carried. For a second, nothing happened.
Then a razor-thin line of absolute black carved across the landing.
Cagaro saw it...
Did he... Just split the space!?
The staircase peeled apart like fabric severed by invisible shears, revealing another chamber on the opposite side.
A raw industrial corridor that had been folded out of sight. Concrete groaned as reality corrected itself.
Cagaro stared as the divided space sealed slowly behind them, the seam knitted closed with a low echoing crack.
Henry lowered the blade.
The katana dissolved into particles of shadow and vanished back into its pocket.
Cagaro stood stunned but also eager like a child who had just seen the sky tear open for the first time.
In his mind, thoughts tumbled over each other.
That was impossible! He cut space!
He pulled a sword out of nothing!
How am I even standing next to someone like that!?
A strange mix of awe and intimidation swelled inside him. Part of him felt small. Another part felt electrified.
Henry noticed the feelings rumbling in him.
Without turning fully, Henry spoke in a calm, grounding tone. "Do not let it overwhelm you."
Cagaro blinked.
"You are not behind." Henry continued. "You are early!"
He met Cagaro's eyes briefly.
"We will teach you everything. Step by step, just don't go mad."