The metallic clang of the service hatch slamming shut echoed through the vast, dark emptiness of the Subterranean Grid. They were beneath the toxic Outskirts, a forgotten network of maintenance tunnels where the city's power flowed and its waste settled. Above them, the full, blinding fury of the Veritas Protocol activated.
The Saint felt the shift immediately. It was a cold, oppressive wave of spiritual energy—a city-wide net cast by Seraphiel, designed to find and flag any anomaly that carried the taint of the Fallen. Even shielded by the radioactive soil and layered concrete of the tunnels, the pressure was immense, a constant, low-grade psychic assault against his newly sealed core.
He looked at Lyra, illuminated only by the faint, eerie glow of her datapad. She was already working, establishing comms and setting up filtration for the stagnant air. She had accepted their brutal, intimate arrangement—the Executioner and the Fragment—with terrifying speed.
"Seraphiel is serious," Lyra reported, her voice calm despite the circumstances. "The Protocol isn't just surveillance. It's a predictive modelling engine. It's analysing all recent energy signatures—the Annexe explosion, the duel at the Threshold—and it's narrowing the search grid based on a decay curve of your signature. We have days, maybe hours, before the drones find a way to tunnel down here."
The Saint rested the unified Sanctus/Veritas blade against a pipe. The weapon now radiated a stable, integrated energy—a complex shimmer of crimson and white light. The core was stable, sealed by Lyra's sacrificial touch, but the cost was an enduring, physical ache.
He focused on the other threat—the words of the vanquished Cardinal.
"The Black Cardinal's message," the Saint said, his voice a low growl. "Lucifera seeks to fuel her Ascension. It's not enough to corrupt the city. She seeks a physical invasion."
Lyra pulled up the Black Cardinal's last recorded comms chatter, deciphered by the stolen celestial comms unit. "The Fragment is the key to physical manifestation. The angelic energy it contains—the raw power of creation—can sustain a permanent demonic presence on the earthly plane. It's the only power source capable of bypassing Heaven's oldest celestial wards."
The gravity of the situation pressed down on the Saint. He was caught in a pincer movement. Heaven sought to execute him and claim Lyra's power to strengthen their rule. Hell sought to steal her power to plunge the city into permanent, physical damnation.
He felt the familiar, distant thrum of Lyra's soul and closed his eyes. The core was sealed, but the emotional dependency was now absolute. The fear that the Black Cardinal would succeed in seizing her, in tearing the Fragment from her soul, was a cold, paralysing terror he hadn't experienced since the Fall. He needed her touch to keep his mind grounded, his resolve sharp. His damnation had become his sole source of strength.
Lyra, seeing the moment of weakness, didn't move to touch him—she respected the boundary. Instead, she provided a solution.
"We can't fight the Protocol," Lyra said, her eyes fixed on the Cathedra's black ledger. "It's too vast. It uses a network of high-altitude broadcast hubs, all routing their data to a central processing location. A massive, protected vault deep inside the Ascension Transit Zone."
She pointed to a glowing node on the complex holographic map. "Seraphiel's command nexus. His main communications and processing hub. If we can knock out that central node, the entire Veritas Protocol collapses. The search grid goes blind. We buy ourselves the time we need to find a permanent countermeasure to the Cardinal."
The Saint looked at the map, at the glowing, impossible target. The Ascension Transit Zone was the most heavily defended place in the Shattered City, even more so now after his initial breach.
"It is a fortress within a fortress," the Saint countered. "Seraphiel will have layered the defences—physical, spiritual, and systemic. It is a suicide run."
"It's the only run," Lyra shot back, her voice fiercely practical. "We have the data—the internal schematics, the shift rotations, the structural weaknesses you helped create. You have the power to breach the sanctified walls, and I have the knowledge to Ghost-Weave the central processing unit's firewall from the inside. We are the perfect team for this suicide mission."
He recognised the challenge in her eyes—a fierce, absolute refusal to be deterred. She was not a victim he needed to protect; she was an essential part of the machine.
The Saint nodded, accepting the brutal reality of their situation. He was no longer fighting for redemption, or even a noble cause. He was fighting for her, against two overwhelming, divine forces.
"The risk is total," the Saint warned, his gaze intense. "If we fail to breach the core system, Seraphiel will use the opportunity to execute us both, and claim the Fragment."
"Then we won't fail," Lyra said simply. She reached out and placed the heavy, worn datapad into his hands, forcing his focus onto the logistics, away from the agonising silence of his core. "The command nexus is vulnerable on the western flank, near the old steam vents. We use the Subterranean Grid to approach undetected, then ascend."
The Saint gripped the datapad, feeling the cold, hard reality of the mission. The emotional cost was immense, but the strategic necessity was undeniable. They had the element of surprise, the unified Sanctus/Veritas blade, and the stolen data.
He walked to the entrance, a rusted steel hatch sealed with heavy bolts. He began the slow, arduous process of sealing it with melted metal and spiritual wards—a temporary cocoon against the twin threats.
He looked back at Lyra, silhouetted against the dim light, his partner in damnation.
"We strike at the heart of the Protocol," the Saint concluded, his voice low, steady. "We force my brother to drop the net, or we tear it down ourselves. Prepare the infiltration schematics, Lyra. We move at the shift change."
He drew the unified blade, its mixed light casting crimson and white shadows across the dark tunnel walls. The war for the city—the war for the Fragment—had just entered its brutal second act.
The Saint and Lyra are planning their most dangerous infiltration yet—a direct attack on Seraphiel's command nexus to cripple the Veritas Protocol.