Amaya moved toward the distortion slowly.

  The terrain here felt wrong.

  Not visibly torn, not broken—but thinner somehow. The ground beneath her boots responded a fraction of a second later than it should have. The wind curved strangely around the ridge ahead, as if something beneath the Lattice surface was pushing upward.

  This had to be it.

  The place where the seam once opened.

  She climbed the low ridge carefully.

  Her eyes scanned every detail.

  Looking for the tear.

  Looking for the impossible glimpse she had seen before.

  The engine.

  But when she reached the crest—

  There was nothing.

  Just more terrain.

  More plains stretching outward.

  The same endless horizon.

  Amaya frowned.

  This place had the shape of the memory, but none of the distortion.

  A false positive.

  The Lattice had rebuilt the Wild Hunt layer after the Box anomaly. Terrain fragments from older calibrations had been rearranged. What she was seeing now was only a piece of that reconstruction.

  Similar.

  But not the same.

  Which meant—

  She had walked into the wrong echo.

  The sound of gravel shifting behind her made her turn.

  Too late.

  A blade came slicing across the air toward her side.

  Amaya twisted just in time. The strike skimmed past her ribs, missing by inches.

  The attacker recovered quickly, stepping back into a guarded stance.

  “You’re Amaya,” the man said.

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  Recognition again.

  Fear mixed with determination.

  “If I take you down, that’s one less competitor.”

  Amaya studied him calmly.

  “You’re hunting already.”

  “What else are we supposed to do?” he snapped.

  The blade came again.

  Fast.

  Desperate.

  Amaya stepped inside the strike, caught his wrist, and forced the weapon downward. The man tried to twist free, but she drove her shoulder into his chest and swept his legs out from under him.

  He hit the ground hard.

  Before he could recover, she pinned his arm and struck once—clean and precise.

  The fight ended immediately.

  The man went limp.

  Unconscious.

  Amaya stood and brushed dust from her sleeve.

  She looked down at him for a moment.

  “You should be alive when you wake up,” she murmured.

  Then she looked back toward the horizon.

  This ridge wasn’t the place.

  Which meant she had to search again.

  Not for the seam itself.

  For the cave.

  The Dream Dwelling.

  During that calibration stage she had been exploring the structure beneath the layer. The entrance had looked like a cavern carved into the terrain.

  Inside that cavern—

  Reality had torn.

  And through that tear she had seen something enormous.

  Something mechanical.

  Something that looked unmistakably like an engine.

  Before she could investigate, the system had yanked her back.

  Level reset.

  Memory suppressed.

  But not erased.

  She turned away from the unconscious Dreamer and started walking again.

  If the terrain had been rearranged, then the cave wouldn’t be where it used to be.

  But structures like that couldn’t simply vanish.

  The Lattice could disguise them.

  Move entrances.

  Shift slopes.

  But architecture left patterns.

  She would find it again.

  Footsteps approached from the opposite ridge.

  Amaya turned, ready this time.

  A figure climbed over the slope.

  Not attacking.

  Just moving cautiously.

  Then the woman froze.

  “Airi,” Amaya said.

  Akai’s sister exhaled sharply when she recognized her.

  “I was hoping that was you.”

  She descended the ridge quickly.

  “You’ve been busy,” Airi said, glancing at the unconscious Dreamer behind Amaya.

  “He attacked first.”

  Airi nodded.

  “Same everywhere.”

  She wiped blood from her knuckles.

  “I’ve been avoiding most of them. Knocking a few out when they get close.”

  Amaya tilted her head slightly.

  “You’re not killing either.”

  Airi shook her head.

  “The whole thing feels wrong.”

  Amaya gestured toward the horizon.

  “I think I know why.”

  Airi folded her arms.

  “Tell me.”

  Amaya explained what she remembered.

  The Dream Dwelling stage.

  The cave.

  The tear in the Lattice.

  The glimpse of the engine beneath the layer.

  Airi listened without interrupting.

  “So you think that’s the core of this place,” she said finally.

  “I think it’s part of whatever maintains the system,” Amaya replied.

  “And if we reach it?”

  “We might learn what the Lattice can and can’t actually do.”

  Airi glanced across the plain.

  In the distance, two figures were fighting violently.

  “Most Dreamers won’t wait for answers,” she said.

  “They’re already hunting.”

  Amaya nodded.

  “That’s why we change the rules.”

  Airi raised an eyebrow.

  “How?”

  “We gather people.”

  “People who don’t want to kill.”

  “People who understand the system is manipulating them.”

  Airi looked back at the unconscious Dreamer.

  “And the ones who try to hunt us?”

  Amaya shrugged.

  “We knock them out.”

  Airi laughed softly.

  “So we build a small army of reluctant participants.”

  “Not an army,” Amaya said.

  “A group.”

  “A group that survives long enough to reach the engine.”

  Airi considered that for a moment.

  Then she nodded.

  “Alright.”

  She cracked her knuckles and looked toward the endless terrain.

  “Let’s start collecting Dreamers.”

  Behind them, the unconscious man stirred faintly.

  Ahead of them, the Wild Hunt continued.

  But somewhere beyond the shifting terrain—

  Buried beneath the Lattice—

  The cave still existed.

  And if Amaya was right—

  It led to the heart of everything.