The portal snapped shut behind them with a violent tearing sound, dumping Fin and Arachne back into the hellish heat and stench of the sub-level tunnel.
And the air, thick with ozone and the sickeningly sweet smell of cooked flesh, hit him like a physical blow.
He stumbled, his domain already screaming in protest from the unstable portal jump.
So then he looked up, and the scene in front of him punched the breath from his lungs.
The reinforced door to the Abyssal Lock chamber, the one he'd sealed, was still shut, thank gods.
But the tunnel itself was a goddamn slaughterhouse.
Walls were scorched black, metal buckled and torn like wet paper.
And pipes had burst, hissing steam and spitting noxious fumes that burned his eyes.
Then he saw the bodies.
Three of them, twisted into nightmare shapes, their advanced Unit 7 armor melted like wax, fused to the grating.
They weren't just dead; parts of them were just... gone. Vaporized.
