They emerged into a back-alley of Raimei-Gai, coughing up dust and reeking of ozone. The rain had stopped, leaving the neon-lit slums slick and glistening.
They collapsed in the shadow of a massive ventilation tower, gasping for air.
"Status," Aurora wheezed, checking Alyia.
The sniper blinked, her eyes unfocused. "Synaptic pathways... recalibrating," she mumbled, trying to push her broken glasses up her nose. "Headache magnitude: 9. But... alive."
"We have the Ledger," Roui said, patting the heavy tome wrapped in his cloak. "And we are alive. Varrick will think we're buried."
"Not for long," Persya grunted, pointing to the sky.
High above the district, searchlights from Guild airships were sweeping the smog. The explosion in the catacombs hadn't gone unnoticed. The city was waking up.
"We need to disappear," Aurora said, helping Alyia to her feet. "Back to the safehouse. We decode the book, heal up, and then we burn Varrick's world down."
They retreated into the labyrinthine streets of the Ningen Quarter, becoming ghosts once more.
Two Days Later.
The safehouse was quiet. The windows were boarded, and the air smelled of Isla's healing salves and stale coffee.
They had cracked the cipher. The Black Ledger lay open on the table, a map of damnation. It detailed the "Feeding Cycle"—the locations of the Geomantic Anchors (Seals) and the dates squads were sent to die there.
"It's a pattern," Alyia said, tracing the map of the Gnashfang Caverns. She had recovered, though her hands still had a slight tremor. "The seals destabilize periodically. Varrick sends a squad. They die. The release of their mana souls acts as a surge-charge, resetting the anchor."
"He's not fixing the leak," Persya spat, sharpening his blade. "He's putting a bandage on a gunshot wound. And using our friends as the bandage."
"Look at the next date," Isla whispered, pointing to an entry marked for tomorrow. "Sector 7. Gnashfang Caverns."
Roui leaned in. "Target Squad: Squad Ember-Light. Rookies. Orange Tier. Just graduated."
"They're bait," Aurora said, her voice cold. "Just like we were."
Before they could formulate a plan, a heavy thud echoed from the front door. Not a knock—a projectile.
Roui moved to the peephole, using his Tenebrae sight. "It's a courier drone. Standard Guild issue."
He opened the door a crack. A small, brass mechanical bird lay on the stoop. It held a scroll canister.
Roui retrieved it and unrolled the parchment.
"It's not a contract," Roui said, his face paling. "It's a distress signal relay. A localized broadcast."
He read it aloud: "Mayday. Squad Ember-Light. Pinned down in Gnashfang Deep-Sector. Heavy casualties. Monsters... they aren't dying. Requesting immediate support."
"It's a trap," Persya said immediately. "Varrick knows we're alive. Or he suspects. He's dangling fresh meat to draw us out."
"It doesn't matter," Isla said, grabbing her wand. "If we don't go, those rookies die. We know the truth now. We can't let the cycle continue."
Aurora looked at the Ledger, then at her squad. They were battered, tired, and hunted. But they were the only ones who knew the game.
"We go," Aurora said, grabbing her axe. "But we don't go as rescuers. We go as hunters."
The air outside the cavern entrance was thick with the smell of sulfur and dry earth. Persya held the struggling Kynagogeus down, his slate-grey arms straining against the beast's Augmented muscles. It was a D-Class scavenger, snarling and snapping, its eyes wide with terror.
"Hold it steady," Aurora hissed, pulling a shard of Kristal Biru from her pouch. She didn't enchant the beast; she enchanted the collar Roui had fashioned from his belt. She channeled Lumen into the leather, overcharging it until it glowed with a blinding, unstable white light. "Sorry, boy. But better you than us."
Isla whispered a soft apology, releasing the Chlorokinesis vines that bound the creature's legs.
"Go!" Persya roared, shoving the beast toward the yawning black maw of the cavern.
The Kynagogeus, terrified by the glowing collar and the aggressive hybrid, bolted. It sprinted into the darkness of the main tunnel, a erratic comet of screaming light. Its howls echoed off the walls, amplified by the cavern's acoustics.
"Move," Roui commanded, his voice low. He wrapped the squad in a veil of Tenebrae, blurring their outlines into the ambient shadows.
They bypassed the main entrance, slipping into a narrow fissure Alyia had identified as a ventilation drift. They moved fast, the sounds of the beast's panic fading into the deep.
Then, the screaming stopped.
It didn't taper off; it was cut short with a wet, tearing sound that reverberated through the stone floor.
"Contact," Alyia whispered, adjusting her cracked glasses. "Target destroyed. Time to impact: Zero."
They reached a vantage point—a rusted gantry overlooking the central chamber of the Deep-Sector. Below them, illuminated by the dying flicker of the Lumen collar and the harsh glow of mana-lamps, was the "rescue site."
It was a slaughterhouse.
The Kynagogeus was gone, reduced to a smear of biological matter on the floor. Standing over it were five figures wearing the tattered, blood-stained uniforms of Squad Ember-Light.
"That's them," Isla gasped, her hand flying to her mouth. "That's the rookies."
"No," Persya said, his voice grinding like millstones. "Look closer."
The figures moved with a jerky, mechanical unnaturalness. As one turned, the light caught its face. Half of the skull was gone, replaced by a bolted plate of Null-Iron. Its arm wasn't flesh; it was a pneumatic piston ending in a serrated mining pick, fused directly into the bone.
Veins of purple crystal—Schismite—pulsed through their remaining flesh, glowing with chaotic, corrupted mana.
"They aren't Signifers anymore," Alyia analyzed, her voice trembling with a rare note of horror. "They are Constructs. Biological matter fused with arcane machinery. Varrick didn't just kill them. He recycled them."
"It's a stress test," Aurora realized, her grip on her axe tightening until her knuckles turned white. "He wants to see if his new toys can kill a real squad."
One of the constructs—the thing wearing the Captain's badge—snapped its head up. Its eyes were gone, replaced by Schismite sensors. It looked directly at their hiding spot. It screeched, a sound of tearing metal and wet lungs.
"Ambush compromised!" Roui yelled, dropping the stealth veil. "Engage!"
The squad dropped from the gantry.
Aurora landed first, her axe wreathed in blue flame. She swung at the Captain-Construct, aiming to cleave it in two. The blade bit into the Null-Iron plating with a shower of sparks, but the construct didn't fall. It countered with terrifying speed, its piston-arm punching forward.
Aurora deflected the blow, skidding back across the stone. "They're heavy! Don't trade hits!"
"Suppressing!" Alyia shouted from the rear, unleashing a volley of Ionization bolts. The electricity arced over the constructs, but the Schismite absorbed the energy, pulsing brighter. "My magic... it's feeding them!"
"Physical trauma only!" Persya roared. He charged the nearest abomination, a four-armed nightmare stitched together from two different bodies. He used Augmentation to harden his skin, catching two of its blades on his gauntlets while he drove his knee into its midsection.
It felt like kicking a wall. The creature didn't flinch. It grabbed Persya by the throat, lifting him off the ground.
"Persya!" Isla screamed, whipping a Hydro lash to sever the arm holding him.
Roui moved. The noble saw a construct flanking them—a agile horror with blades for legs—rushing toward the distracted healer.
"Not today," Roui snarled. He stepped between Isla and the blade-construct. He slammed his Aether-Glaive down, casting Stone-Skin to turn himself into a statue.
The construct hit him. Sparks flew. The blade skittered off his granite skin. But then, the Captain-Construct, ignoring Aurora, turned and fired a compressed blast of Schism energy from its chest.
It hit Roui.
The Stone-Skin shattered. Roui was thrown backward, crashing into a pile of crates, his armor smoking. He didn't get up.
The blade-construct raised its limb to finish him.
"NO!" Persya roared. He broke the grip of the four-armed beast, tearing his own flesh in the process. He didn't use magic. He used pure, desperate adrenaline.
He threw himself over Roui's prone body.
THUNK.
The blade meant for the noble buried itself deep into Persya's shoulder, piercing the Synth-Pels and grinding into the bone.
Persya grunted—a wet, ugly sound. He looked down at the blade sticking out of him, then up at the construct. His eyes weren't blue; they were burning orange.
"Is that..." Persya wheezed, blood leaking from his mouth, "...all you got?"
He grabbed the blade embedded in his shoulder with his good hand. Recomposere flared violently. He didn't break the blade; he fused it to the construct's limb, locking them together. Then he headbutted the monster, the impact shattering its Schismite sensor array.
The squad rallied. Aurora decapitated the Captain from behind. Alyia shot the knees out of the four-armed beast.
Silence fell, broken only by the ragged breathing of the survivors.
Roui scrambled out from under Persya. The noble's face was stripped of all its usual bravado. He looked at the blood soaking Persya's tunic—blood spilled for him.
"You idiot," Roui whispered, his hands hovering over the wound, trembling frantically. "You absolute, slate-grey idiot. Why did you do that?"
"Statistically..." Persya coughed, slumping against a crate, "...you're softer than me."
Isla was there instantly, her hands glowing with Hydro healing magic. "Stop talking. The blade is still in there. If I pull it, you bleed out."
"We can't stay here," Aurora said, scanning the shadows. "Varrick will send more. We need to move."
"Hold him down," Isla commanded, her voice trembling but her hands steady. She knelt beside Persya, the knees of her sea-leather suit soaking up the blood pooling on the stone. "Roui, grab his good shoulder. Alyia, keep watch. If anything moves, melt it."
Roui dropped to his knees, his face pale and stripped of its usual aristocratic veneer. He gripped Persya's uninjured shoulder, his knuckles white. "I've got you, you stubborn mule. I've got you."
Persya gritted his teeth, his slate-grey skin flushed a violent, feverish orange as his internal furnace raged against the shock. "Do it, Isla. Before I calculate the odds of infection and pass out."
Isla placed her hands over the wound, hovering inches above the jagged metal of the piston-blade. She closed her eyes, tuning out the smell of ozone and copper, seeking the rhythmic hum of the water within Persya's veins.
"This is going to hurt," she whispered.
She didn't pull the blade; she pushed the blood.
Channeling Hydro, she increased the viscosity of Persya's blood around the wound, turning the fluid into a thick, gel-like seal to prevent a blowout. Simultaneously, she reached into her pouch with her other hand, pulling out a handful of Sera-Vine seeds—a fast-growing, fibrous plant she cultivated for emergencies.
"Now, Roui!"
Roui leaned his weight onto Persya. Isla gripped the hilt of the construct's severed arm and yanked.
SCHLICK-CRUNCH.
The sound of metal grinding against bone echoed in the quiet cavern. Persya roared, a guttural, raw sound that tore at his throat. His back arched, lifting Roui off the ground for a fraction of a second before he slammed back down, gasping for air.
Blood welled up, pushing against Isla's Hydro seal.
"Growth," Isla commanded, slamming the seeds into the open cavity. She poured Chlorokinesis into them, accelerating their life cycle by a decade in a matter of seconds.
The seeds burst. Green tendrils shot out, not outward, but inward. They wove themselves into the torn muscle and fascia, acting as living sutures. The vines tightened, pulling the flesh together with mechanical precision.
"Stabilizing," Isla gasped, sweat beading on her forehead. "The vines... they'll hold the tissue. But they feed on ambient mana. Persya, they're going to drain you to stay alive."
"Better drained... than dead," Persya wheezed, his eyes fluttering open. The orange glow in his veins had dimmed to a faint, dying ember.
He looked up at Roui. The noble was staring at the wound, at the green vines now knitting his friend's grey skin together, with a look of absolute horror and guilt.
"You took that for me," Roui whispered, his voice cracking. "I was the target. I was the one in the open. Why?"
Persya reached up with his good hand, gripping Roui's silk collar, pulling him down until their foreheads touched.
"Because... survival rates," Persya rasped, a ghost of his cynical smirk returning. "You're the face. I'm the armor. That's the deal."
"The deal is stupid," Roui choked out, a tear cutting a track through the dust on his face. "And you are fired."
"Can't fire me," Persya coughed, wincing as the vines tightened. "I have... union representation."
"Clear," Alyia's voice cut through the moment, sharp and devoid of emotion, though she stood closer to the group than necessary. "Hostiles neutralized. But seismic sensors indicate movement in the lower tunnels. Large movement. The bleeding has stopped, but combat efficiency is reduced by 60%."
Aurora stepped forward, wiping black ichor from her axe. She looked at Persya, then at the path ahead. The Black Ledger in Persya's pack felt heavier than ever.
"We can't go back the way we came," Aurora said, her eyes scanning the dark. "Varrick's blocked the main shaft. And dragging Persya up a ventilation duct will kill him."
She pointed deeper into the cavern, where the air grew colder and the mana lamps flickered with a violet hue.
"The Ledger mentioned a 'Processing Center' below the testing grounds," Aurora said. "Where the mana souls are extracted before being fed to the Animus. If there's a way out, it's through the plumbing."
"We're going deeper?" Roui asked, helping Persya to his feet. The hybrid groaned, leaning heavily on his Kayaçelik sword, using it as a crutch.
"We're going to the drain," Aurora corrected. "And we're going to clog it."
"Gear," Aurora decided, the blue light of her eyes narrowing. "We can't sneak past sensors we don't understand, and I'm not swimming in sludge. We need to stabilize Persya, or he's dead weight."
They moved toward the heavy iron blast doors of the Maintenance Bay. Alyia placed her hand on the control panel. She didn't hack it; she overloaded it. Channeling a sharp spike of Ionization, she fried the locking mechanism. The gears groaned, and the door slid open with a screech of unlubricated metal.
The bay was a garage of nightmares.
Hanging from ceiling chains were the dismembered chassis of "failed" constructs—limbs of Null-Iron, torsos of stitched flesh, and vat-grown organs pulsing in glass jars. The air smelled of grease, cauterized meat, and the ozone tang of Schismite welding torches.
In the center of the room, hunched over a workbench, was the warden.
It was an Artificer-Construct. Unlike the brute-force soldiers outside, this thing was spider-like, built for precision. It had six multi-jointed limbs, each ending in a different tool—a saw, a welder, a syringe, a claw. Its "head" was a cluster of glowing violet lenses that swiveled instantly toward the intruders.
"Biomass... unauthorized," it buzzed, its voice a grinding collage of recorded screams.
"Roui, distract it!" Aurora barked, vaulting over a pile of scrap metal.
Roui didn't hesitate. He stepped into the open, banging his Aether-Glaive against his shield. "Hey! Scrap-heap! Over here!"
The Artificer hissed, scuttling forward with terrifying speed. It raised a limb tipped with a spinning buzz-saw.
Roui braced, casting Stone-Skin. The saw sparked against his granite-hardened shoulder, digging a furrow but failing to cut bone. "Aurora, now! It's heavy!"
Aurora slammed into the construct from the flank. She didn't swing her axe; she hooked the haft around two of its legs and pulled. The Infusus-enhanced strength tore the limbs from their sockets in a spray of hydraulic fluid.
The construct shrieked, trying to swivel, but Alyia was already moving. She sprinted up the side of a workbench, leveled her Heafon Wand, and fired a point-blank bolt of Ionization directly into its central power core.
CRACK-BOOM.
The Artificer convulsed, its circuits frying instantly. It collapsed into a heap of twitching metal.
"Clear," Aurora panted. She turned to Persya. "Sit. Alyia, find something to brace that shoulder."
Persya slumped against a tool chest, his breathing shallow. The vines Isla had grown were turning brown at the edges, withering as they drained his mana. "The... pneumatic struts," he wheezed, pointing to a rack of spare parts. "Grab... a piston. And a chest harness."
Isla worked fast, her hands slick with blood and oil. She stripped the armor off Persya's chest. Alyia handed her a heavy brass piston meant for a construct's leg.
"I can't fuse this to your skin," Isla warned. "It's Null-Iron. It rejects magic."
"Don't fuse it to me," Persya gritted out. "Fuse it to the blade."
He pointed to the jagged metal still sticking out of his shoulder.
Isla understood. She positioned the piston like an external brace, running from his hip to the protruding blade. Using Chlorokinesis, she grew fresh, tough vines to lash the mechanism tight, essentially turning his own impalement into a load-bearing joint.
"Move your arm," she whispered.
Persya grunted, engaging the muscles. The piston hissed, taking the weight of his arm. The pain was blinding, but the limb moved. He stood up, looking like a cyborg cobbled together from trash and determination.
"Functional," he said, testing the grip on his sword. "Let's go."