Ryu moved through the barren landscape, his pace steady, his mind focused.

  The broken structure was already behind him, another confirmed anomaly in this place where the rules of reality were inconsistent. The first formation had been intact. The second had been

  destroyed. That meant there had to be at least one more.

  The terrain remained unchanged—flat, cracked stone stretching endlessly in every direction. No landmarks. No significant shifts in elevation. Only the faint curve of the horizon, bending unnaturally, suggesting that distance itself might not behave normally here.

  Then, as he stepped forward, something shifted.

  It was not the ground nor was it the sky. But something more akin to a pull.

  It wasn’t wind. There had been no wind since he arrived. Yet when he moved a step further, there was resistance.

  His muscles tensed. The air remained still, the dust unmoving. But his body registered the change.

  There was an invisible force acting on him.

  Ryu stopped. He adjusted his footing, stepping backward. The pressure vanished instantly.

  He moved forward again. There it was.

  It wasn’t strong—just a faint drag against his body, as if some unseen weight was pulling against his movement. Not stopping him and it was not blocking him either, but it was diminishing efficiency.

  He needed to test it.

  Reaching down, he picked up a loose fragment of stone and tossed it forward.

  It landed normally, tumbling across the ground—until it reached a certain point.

  Then it stopped. Instantly.

  The inertia did not carry through, there was no bounce. One moment it was rolling, and the next, it had ceased all motion.

  Ryu narrowed his eyes. He repeated the test, picking up another stone and throwing it at a different angle. Again, it moved as expected—until it crossed a precise boundary.

  He walked around the affected area, noting that the effect wasn’t uniform. It existed only in certain locations, forming pockets of interference rather than a solid barrier.

  Testing further, he stepped into the zone himself.

  Of course that was reckless, but he already felt the pull so he thought it was harmless to him. Or at least it wouldn’t completetly stop him in place.

  The pull became clearer. His movement wasn’t completely halted, but it felt inefficient. His steps were sluggish, not because his body was failing him, but because something was interfering with the transfer of force.

  He threw a punch into the air. The motion itself was fine, but the energy behind it felt hollow. Like something had absorbed the effort before it could fully express itself.

  He stepped out of the zone. Immediately, his body returned to normal.

  If he came back normal and not exhaused, then energy hadn’t been drained. But had been prevented from being used.

  If the force wasn’t destroyed, then where was it going?

  He tested one more thing. He grabbed another stone and held it just outside the affected area. Then, carefully, he pushed it into the zone with his fingertips.

  It stopped the moment it crossed the threshold.

  Ryu didn’t let go, of course. But tried to push it further, applying steady force. The stone resisted, not from friction, but from a direct opposition to motion itself.

  Yet the moment he pulled it back out of the zone, the resistance vanished.

  It wasn’t negating energy, but..

  ‘Storing energy? What? Like a big battery or am I just stupid?’

  Even if Ryu was unsure about it, he was still running through the possibilities in his head.

  And he thought that this finding meant two things.

  That something had created it, that was only natural. He hadn’t seen any natural phenemon like this and didn’t think this was natural in this.. world. But if he found other zones like this then he would change his view, but for now he decided to think that this was a possibility.

  And the other was that since it was still active, it was either still in use, or something had been left behind.

  And so, it wasn’t an abandonded zone or place, but one which had function.

  And if something interrupted motion, then somewhere else, there had to be a place where motion resumed.

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  If this was a system, it had another half.

  That meant this place was never meant to be still.

  Something was supposed to move inside of it.

  Ryu continued forward, leaving behind the invisible motion-draining field. The terrain remained unchanged at first, but then, in the distance, he saw it.

  Another formation.

  But this one was different.

  The first had been intact.

  The second had been destroyed.

  But this one was unfinished.

  It was clear the moment he got close.

  The base was there, carved from the same dark material, etched with the same symbols, but the upper half had never been completed.

  Unlike the fractured remains of the second structure, this one hadn’t been broken. There was no rubble. No sign of collapse. No damage.

  It simply hadn’t been built.

  Ryu moved toward the base, running his fingers along the symbols. Unlike the first two, these markings were incomplete.

  Some had only been partially carved. Others were missing entirely, of course the ones that were missing were ones he had memorized to compare to other structures. He still wasn’t sure if they

  actually meant anything.

  And also, the symmetry that had existed in the other two formations was absent here.

  But it was weird, it’s as if whoever was making this structure had vanished.

  There were no tools. No scaffolding. No evidence of a worksite.

  Nothing suggested this was left behind by choice. An interruption, that was.

  Ryu stepped back, taking in the entire scene.

  This changed things.

  If this had been a ruin, then the progression made sense: intact → destroyed → unfinished. That would imply some kind of decline.

  But the motion-draining fields still worked.

  The symbols still retained their precision.

  Whatever had happened here hadn’t been a slow decay, but a disruption.

  Ryu exhaled.

  This was a site of unfinished work, that was simple.

  The problem was what made it unfinished had done so without leaving a trace.

  His fingers curled slightly.

  If something had the ability to interrupt an active process, remove all evidence of its workers, and still leave behind active remnants of its function…

  Then it was not abandonded, was it?

  But it was still being used, meaning it was silenced.

  And there was no reason to assume it wouldn’t happen again.

  Ryu took one last glance at the unfinished structure. Then, without hesitation, he turned toward the horizon.

  There had to be more.

  And he was going to find it.

  —

  Ryu moved forward.

  The terrain had not changed, but he was now certain that this place was not static. If the motion-draining effect had been designed, if the structures had been built with purpose, then that meant everything here had a function.

  That also meant this place had rules.

  He just needed to find them.

  The unfinished structure was proof that something had been stopped mid-process. But was it abandoned? Or was it interrupted?

  He couldn’t answer that yet. Not with only three points of reference. He needed to see more.

  His pace was controlled, deliberate. If there were more formations, if there were more signs of disruption, then eventually, the pattern would reveal itself.

  Ryu didn’t rely on instinct. He didn’t assume he was moving in the right direction. Instead, he watched the terrain carefully, checking for anything that shouldn’t be there.

  And soon, he found something.

  It was subtle—so subtle that someone less focused would have missed it entirely. The dust on the ground, which had remained perfectly undisturbed since he arrived, had shifted.

  But it wasn’t everyone, which is why it was so subtle. But it was in a single, thin, nearly imperceptible line stretching across the ground ahead of him.

  It wasn’t a natural formation.

  It wasn’t wind, because there was no wind.

  And it wasn’t erosion, because nothing else in this landscape showed similar changes.

  Ryu crouched, analyzing the line closely. It was precise, unnaturally smooth. Not something created by impact or dragging—but something that had cut through the dust without disturbing the surrounding area.

  This had happened recently.

  If something can move here, then this meant that he wasn’t the only one here.

  Ryu stood and followed the line with his eyes. It stretched far into the distance, disappearing into the horizon. It wasn’t curved. It didn’t waver.

  It was perfectly straight.

  That alone told him it was not natural.

  There were only two explanations.

  1. This was the result of an automated process—something still functioning in this place.

  2. Something had just moved through here, and it had done so deliberately.

  Either way, he now had a direction.

  He began walking, following the line.

  —

  Ryu had walked for some time—he didn’t bother estimating how long. Time itself felt meaningless here, with no sun to mark its passage.

  But he kept tracking the line, watching for deviations, for any sign that it had been altered.

  Then, ahead of him, something changed.

  The ground no longer held the same dust-covered surface. Instead, the line ended at a patch of terrain that was completely smooth.

  Not just in texture, but in consistency. It was as if something had wiped the surface clean. There was no dust, no markings. Just a flat expanse that stretched forward.

  Ryu reached down, scooping a handful of dust from the edge of the affected area. He threw it forward.

  It disappeared the moment it crossed the boundary. It was erased, or transported, but he couldn’t tell.

  Now he started comparing this field with the motion-draining field.

  But before he could come to conclusions, he needed to test it further.

  He pulled out a knife which he found on the ground after fighting The Thing. But it was not because he expected a fight—there was nothing here to fight. But because a blade was an extension of movement itself.

  He flipped it in his hand, feeling the weight, then extended it forward, pressing the tip toward the affected ground.

  The instant the steel touched the boundary, it vanished.

  Ryu pulled back. The knife was still intact. Only the part that had crossed the threshold was missing—cut cleanly at the exact point of entry.

  He checked the blade. No heat. No burn marks. The metal hadn’t been melted or dissolved.

  It was quite literally removed.

  The problem here was that meant the laws of conservation no longer applied here.

  Energy could not be created or destroyed. That was a fundamental rule of reality. But this place was not following that rule. And the motion-draining field did not follow the laws of physics either.

  Which meant something else was taking what should have remained.

  And whatever it was, it was still active.

  That meant this place was not abandoned.

  Not entirely.

  —

  Ryu stood still, watching the smooth, erased ground ahead of him.

  If this was a natural hazard, it wouldn’t be so precise. The boundaries wouldn’t be perfectly aligned. So he decided to say it was deliberate.

  And so, it had a purpose. He needed to know what that purpose was.

  For the first time since arriving, Ryu forced himself to listen.

  But it was not to sound, that didn’t exist here. Nor did the wind exist. But he started listening to the world itself.

  The world had presence, it had weight, it had will.

  Of course he didn’t know that, but he intuitively did that.

  And after a few moments, he noticed something.

  A single grain of dust, right at the boundary of the erased ground, began to move.

  Ryu’s eyes locked onto it instantly.

  For the first time, something was shifting without his interference.

  And that meant something else had acted.

  The realization didn’t bring fear, however, it brought confirmation. This place wasn’t abandoned.

  The place was watching. And for the first time since his arrival, it had decided to show itself.