The impact of the sealing didn't generate an explosion, nor immediate resistance in the traditional sense. The cube simply settled—absolute, closed in on itself, as if it had been defined even before it existed. The surface didn't emit excessive brightness, didn't vibrate with apparent power, and precisely for that reason it was disturbing. There was no indication of effort. There was no sign of active maintenance.
It was… definitive.
For a brief instant, the entire hall seemed suspended again, but this time not by the collision of opposing forces, but by its absence. The pressure that had previously crushed everything around it diminished enough for the environment to exist again as space, still damaged, still unstable, but functional.
Inside the cube—
The woman didn't move immediately.
