"The seal was inside us. We could feel it. It wasn't a mark on the skin or anything visible. It was a — pressure. A weight in the chest where cultivation should have been. When I tried to access my Aether, the seal would respond. Not by blocking it directly. By taking it. Whatever I generated was siphoned away before I could use it. I felt it leaving. Every time I tried to channel anything, it was like trying to fill a bucket that had a hole in the bottom. The Aether went somewhere. I never knew where. Probably to a Cult priest somewhere, performing operations I couldn't see. Maybe to the Sealed Floor's containment. Maybe to other things. The destinations weren't shared with us."
"That's — that's a horror."
