The relay had reacted as it was meant to. A small rejection pulse. An untagged contact burned away. The system counted it as environmental noise and corrected itself.
The thing waited.
Then it reached out again, but more carefully this time.
It did not force its way in. It did not strike the relay as an attacker would. It tasted the flow, touched it, withdrew, touched it again, and each time it copied a little more of the rhythm.
The relay communicated in layered pulses, some electrical, some mana-based, some built from old enchantment patterns adapted over decades by university engineers.
To a normal intruder, it would have been a wall. To this creature, it seemed more like weather.
Painful weather, but weather that could be learned.
Another pulse struck it when it reached too deep. One of its small limbs cracked, bending at an angle that would have crippled anything more solid.
