The moment the Emerged Shadow broke free, something in the air shifted.
Aya could feel it... the threads of her soul energy trembled as if they had been cut off from the world.
Kenji turned to her. "What just happened?"
"I... I don't know," she admitted.
But Vieira did.
A strange unease settled in his chest, something beyond fear... an instinctive dread.
They ran through the hospital's ruined corridors, trying to find an exit. The air was thick, like moving through a dream, and the flickering emergency lights seemed... off.
That's when Vieira noticed.
He stopped abruptly, his breathing uneven.
"We've passed here before."
Kenji and Aya turned to him, confused.
"What?" Kenji asked.
Vieira's eyes darted around, his fingers tightening. He pointed at the shattered gurney on the ground.
"That was there five minutes ago... when we first ran through this hall."
Aya frowned, looking around. She stretched a thread, anchoring it to the ceiling and pulling herself upward slightly to get a better vantage point.
Her stomach dropped.
The layout was looping.
Everything was... repeating.
Kenji's grip on his sword tightened. He exhaled sharply, trying to keep his composure.
"No way....." he muttered.
Then Vieira said it.
His voice was barely above a whisper.
"He... activated... a Soul Domain."
Silence.
Kenji's eyes widened. Aya's breath hitched.
Vieira swallowed hard. His fingers twitched at his sides.
They were trapped.
The Emerged Shadow had warped reality itself.
Kenji gritted his teeth. "So that's why he didn't chase us."
He didn't need to.
Aya dropped back to the ground, her face pale. She quickly reached out with her threads, trying to sense an exit, but her soul energy only looped back on itself.
"There's no way out," she said, voice unsteady.
Vieira clenched his fists. "What the hell kind of power is this?"
Then, the lights flickered.
The air around them grew colder.
And a voice... low, smooth, mocking.....whispered through the walls.
"You finally noticed?"
The Emerged Shadow was everywhere.
The flickering lights cast strange shifting shadows on the walls, stretching, warping.
Then... one of them moved.
Fast.
Vieira barely had time to react before something lunged from the darkness. Kenji whirled, slashing his sword to intercept. A sharp clash rang out.
Aya snapped her threads, reinforcing Kenji's attack, trying to push back the entity.
But the moment their attacks made contact....
Everything went black.