The deeper they went, the more the tunnels felt alive — not in a magical, whimsical way, but in the way a broken engine still sputters long after it should've died.
Jake kept his hand on the wall to steady himself. The concrete was cold enough to bite.
"These tunnels don't feel safe," he muttered.
"They aren't," Liora said. "But nothing down here is searching for us. That's the point."
Jake nodded, though unease curled under his ribs.
He didn't trust the ground, the dark, or his own heartbeat — which insisted on skipping every few seconds like a stuttered whisper.
They continued in silence, boots echoing softly.
Then the temperature dropped again.
Not gradually — instantly, like stepping from summer into a freezer. Jake's breath fogged. A tremor crawled up his spine.
"Liora?" Jake whispered. "Why is it—"
The wall beside them pulsed.
Liora swore under her breath. "Of course. Of all the places…"
Jake stared as the solid stone rippled, a faint violet sheen crawling across its surface. Hairline cracks of light spiderwebbed outward, humming with a low vibration that made his teeth ache.
"What's happening?" he blurted.
"A tear," Liora said. "Limbus Arcanae. They happen."
"Happen?" Jake's voice rose hysterically. "Like… earthquakes?"
"Worse. Earthquakes don't spit things out at you."
Jake stepped back. "Things?"
Before she could answer, the wall split open.
The sound was wet and electric — like a nerve being torn out of reality. A jagged wound peeled itself across the concrete, oozing light and shadow in equal measure.
Jake froze.
A shape pushed through.
Elongated.
Distorted.
Shifting like a corrupted frame of video, trying to stabilise.
Liora stepped in front of Jake, blade drawn in a single fluid movement.
"No sudden moves," she whispered.
The creature crawled through the tear fully now — a spindly, hunched silhouette with too-long arms dragging across the floor. Its head was tilted unnaturally to the side, eyes glowing with ghost-pale rings.
Jake's breath caught. "What is that—?"
"A Liminal Aberrant," Liora murmured. "Unbound. Fresh."
The creature twitched once—
Then lunged.
Jake stumbled back as Liora intercepted it, steel striking shimmering flesh. The Aberrant shrieked — a backward, stuttering sound like a voice rewound badly.
Liora carved a sigil in the air—
"Vincula ferrum!"
Chains of spectral iron lashed around the creature, yanking it sideways. It screeched, glitching violently as its limbs twisted in impossible angles.
Jake pressed himself against the far wall, trembling. "It got out because of me—"
"No," Liora snapped. "This wasn't you. Tears happen randomly. We were just unlucky."
Jake swallowed hard. "So monsters just… fall out?"
"Sometimes," Liora said, dodging a swipe. "Life down here is geography roulette."
She leapt, slicing another sigil. Blue ribbons of light slashed across the Aberrant's torso. The creature convulsed, its form flickering like a dying bulb.
Jake felt the cold bloom beneath his ribs again, that faint heartbeat that wasn't his.
His breath hitched.
Not now.
Not here.
The Aberrant turned sharply toward him, sensing the shift.
It lunged.
Jake threw his hands up instinctively—
—and the world slowed.
Not stopped.
Not frozen.
Just slowed, as if time thickened around him like syrup.
He saw everything:
The Aberrant's limbs slicing the air,
Liora's eyes widening,
dust drifting lazily in the space between them.
His chest burned.
A whisper of falling, of surrender, of perspective turning upside down.
Then—
Snap.
Time returned.
Liora was already there, blade flashing.
Shhk—
The Aberrant's head spun away, dissolving into pale smoke that drifted back into the sealing tear.
Silence returned — trembling at the edges.
Jake collapsed to his knees.
Liora rushed to his side.
"Jake— look at me. What did you feel?"
He shook his head, voice breaking. "I don't know. It didn't feel like using a power. It felt like… being pulled."
"By Suspensum?"
"I don't think so."
Liora's jaw tightened. That was the answer she feared.
She helped him sit upright, every movement carefully controlled.
Then she stared at the place the tear had been.
"Random tears," she murmured. "Unpredictable. Untamable. Dangerous."
Jake wiped sweat from his brow. "Why do you look like you're doing math in your head?"
"Because we need to disappear," Liora said quietly. "And tears in the Limbus are the one thing the Ordo can't predict or track."
Jake blinked. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
Liora exhaled through her teeth.
"It's reckless. Stupid. Life-threatening."
"And?"
"And it might be our only shot."
She turned to him, eyes hard with resolve.
"Jake… if we follow the next tear — just for a moment — we might throw the Ordo off our trail completely."
Jake stared at her in horror and awe.
"You want us to jump," he whispered. "Into the place that thing came from."
Liora nodded slowly.
"The Limbus Arcanae.
The space between worlds."