The day after the threshold felt easier.
That was the first warning.
He moved with precision that bordered on elegance. Steps landed cleanly. Breath matched motion without correction. The minor delays that had crept into his rhythm days earlier were gone.
The system had stabilized.
The Blood Sigil beneath his skin remained warm and quiet, its presence steady in a way that suggested approval—not emotional, but functional.
He covered more distance than usual without noticing. Terrain passed beneath him with minimal engagement. Stone, wind, incline—each registered and resolved in sequence.
No variance.
No friction.
No fragments.
By all measurable standards, this was improvement.
And yet, by midmorning, he felt the cost.
Not pain.
Not weakness.
Weight.
His limbs responded correctly, but the responses carried a slight resistance, like movements passing through denser air. Each action required a fraction more intent than before.
He compensated without slowing.
He always did.
When he stopped to drink, he noticed his hands shaking—not visibly, but internally, a tension beneath the skin that did not translate into motion.
He tightened his grip until it stopped.
The Blood Sigil did not react.
The absence of response no longer reassured him the way it once had.
He rested against a rock face as the light shifted overhead. His breathing was controlled. Heart rate within acceptable range. The numbers—if there had been numbers—would have aligned perfectly.
Still, he did not resume movement immediately.
Fatigue settled deeper than muscle.
It reached into awareness itself, dulling edges, flattening distinction. Thoughts did not scatter the way they used to—they simply failed to rise.
That, too, was efficient.
And that frightened him.
In the afternoon, he misjudged distance for the first time since leaving the chamber.
Not enough to fall.
Enough to force a correction.
His foot slipped half a handspan before catching. Gravel slid away with a soft sound, insignificant but unmistakable.
He froze.
The Blood Sigil warmed slightly, acknowledging the correction, then cooled.
The system had intervened.
That should have been reassurance.
Instead, it felt like confirmation of something he had not wanted to name.
He was being carried.
Not protected.
Carried.
He stood still longer than necessary, letting the sensation pass. The fatigue did not lift. It pooled, heavy and inert, like sediment settling at the bottom of clear water.
By evening, the world felt distant.
Not blurred.
Muted.
Sounds arrived without texture. Light registered without warmth. His own presence felt reduced to function alone—a moving solution to environmental problems.
That night, sleep did not come easily.
He lay awake, eyes open, aware of the steady heat beneath his skin. The Blood Sigil pulsed faintly, slow and regular, like a second heart that did not ask permission.
He did not push it away.
He did not reach for it either.
Somewhere between those two choices, exhaustion took hold.
When sleep finally arrived, it was shallow and dreamless.
Morning brought no relief.
Only continuity.
He rose, ate, drank, and moved, all without friction. The fatigue remained, unchanged by rest. It was not a state that could be slept off.
It was structural.
He understood that then.
The effort he had spent suppressing variance—cutting off fragments, denying alignment, maintaining control—had not removed strain.
It had redistributed it.
The cost was no longer paid in delays or marks.
It was paid in erosion.
He could continue like this.
For a long time.
The system would allow it. The Blood Sigil would compensate where needed, smoothing edges, correcting slips, carrying him forward.
But each day, there would be less of him involved in the process.
Less choice.
Less resistance.
Less presence.
That realization did not come with panic.
It came with clarity.
Fatigue was not the result of weakness.
It was the consequence of endurance without engagement.
He stood at the edge of the path as the day stretched ahead, aware that nothing in the environment demanded change.
The danger was not immediate.
That was precisely why it mattered.