The inside of the Yongsan vortex is worse than yesterday.
What had been three overlapping biomes yesterday — forest floor under ruins under cave ceiling has collapsed further. The layers aren't just overlapping anymore, they're eating each other. Stone ruins melting into tree bark, cave walls breathing like something organic, the light still sourceless but pulsing now in a rhythm that matches nothing Yeon Yujun wants to think too hard about.
The absence-smell is everywhere and it's overwhelming.
"The... the merge points," Yeon Yujun mutters. "Where?"
"There's three of them," Seo Hwigeon says. He's already moving, reading the environment in a way that isn't quite a skill and isn't quite instinct... something else, something that comes from having walked through more wrong spaces than any person should. "The seams where the vortex boundaries collapsed. They're not visible but they'll have a mana temperature difference. There are cold spots."
"I can't feel the cold spots..."
