The team came to a halt.
The two Born at the very front suddenly stopped in their tracks.
The people behind them instinctively looked ahead. Leike's hand was already on his Short Blade, Blue Knight's fingertips curled slightly, and Adrian's prayer faltered for a beat.
Everyone's gazes passed over the Born's shoulders and shot into the depths of the passage ahead.
The Marching Lamp cast its light forward, illuminating the rubble-strewn ground, cracks in the rock walls, and the remains of grayish-white Fungal Hyphae.
There was nothing there.
The passage ahead was empty.
Lu Yuan withdrew his gaze from ahead and turned it toward the Born.
They stood frozen in place, completely motionless. Their mechanical joints remained locked in the posture of their last movement. The arms hanging beneath their black robes leaned slightly forward, while their feet still rested on the rubble they had stepped onto halfway through a stride.
The cold white glimmer in their eye sockets had completely gone out.
The problem lay with the Born themselves.
The Great Ascendant stepped forward from the middle of the team. His silver-gray pupils swept over the stalled Born twice, and his steps slowed by half a beat.
He did not act immediately.
The Born's consciousness remained. The Great Ascendant could sense that their faint autonomous awareness had not vanished. They were still "alive," yet they no longer responded to any commands and no longer acted on their own.
Though awake, they had been locked inside their own bodies.
"Their consciousness remains." The Great Ascendant's voice came from his metal chest cavity, slower than usual. "It seems that nothing is restricting them."
He walked over to the nearest Born, crouched down, and turned it over.
With the Born's back facing upward, the Great Ascendant ran his metal fingers over an