The island had been unpredictable since the moment the students set foot on it, but nothing in the previous phases compared to the pressure now crawling across the sky. The air felt wrong—too still, too heavy, too aware of their movements. Clouds gathered over the mountains in a slow, spiraling formation, dark and swollen like ink drops bleeding through paper. The island did not simply change; it warned. And warnings on a place designed by the Academy were never gentle things.
By the time the morning sun rolled across the basin, Arios and his team had already broken camp, checked gear, and begun their ascent toward the inner ridgeline. Each step was timed, precise, purposeful. The terrain shifted from soft moss beds to fractured stone slopes, and the sound of running water grew louder with each meter they climbed.
The Academy's notice had been simple—Phase Three will begin upon arrival at the Plateau Sector.
But no one had expected the plateau to look like this.
