The enchanted steel blurred into a dark streak, riding the gravity well. It crossed the distance to the vat faster than the eye could follow, leaving a faint ripple in the air behind the hilt, and struck dead center.
Armor-piercing runes—which had so easily sliced through his own protections—etched into the metal flared violet upon impact, biting deep into the alchemically hardened surface. The spatial slingshot's kinetic force delivered the final blow.
For a moment, the deafening crack of shattering crystal and groaning copper drowned out the roar of the surrounding battle. A thousand gallons of green fluid erupted from the breach, and a tidal wave surged across the lower pit, tearing brass transformers from their mounts and sending sparks cascading across the rusted floor grates.
Along with it came the poor druid, tumbling bonelessly out of his ruined prison.
The thick cables pumping the sludge into his neck ripped free, tearing away chunks of pale flesh, and he hit the bottom of the pit with a sickening crunch of bone. The ironwood roots that had replaced his legs snapped, cleanly severing his body from the base’s power grid.
He convulsed once amid the broken glass and rushing fluid. The glowing green fire in his eyes flickered, dimmed to a dull yellow, and then faded completely. His jaw closed, and the silent scream finally ceased.
On the catwalk, the sole silver hound Kethor had managed to reactivate in the meantime, pressing Jordan, froze mid-stride. Its scythe, mere inches from the Paladin’s sword, stopped dead. The green light pulsing in its chest stuttered, flashing erratically for a second before going dark.
Without the soul-sap, the machines lost the organic reasoning required to process the new Silence-alloy's adaptive shifts. Their logic cores encountered a sudden error, and their internal systems crashed. Sparks showered from their sleek joints as the metal seized, and they collapsed into inert statues.
Garrick pulled himself from the rubble that one of Verner’s spells had hurled him into and froze. He stared at the unmoving construct so close to him, his chest heaving, sweat carving clean tracks through the soot on his face.
Across the chamber, Verner parried a blur of a thrust from Esmeralda, a spark of arcane magic turning the vampire’s rapier aside. He stepped back, smoking where Erethemor’s dragon fire had hit and charred his left sleeve, and looked at the destruction, tracing the broken glass and the dead druid lying in the sludge, then falling on Orion, who was somehow still standing despite the pool of blood around him.
His composed mask finally broke as he let out a long, slow breath. The expression that appeared was not the panic of a spy who had failed his job, as Orion would have expected, but authentic sorrow.
"A tragedy," Verner murmured, his voice carrying clearly through the sudden quiet of the chamber. “I was so sure this would be the breakthrough we needed. My master will be disappointed by such a loss.”
"You sold us out for that?!” Garrick spat as red mist began to seep from his blade. He stepped over the frozen hound in front of him, locking onto the traitor with animalistic fury.
Verner shook his head, keeping his distance. "I betrayed nothing and no one, Garrick. My only fault is failing to secure our future. The Iron State can kill magic itself, and Cyril must learn to control their methods before the balance of power shifts permanently. The Dawn requires a clean horizon to be seen, after all. I wanted you to survive. I truly did.”
Orion remained on his knees, his left hand pressed against his chest. The scar tissue where the Light mana healed his punctured lung burned with each shallow breath. The toll of the experimental magic and the shock of blood loss also left him trembling, his muscles weak.
"You miscalculated," he rasped. “Whatever you hoped to gain from this, it’s now ash.”
“Not all," Verner murmured. He raised his hands, and the Field began to warp, bending toward his palms. "Which means the Iron State cannot be allowed to keep the remnants of this laboratory. If the Sun cannot claim the prize, no one else can.”
Given the power he’d shown so far, it would not have been difficult for him to strike Team Obsidian down where they stood, yet Verner did not aim his magic at them. He turned his palms outward, projecting an expanding wave of light.
The spell washed harmlessly over them but resonated with the load-bearing concrete. The pillars cracked, deep fissures racing toward the ceiling, and steel girders groaned under the sudden shift in pressure.
“He’s going to leave! Kill him!" Jordan yelled, surging forward.
Verner offered only a sad smile. The air folded around him, collapsing inward. The vacuum implosion that followed swallowed him in a flash of blue light, leaving only cracked stone on the floor where he’d been, the Mage Killers gone with him.
That was when the ceiling above them shuddered. Large chunks of concrete began to rain down, smashing into the vats.
On the raised gantry, Kethor pounded his fist against the railing. He ignored the falling debris, fixated on the spot where Verner had vanished.
"What arrogance," he cursed, showing true emotion for the first time. “Oh, but he’ll pay. Does he think me a pawn in his game, to be cast aside at the first sign of trouble?!”
Spitting on the ground in anger, Kethor turned to his tablet. He typed a sequence into the terminal, and soon a copper cylinder popped free from the wall. The Apprentice snatched the data drive and slid it into his pocket.
He looked down at Team Obsidian one last time, his mouth a hard line, but offered no parting words. The blast door at the rear of the gantry hissed open, and Kethor stepped through. The steel sealed shut behind him just as a chunk of the ceiling crushed the terminal he had been using.
It became urgently clear to all that they couldn’t sit and digest what had just happened. To remain in the chamber meant certain death.
With the druid dead, [Overgrowth] lost its anchor. The thick roots that had driven through the concrete walls and wrapped around the catwalks began to wither, turning gray and brittle within seconds before crumbling into ash.
The sudden loss removed the last bit of structural support holding the fractured foundations together. The whole thing was coming down, collapsing under the weight of the base above.
"We need to move!" Garrick was the first to react, swatting a falling piece of rebar aside with the flat of his blade.
Jordan rushed back to Daus. The young druid was unconscious, his skin pale and clammy, and the terrible wound across his stomach, though closed under the Paladin's healing light, wasn’t likely to bode well for his fate. Yet Jordan still hooked his arms under his shoulders, hauling him up and tossing him over his broad shoulder like a sack of grain.
Esmeralda and Erethemor stepped to the front, conjuring twin shields of flame and blood to protect them from falling debris.
Before Orion knew what was going on, Garrick had crossed the chamber and grabbed him by the upper arm, hauling him to his feet.
The sudden movement sent a wave of blinding dizziness through his skull. His legs buckled, and he leaned heavily against the adventurer. The crude repair in his lung felt tight, as if a thick leather strap had been drawn across his ribs.
Instinctively, he reached for the pouches on his belt, his fingers brushing the second glass vial containing his mother's healing potion. He needed it. His body screamed for the relief it offered.
Yet, his mind still worked well enough to stop him.
The first potion had flooded his body with concentrated restorative agents, which everyone knew were toxic in high doses. Drinking a second vial within twenty-four hours would trigger acute alchemical poisoning, damaging his internal organs more than the potion could heal. He had to endure the pain until then.
If I had an elixir, this wouldn’t have been a problem. But if elixirs of that level were so easy to come by, I wouldn’t have had to use a stump for weeks on end.
"I can walk," Orion ground out, forcing his hand from the belt.
"Save your breath, kid," Garrick grunted, throwing Orion’s arm over his armored shoulder. "The lifts are likely dead given the damage, and the upper decks must be pancaking. We can't outrun this thing to the surface.”
"The drainage flues then," Orion said in a hoarse whisper. “We must go down, back through the druids’ paths.”
"You heard the boy!" Garrick barked at the others. "Into the pipes!”
They scrambled across the buckling floor. A massive section of the upper gallery sheared loose, crashing into the central pit and crushing the remains of the glass cylinder under thousands of tons of concrete and steel. A thick, choking cloud of white dust began billowing, giving them all the incentive they needed to finally leave.
Esmeralda led the charge, cutting a path through the dust and guiding them to the opening in the concrete wall where Daus had lifted the broken blast door.
Team Obsidian dove through the gap, leaving the chamber behind just as the rest of the gantry ripped free from the wall.
Not that what they found was much better. Withered roots had left gaping voids in the concrete, and the floor plates groaned as the supports beneath them snapped, bowing downward.
Erethemor took point, shoulders smashing through a jammed maintenance hatch like a fiery meteor, ignoring the metal scraping his scales and using his raw power to keep the path open for the rest.
"Keep moving, don’t stop for anything!” Jordan yelled over his shoulder, coated in white dust and still shining brightly as his magic spread across the whole group, giving them a second wind.
Even so, Orion could barely keep up. Every step sent a jolt of fire through his chest, forcing him to magically suppress his own pain and exhaustion and focus strictly on walking. Left foot. Right foot. Balance the center of gravity. Ignore the blood.
Once the Light had run its course and he had enough strength to spare, he briefly pulled the Arcane Overlay back up. The static had cleared enough for him to access the topographical map he had built during their ascent.
“At the next junction," he coughed, pointing down the corridor. "Take the right fork. The left leads to a dead end.”
Garrick nodded even as he tightened his grip on Orion’s waist to take on more of his weight. They veered right, plunging into a narrow, downward-sloping tunnel lined with brass pipes.
The heat was becoming oppressive. The machines on the lower decks were failing, venting high-pressure steam through cracked seals, making the hellish descent even more difficult.
Finally, they reached the maintenance shaft. The iron rungs they had climbed earlier were still intact, though the concrete mantle surrounding them was spider-webbed with cracks.
"Esmeralda, go!" Garrick ordered.
The vampire didn't hesitate, swinging herself into the shaft and descending the ladder.
"Drop him down," she called from below after a few seconds.
Jordan shifted Daus off his shoulder, gripping him by what remained of his armor and lowering him down the shaft as far as he could before releasing his grip.
A soft thud echoed, and Orion could only hope Esmeralda had caught him safely. The Field’s tinting with blood magic indicated she’d done something, at least.
Jordan followed immediately after.
"Your turn, lizard," Garrick said, shoving Erethemor toward the hatch.
Once the dragonkin was gone, Garrick turned to Orion. His face was a mask of grim determination, his eyes tight with strain.
"You're going to have to go down yourself, kid," Garrick said flatly. "Can you do it?”
Orion looked at his blood-stained gloves. His hands were shaking. He reached out and wrapped his fingers around the top rung. The metal felt slick against his palms. He squeezed, testing the newly knitted muscle in his chest. It held, though the pain made his vision swim.
“I can,” he finally answered. He had to.
"Then climb.”
He did, slowly descending into the darkness below.