Day Four bled into existence with an entirely different rhythm than the grueling days before it.
The squad moved through the South sector's jagged first corridor in absolute, terrifying silence. They no longer required discussion. They operated purely on the violent pattern recognition they had hammered into their muscles over ninety-six hours of continuous survival. Cael read the shifting magical field and issued corrections in single syllables. Dav slid into defensive anchor positions before Valerica even had to point. The accumulated trauma and triumph of the zone had become a silent architecture beneath their skin. They no longer relied solely on the digital maps glowing on their wrists. They felt the terrain in their bones.
