The arcs of electricity in Lilith's eyes suddenly froze.
Her sharp gaze swept their surroundings.
Something was wrong in the vast forest of countless World Bubbles.
Just as she was about to lead Shen Yi and the others onward, a faint disturbance set off alarms in her mind.
"Wait."
Her voice was low and sharp.
The languor and calm from before were gone, replaced by taut vigilance.
Xilos and Winnie both looked at her in confusion.
The flames around Xilos flickered involuntarily, while Winnie frowned and swept her golden eyes across their surroundings.
Shen Yi asked nothing. He had already extended his senses the moment Lilith first showed signs of unease.
The Flame of Continued Combustion gave him an acute sensitivity to the flow of energy, drawing his attention to the direction Lilith was watching before Winnie or Xilos noticed anything.
It was not particularly close, but in the Bubble Forest, it was hardly far away.
A World Bubble had turned a dull, ashen red.
The bubble was medium-sized and dim, with no sign of active energy or any detectable rhythm of life or functioning rules.
By Lilith's earlier explanation, it was a typical remnant of a failed restructuring of rules.
It was the wreckage of a dead world, one of the most common sights in Beyond the World and, in theory, safe and harmless.
And yet—
From that ashen stillness, Shen Yi detected a discordant noise so faint it was almost imperceptible.
Then he realized something.
It was not a sound.
It was the disturbance of a spatial structure being torn apart, ever so slowly.
At the same time,
as the Flame of Continued Combustion within him sensed that force, it also caught a trace of a strange presence: cold, rigid, yet somehow purposeful.
It was seeping out from