The star vessel continued onward, but its speed was gradually slowing.
"It's been a long time since we came here. Why does the atmosphere feel different... like it's more stagnant than before?" Camilo murmured under his breath.
At the beginning, when they had still been "Travelers Returning Home," they had taken the Boundary Wall Path to enter Uriel's dungeon.
Ever since they had acquired the status of "Travelers Staying Temporarily," Camilo and the others no longer needed to come this way. They could reach their destination simply by falling asleep normally.
So, it truly had been a long time since he and Blanche had traveled this road.
Yet when they saw it again after so long apart, they found that everything seemed to have changed.
"Teacher's feeling is correct." Blanche spoke up as well. Her expression was no longer as relaxed as before; instead, she frowned. "Look."
Blanche spread open her palm, her pale knuckles slowly curling as if she wanted to clench it into a fist.
Elsewhere, this was an action that could be done with ease.
But here, although Blanche did manage to clench her hand into a fist, the sense of resistance was unmistakable. It was as though the air in her palm had turned to modeling clay, offering clear resistance as she squeezed inward.
That resistance was very much like the stagnation Camilo had mentioned.
Though their thoughts had not yet been affected, their bodies had already begun to gradually slow and stiffen, as if they had entered some unknown fluid—soft, yet highly elastic.
However, they did not seem to have fully merged into the fluid yet, so the effect was not too severe for now. But no one knew whether the stagnation ahead would intensify. If they continued forward, they might very well become completely