Everything moved at once.
But not in chaos. In precision.
Mo Tian stepped forward first. Not rushed. Not reckless. Just fast enough to close distance before whatever stood ahead of them could act again. There was something in the way he moved that Lan Yue had noticed before, a complete absence of wasted motion, like every step had already been decided before his body made it.
The air shifted with him. Pressure gathered, controlled and heavy, pressing outward in a clean wave that forced space to respond. The stone beneath their feet hummed faintly.
"Hold," he said.
It was not a command to them. It was a command to the situation itself.
Lan Yue felt it. The way his presence stabilized the space around them, forcing the distortion to pause, like a hand pressed flat against something trying to shake loose. Just for a fraction of a second. But that second was enough.
She saw it clearly.
