"What is that?" Aris hissed.
Sereth stood at the chamber's edge, arms crossed.
"Predation Nullform. Rhythmless Class. Created by the Tower's memory collapse after Echoia's failed Movement."
"It doesn't have a beat," she said, horror dawning.
"Exactly. It eats rhythm. Eats breath. You'll start feeling like your heart's forgetting how to pump."
Aris felt it already.
Her limbs slowed. Her ears rang.
Her left hand went numb.
She swung the baton.
Clumsy. Wide. No form.
The echo-glyphs didn't respond.
The Nullform advanced, not quickly—just inevitably.
Every time it touched the ground, the floor forgot it had ever existed there. Aris stepped backward, but her foot landed on a tile that was no longer remembered by the Tower.
She fell. Hard.
Blood from her elbow kissed the glyphs.
"You've got thirty seconds," Sereth called out.
"Then what?"
"Then the floor forgets you too."
Aris looked at the baton.
She hadn't trained. No memory forms. No Shell theory.
Just instinct.
