The corridor outside the classroom had already lost its color by the time they reached it.
Lin Yue noticed it first — the way the wood-grain paneling that had lined every hallway of Yinshan Academy for six weeks was thinning, going translucent at the edges the way old photographs did when you held them up to too much light. He'd expected the Academy to fight its own ending. Every instance he'd survived had fought, one way or another — the Village had torn itself apart trying to keep them inside it, System Shadows and buckling physics and Gu Yanchen's composure cracking under the weight of a curse that refused to let go quietly.
This wasn't that.
This was closer to watching a held breath finally leave a body.
