"They played us," Cagaro said in realization, voice steadier than before. "This whole floor, it's staged. They predicted our expectation of resistance… and inverted it."
Blyke stepped closer to Henry, eyes scanning the vast underground hall. "No," he said quietly. "They did not predicted."
He lowered his rifle slightly, thinking.
"Whoever runs this place already had déjà vu."
Arcee frowned. "That doesn't even make sense."
"It does." Blyke replied. "By aura overlapping, advanced cognition distortion. 'Deja Vu' is an uncommon ability. But the fun is, it doesn't show you what will happen directly."
He looked toward the endless rows of pillars swallowed in shadow. "It shows you the opposite."
Cagaro blinked. "Opposite?"
Blyke nodded slowly. "Precognition by inversion. If he foresaw that we wouldn't reach this floor… then he probably knew we would. Because in this method, knowing the absence creates the presence."
Henry sighed looking away lazily.
Blyke continued, "He predicts that we will retreat? Then he prepares for us to advance. He sees us winning? He prepares to lose, so he actually wins."
Arcee scoffed. "That's paradoxical."
"Yes, it us." Blyke said.
A metallic click echoed somewhere between the pillars.
Cagaro turned sharply. "So he saw a version where we never came down here."
"And by seeing that" Henry finished quietly, "he confirmed we would."
The darkness no longer felt empty.
Arcee slowly stepped away from the elevator. "So everything here is arranged for the version of us he didn't see."
A low hum began vibrating beneath the floor.
Henry finally looked upward, toward the unseen ceiling lost in blackness.
"If he predicted our absence…" he murmured.
A distant mechanism unlocked with a thunderous clang.
"Then he is already prepared placing traps in every floor. "
The underground lights didn't fully stabilize.
They flickered in uneven rows, illuminating only fragments of the vast chambers.
Large stretches remained drowned in shadow, as if the darkness refused eviction.
Cagaro scanned the perimeter. "So… where is the ambush?"
"That is what bothers me." Henry said.
Arcee glanced at him. "You were just lecturing us about predictive inversion. Now you are confused?"
Henry shook his head lightly. "If the mastermind truly anticipated our arrival, this floor would already be lethal with devils in the corner shadows."
Blyke crossed his arms. "Maybe this is efficient."
Henry looked at him.
"Psychological pressure." Blyke continued. "Empty space forces paranoia. We may end up wasting energy imagining threats."
Cagaro swallowed. "There still could be something hiding. Who knows if there is a sniper hiding in the rafter!"
Arcee holstered her weapon halfway but kept her hand near it. "Or a 'devil in the corners,' right?"
Henry's gaze drifted toward the darkest edge of the hall. "Yes."
Silence stretched between them again.
The hum beneath their feet pulsed once—subtle, like a heartbeat.
Cagaro spoke first. "We can't just wander blindly. If this place is staged, then moving randomly plays into his design."
Blyke nodded. "Agreed. We either retreat or anchor it."
"Retreat isn't an option now." Arcee said. "Going back up means walking into prepared crossfire."
Henry exhaled slowly. His mind ran through variables of consequences.
"No civilians are there." he said at last. "Which means this floor isn't the objective. It's a buffer."
"It was for us to be observed by them." Blyke muttered.
Henry gave a slight nod. "Then we need to control their perceptions."
Arcee raised a brow. "Explain."
"We must fortify one central position for minimal movement. Force him to reveal the next move."
Cagaro looked uncertain. "Camping? Here?"
"Yes." Henry replied calmly. "If he expects panic or aggression, we will deny it. We will become static variables."
Blyke smirked faintly. "Turning ourselves into a glitch hears good."
Arcee scanned the pillars once more, then pointed toward a cluster of overturned metal crates near a structural column.
They moved carefully, boots resounding too loudly in the hollow chamber. As they set up a temporary perimeter tension spread.
Henry kept watching the darkness. Because he knew something. An empty battlefield was never truly empty.
A weak strip of emergency light flickered above them, casting a pale beam across the crates they had arranged into a defensive half-circle.
The rest of the underground remained swallowed in layered shadow
Arcee sat on an overturned container, cleaning her blade with slow twitches.
Blyke monitored motion pings on a handheld scanner. Cagaro leaned against the pillar, forcing his breathing into stability.
Henry remained standing there.
"That man back then, we need to be cautious about it." he said quietly. "The one I fought..."
Blyke glanced up. "That giant?"
Henry nodded once. "He wasn't enhanced by tech or anything in my opinion."
Arcee tilted her head slightly. "So?"
"He was impaired" Henry replied. "Or rather his biological identicals were altered."
Cagaro frowned. "Impaired? He almost crushed you right there."
"Genetic mutation it is." Henry continued calmly. "Myostatin-related hypertrophy."
"Myostatin regulates muscle growth," Henry explained. "If the gene responsible for producing functional myostatin is disrupted, the body doesn't know when to stop building muscle."
Blyke's eyes narrowed. "So it is double-muscling."
"Yes."
Henry's gaze hardened slightly at the memory. "Abnormally dense fibers. Increased strength output, reduced fatigue threshold and having no proportional fragility is its virtues."
Arcee stopped cleaning her blade. "You are saying he was born like that?"
"Possibly it is Artificial." Henry corrected. "But yes. Individuals with this mutation are not known to suffer major medical instability. They are typically intellectually normal."
Cagaro shifted uncomfortably. "Then what makes him 'impaired'?"
Henry paused for a while.
He said, "Whether neurological or conditioned, I am unsure. But there was no hesitation in him."
He flexed his fingers subtly, remembering the force behind each blow.
"People having that are said to have remarkable herculean strength."
Henry finished.
The dim light above them flickered again.
Arcee spoke, "So we're dealing with a mastermind who predicts inversions… and guards built like myth."
Blyke exhaled softly. "It is getting interesting."
Henry looked toward the darkness beyond their small circle of light.
"This isn't the bottom, don't fall yet." he murmured.