The rumble did not fade.
It spread.
As if something massive and ancient were shifting beneath the crust of the island—slow, deliberate, and aware. The tremor rolled up the stone walls, traveled through the fractures, and echoed inside the ribcage of every student packed into the Breakwater Chamber.
Arios stood motionless, head slightly tilted, listening.
Not to the storm.
Not to the wind.
To that.
It was unlike anything the island had revealed so far. The cyclone, the turbulence spirals, the pressure waves—those had been violent, chaotic, destructive. But this sound was controlled. Purposeful. A vibration that carried its own structure.
It felt like breathing.
The breathing of something huge.
Lucy stepped closer, her voice low but steady despite the dust in her throat. "Arios. That sound… it's not the storm anymore."
