The dungeon did not announce Phase Five with spectacle.
There was no flare of mana, no dramatic shift in terrain, no voice echoing from the stone to declare a new rule set. Instead, the world simply… thinned.
Arios felt it first in his balance.
The ground beneath him did not move, yet his sense of weight drifted, as if gravity itself had loosened its grip. His heartbeat sounded distant in his ears, muffled, like it was traveling through water. When he inhaled, the air tasted flat—neither cold nor warm, neither stale nor fresh.
The chamber around him blurred.
Not visually. Spatially.
Distances felt wrong. The pedestal behind him seemed both close enough to touch and impossibly far away. The doorway ahead wavered, its edges bending subtly, refusing to stay fixed in place.
Arios clenched his fist.
"This is new," he said quietly.
The dungeon answered by taking something away.
The ache in his muscles dulled.
