The door was ripped from its frame like a broken tooth. Behind it was a flood of Syndicate guards—black armor, faceless helmets, and naked swords in their hands. Tiny dots of red light glowed where their eyes should have been, as if they weren't human, but Aether-powered Golems.
"Block the door!" Mara yelled, and together with Grak, she began to use the heavy, broken piece of the door as a makeshift shield.
But they couldn't hold them for long. Guards began to slip under and around it.
Kael was a gust of wind. He moved forward and took down the first two guards in a single, precise motion. His swords sang a strange music—the music of death. "Aarav! With me!" he called out.
Aarav stood beside him. In his hands was the cold, heavy, real sword. His heart was a wild animal thrashing inside his chest.
"I... I'm ready," he said, his voice trembling, but his resolve was clear.
"Don't be ready. Just... breathe," Kael said, his eyes fixed on the approaching enemy. "This is not a dance. It's a storm. You either swim with it, or you drown."
A guard lunged at Aarav, his sword aimed straight for his heart.
For a moment, everything in Aarav's mind went quiet. On the palm of his hand, where the Blade Sigil had flashed, he felt a faint warmth.
And then, something strange happened.
He could see the guard's sword, but even more clearly, he could see the guard's shoulder. He could see the weight on his feet. He could see the tiny, momentary imbalance the guard made as he thrust.
This wasn't seeing. It was *feeling*.
He didn't block the attack with his sword. He simply deflected it. *Clang!* The sound of metal on metal rang out, but Aarav felt no jolt. He had used the guard's own weight against him. The guard stumbled.
Aarav didn't try to kill him. He just did what Kael had taught him thousands of times—a straight, precise thrust. The sword slid directly into the joint of the guard's armor, under his shoulder. The guard fell without a sound.
Aarav was stunned. He... he had done that.
"No time to think!" Kael yelled as he moved past him, felling another guard. "Another one is coming!"
At the doorway, Grak stood like a mountain. "You shall not pass!" he roared, and with a swing of his hammer, he sent three guards flying backward. There was a sound of crunching armor.
"Grak, keep them busy!" Mara called out. She had started firing her steam-gun. With every shot, a guard would flinch and fall. "Liora! What's your status?!"
At the console, Liora was drenched in sweat. Her face had gone pale. "I'm... I'm in! But this... this isn't just a lock! It's a trap! The Master's own Aether is woven into it! Every time I try to break it, it attacks me back!"
Inside her mind, she could hear a cold, calm voice, just like the one Aarav had heard.
"...weak girl... you will get them all killed... your power is useless... Aarav will die because of you..."
"No..." Liora whispered, her fingers trembling. "I... I won't let that happen."
Outside, the fight grew more desperate. The number of guards wasn't decreasing. They kept pouring in through the broken doorway.
"Cut off their supply line!" Mara yelled. "We need to block the door!"
"How?!" Grak shouted, picking up one guard and throwing him at another. "The door is already broken!"
Kael looked up. There were large pipes on the ceiling. "Aarav! Look up! That pressure valve!"
Aarav looked up. Right above the doorway was a large, red valve. A thick pipe was connected to it, labeled 'Emergency Release'.
"What happens if we open it?" Aarav yelled.
"Something bad!" Grak shouted back. "But worse for them than for us!"
Aarav understood. He had to get up there. He looked at Kael. Kael just nodded.
It was a moment of trust.
Aarav ran towards Kael. Kael bent down, forming a platform with his crossed swords. Aarav stepped onto it.
"Now!" Kael said, and with all his might, he launched Aarav upwards.
Aarav was in the air. For a moment, he thought he wouldn't make it. He stretched out his hand and grabbed the hot, metallic valve.
Below, two guards had spotted him. They aimed their rifles at him.
Before they could fire, Mara stepped in front of them. "No!" She fired at both of them, but a third guard struck her hand with a sword. Mara cried out in pain, her gun falling from her grasp.
"Mara!" Liora screamed. For a split second, her concentration on the console broke.
And that was exactly what the Master wanted.
Black, smoke-like tentacles shot out from the console and wrapped around Liora. "Aaaah!" she screamed in pain.
"Liora!" Aarav yelled from above. His focus wavered. His hand started to slip from the valve.
Below, Kael was fighting five guards alone. Grak was trying to defend Mara. Everything was falling apart. They were losing.
Aarav, hanging from the valve, watched his friends being overwhelmed. That old feeling... that feeling of helplessness... began to creep back in.
But then, he saw Liora. She was fighting against those black tentacles. She hadn't given up. He saw Kael, fighting like a wounded lion. He saw Mara, trying to get up despite her injured hand.
'No. Not this time. I am not helpless.'
A volcano of anger and courage erupted inside him. On the palm of his hand, the Blade Sigil flashed once more, this time brighter than before.
He couldn't feel the weight of the sword. He couldn't feel the weight of his own body. He could only see one thing—that red valve.
He grabbed the valve with his other hand and, with a surge of newfound strength, he turned it.
The valve, which had been rusted shut for years, turned with a deafening KRRREEEEE.
A moment of silence.
And then, the pipes above the doorway burst.
It wasn't water that came out. It was a storm of super-heated steam. The steam created a white wall, so hot and powerful that all the guards trying to enter screamed in pain and fell back. Some were thrown far down the tunnel by the force of the blast.
The doorway was sealed. At least for a while.
Meanwhile, Liora had also gathered her last bit of strength. "You... cannot... defeat me!" she screamed at the shadow of the Master in her mind.
A burst of green light erupted from within her, incinerating the black tentacles to ash.
She turned back to the console. All the locks were broken.
"Now!" she yelled.
She saw a large, black lever labeled 'Divert'. With all her might, she pulled it down.
All the red lights on the console went out. Below, in the Heart-Forge, the flow of power from the black conduit stopped. A massive jolt shook the entire facility, as if someone had slammed on an emergency brake.
A wave of blue-white Aether shot out from the console, throwing everyone in the room backward.
Everything went quiet. The siren stopped.
Aarav fell from the ceiling, but Kael caught him. Mara was clutching her injured hand. Grak was panting. Liora lay motionless near the console.
"Liora!" Aarav ran to her side.
She was unconscious, but breathing. She had poured every ounce of her strength into this fight.
"We... we did it..." Mara said, panting.
"Not yet," G-rak said. He pointed at the broken doorway. The wall of steam was slowly fading. "It won't take them long to get back here. And this time, the Master himself will come."
"So how do we get out of here?" Aarav asked, lifting the unconscious Liora into his arms.
Grak pointed to a large, round metal grate in the corner of the room. "Emergency steam release. It leads straight down to the deepest tunnels. It's a one-way trip. Dangerous. But it's our only way out."
Kael stepped forward and ripped the grate off. Below was a dark, bottomless shaft, with hot air rising from it.
"Let's go!" Mara commanded.
One by one, they began to jump into the shaft. Kael went first, then Grak, then Mara.
Aarav took one last look back. Through the broken doorway, he saw a shadow in the darkness of the tunnel. A tall figure in a black robe.
The Master.
He held Liora tightly and jumped into the darkness.
Their mission was complete. But now, they were falling into a place deeper and darker than the heart of Iron Reef.
And this time, they had no map.