Several patrons shielded their faces.“Look!” “He’s being crushed!” “There’s no way—”Elsa took a step forward instinctively. “No—stop it!”A hand grabbed her shoulder. “Don’t! You’ll disrupt the field!”“I don’t care!” she snapped.Inside, Veyron’s voice remained steady.“Resistance is also a form of agreement.”Ethan finally spoke.“…Convenient worldview.”Veyron’s eyes narrowed slightly.“…Still speaking.”Ethan tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear.“Pressure systems… feedback loops… you’re anchoring belief through repetition.”A patron blinked. “What did he just say?”Another whispered, “He’s analyzing it…”Veyron’s expression sharpened.“That won’t help you.”He raised his hand again.The floating sigils accelerated.Faster.Faster.Until they became rings of blinding light.“…Collapse.”The entire sphere contracted.Elsa instinctively stepped forward again.“Ethan!”The pressure became unbearable.The floor exploded beneath Ethan.Stone

“I knew you could do it!” Someone nearby muttered, “She’s insane… she actually believed him.” Without thinking, she ran across the cracked floor. An enforcer stepped forward, “Stop—!” But Veyron slowly lifted one hand. “Stand down.” They froze. Even the enforcer obeyed instantly. Elsa reached Ethan and immediately grabbed both of his shoulders. “Ethan!” She looked him over from head to toe. “You idiot…” Her voice trembled with relief. “You scared me.” A nearby patron muttered, “She’s talking to him like he didn’t just change everything here…” Ethan gave a tired smile. “…Sorry.” “No, you’re not.” “…Probably not.” She laughed despite herself. Then, before she could stop herself, she pulled him into a tight hug. For the first time since entering Cavern Bar, Ethan allowed himself to relax. Just a little. A patron exhaled slowly. “This feels unreal…” Another added, “Like the whole place is dreaming.” Around them, the patrons watched in stunned silence. The man the

“Do you even know what you’re doing to him?”The voice cracked through the chamber like a thrown blade.For a moment, nobody answered. Only the low hum of the machinery filled the space, layered with a faint crystalline vibration that made the air feel tight, like pressure before a storm.One interrogator finally spoke, voice smooth, almost bored.“We are determining what he is.”A second voice, sharper, colder, followed immediately.“And what he refuses to become.”A third added, slower, as if reading from something prewritten.“And what reality will accept him as.”The chamber’s silver latticework pulsed faintly in response, threads of light shifting under the floor like something alive but not yet awake.Elsa stepped forward half a pace.“That’s not determination,” she said. “That’s coercion.”A masked enforcer angled his head toward her.“Language from non-authorized observers is irrelevant.”Elsa shot back, “He’s a person, not a variable.”A pause.Then a different interrogator,

Ethan turned back to the room. “I’m running out of patience.” A slow breath. “If someone here knows something…” He paused. “…this is the moment to speak.” Silence. Five seconds. Ten. The injured enforcers exchanged glances, breathing unevenly. One of them muttered, “Don’t…” Another answered, “He’ll just break us all anyway…” Then— From the back of the chamber, a voice rose. Weak. Hoarse. “…Wait…” All eyes shifted. A man half-kneeling, one arm held tight against his chest. Blood at the corner of his mouth. “…Enough…” Ethan turned toward him immediately. No hesitation. No rush. Just attention. The enforcer swallowed painfully. “…You’re asking the wrong way…” Another enforcer snapped, “Don’t talk!” But Veyron raised a hand slightly. “Let him speak.” The injured man laughed bitterly. “…Doesn’t matter now.” His gaze flicked toward Ethan. “…Harry Storm…” The name hit the room like a weight dropping into still water. Ethan took one step forward. “When?”

The tension inside Cavern Bar didn’t fade when they left.It followed them out.Like the air itself had decided Ethan and Elsa weren’t done yet.Outside, the night hit colder than expected.The city lights stretched across the distance in uneven clusters, flickering like something half-awake.Ethan stepped down the last stair from the hidden entrance without looking back.Behind him, Elsa paused for half a second longer than necessary, as if she expected the doorway to say something to her. Then she followed.“…I hate that place,” she muttered under her breath.Ethan gave a quiet, almost absent reply.“Yeah.”Elsa shot him a look. “That’s it? Just ‘yeah’?”“You said it first,” he replied, still walking.“That doesn’t mean you can outsource emotional depth to me.”A faint exhale—almost a laugh, but not quite—slipped from him. “Noted.”They reached the bottom of the stairway where the car waited in the dim spill of a broken streetlamp.The engine was off.Everything was quiet again.But