CHAPTER 52: DRIFT (2)

Footsteps, soft. Barely audible.

And then, directly in his ear, something whispered—

"Why are you here, child of glyph?"

Lucen stood in one motion.

Spell slot 4. Ready.

No words.

Just reaction.

—

The voice didn’t echo. It didn’t even really sound like sound.

It was just... in.

Inside the space between breath and thought. No weight. No heat.

Lucen didn’t flinch.

He blinked once. Shifted his left foot a fraction to better angle his stance. His pulse hadn’t spiked. Not yet.

The system didn’t flash red, but his gut did.

He didn’t turn.

Didn’t risk giving it more than it already had.

Instead, he kept his voice low. Even.

"You ask that like you already know the answer."

Silence.

For a second, he thought maybe it had vanished.

Then the voice returned. Still close. Still wrong.

"I smell your glyphs. Newborn. Curious. Loud."

Lucen’s eye twitched.

’So this thing can smell magic. Great. Even better if it talks in haiku.’

He slowly tilted his chin toward the open chamber ahead, where the white-robed figure was still inscribing that looping spiral.

"Is that yours?"

The whisper curled.

"It is ours. It binds what sleeps."

Lucen’s fingers hovered half an inch from his spell-ready mark. Frost Spire or Soundlash. Either could buy him two seconds.

Maybe.

He kept his tone casual. Maybe too casual.

"You all take shifts watching it, or am I just lucky?"

Another pause.

Then, softly, "Luck. No. You are early."

Lucen squinted slightly.

’Early for what?’

"Didn’t know there was a calendar," he said. "I got pulled. Not invited."

Behind him, something shifted.

Just a scrape. Cloth on stone. Like whatever it was had tilted its head.

"No one comes alone. No one walks unled. Yet you do."

Lucen hesitated.

Then rolled a shoulder. "Maybe I’m the exception."

"Or the sacrifice."

He exhaled once through his nose. Not a laugh. Not quite.

"I charge extra for that."

The voice didn’t respond.

But he could feel it still there. Right behind him. Breathing. If it breathed. Or maybe just existing in that space with the same weight as a loaded question.

Lucen reached for the thread of mana around his right knuckle.

"I’m not here to break anything," he said slowly. "Just pass through. Scout. Map the edge and leave. That’s the deal."

More silence.

Then, like a gust of cold air. "There is no edge. Only descent."

Lucen turned his head a little.

Enough to see the faint shimmer of movement from the corner of his eye.

The figure behind him was still wrapped in that pale armor-bandage layering, it was tall. Nearly a head taller than him. But not bulky. Just... present. Like a stretched shadow with ribs.

He could see no face.

Just two faint holes where a mask might have once been carved.

"I could burn you," Lucen said plainly.

No threat in the tone. Just a reminder. A fact, like weather.

The figure didn’t twitch.

"You could try."

Lucen nodded slightly. "Fair."

The figure’s head tilted.

"You speak plainly."

"Habit."

"You are not afraid."

Lucen met the twin holes.

"I’m very afraid. I just don’t show it to people who talk in riddles."

Something changed.

The figure, or thing, or whatever it was, stepped back.

Not far. Just a half pace.

As if acknowledging something.

Lucen didn’t let his fingers leave the trigger point on his glyph trace.

The air settled.

Then the thing said, "Walk forward. Do not speak again."

Lucen blinked.

No answer this time.

He stepped slowly into the chamber.

His eyes stayed on the glyph spiral ahead.

But his mind?

His mind was watching everything.

Even the things that didn’t move.

Especially those.

—

Lucen walked.

The glyph spiral ahead wasn’t pulsing.

Not quite.

But it had that look, the shimmer of mana when it’s held too still. Like a breath drawn in and never let out.

The room was circular. Wide. Vaulted ceilings lost to darkness. The air changed as he moved deeper. Temperature didn’t drop. It just... shifted.

Like the concept of warmth had been edited out.

He stepped around the edge of the spiral. Careful not to touch it.

The robed figure drawing it didn’t acknowledge him. Its hand moved in smooth, practiced arcs. No hesitation. No wasted movement. Every symbol it laid into the stone sizzled faint blue before sinking flat and vanishing.

Lucen watched the strokes. No glyphs he recognized.

Not anchor logic. Not pressure maps. Not even drift compression theory.

Something else.

’Either it’s drawing nothing... or it’s drawing something that doesn’t want to be read.’

The last loop finished.

The room stopped breathing.

Lucen felt it before he heard it.

The floor didn’t shake. The spiral didn’t glow.

But something behind his eyes... tilted.

[System Alert: Unstable Core Fluctuation Detected]

[Warning: Ambient mana field—Non-Standard. Categorization Unavailable.]

Lucen stepped back fast, palm brushing his coat, preparing a trace.

The spiral didn’t react.

But the center of it did.

Something moved.

No sound.

Just presence.

A silhouette rose from the stone.

Not summoned. Not conjured.

Revealed.

Like it had been there the whole time, lying beneath the spiral’s last line. Waiting for the symbol to complete its mask.

Lucen’s breath caught.

The thing was... humanoid. At first.

Then it kept standing.

Taller than it should be. Limbs wrong in the elbows. Neck too smooth. No face. Just a carved oval of bone-white mask and one vertical slit where an eye should be.

No eye inside.

Just blackness.

Not shadow.

Absence.

Lucen didn’t speak.

His system buzzed a second warning.

[Hostile Detected – Signature Mismatch. Drift Anchor Not Recognized.]

[Classification: ???]

[Stability Threat Level: Red.]

[Begin combat sequence?]

The figure took one step forward.

It didn’t move the air.

It didn’t make a sound.

But every single glyph Lucen had drawn in the last three days itched at once.

He shifted his stance. Flexed his left fingers.

Mana welled. 112 total. Clean. Ready.

But his instincts didn’t tell him to cast.

They told him to run.

And that’s when it looked up.

Not with eyes.

Just with intent.

The vertical slit in the mask widened—not with movement. With depth.

A low tone began under Lucen’s ribcage. Not sound. Not pressure.

Resonance.

[Drift Core Present – Inverted Classification.]

[Warning: Spellcraft Sovereign system is incompatible with passive resonance.]

Lucen’s back hit the far wall before he realized he’d stepped.

The robed figure, the one who’d drawn the spiral was gone.

So was the air, almost.

The space around the creature started to ripple.

No spells yet. No attacks. Just... unraveling. Like it was being born backward.

Lucen whispered, "Oh good. A living paradox."

The mask tilted toward him.

Then the creature moved.

Fast.

No step. No blink.

Just here.

Right in front of him.

Lucen launched backward, palm flaring—

[Soundlash – Activated]

The sonic burst hit it dead-on.

Nothing.

Not a flinch.

But the floor cracked.