**Time: Estimated Day 5 after the 28th**
The absolute dark and silence were shattered by the nerve-shredding, incessant scraping outside.
Jack and Alice took watch shifts, monitoring the corridor via night-vision and acoustic sensors (military-grade kit from Jack's hoard).
Food and water weren't immediate concerns, but the psychological pressure was a noose tightening.
Jack used precious breaks from meditation to guide his wisp of "Qi" through his system.
The slow, faint warmth genuinely aided recovery, even sharpening his senses in the dark – he could discern subtle variations in the monsters' chitin scraping the steel, smell their ozone-and-rotten-metal stench more acutely.
Alice was buried in her notebook, furiously documenting Jack's "Qi" sensations, the glyph's energy signatures, and her observations of the creatures outside, building a theoretical framework.
"Sound changed," Jack whispered suddenly, the words loud in the stillness.
He was in a brief post-meditation clarity, ear pressed to the cold steel. "The scraping… stopped. But… new sounds. Deep… like… liquid flowing? And… a… high-pitched whine?"
Alice dropped her notebook instantly, moving to another observation slit, adjusting her scope. "Dear God…" she breathed, her voice laced with unprecedented terror.
In the green-tinted view, a thin, near-translucent **purple mist** seeped into the corridor, seemingly oozing from wall and ceiling joints, faintly luminescent.
Within it, three indistinct, shadow-flowing **humanoid shapes** were coalescing! Faceless, seemingly composed of pure energy and darkness, their edges flickered and warped like bad reception.
Standing nearly three metres tall, where arms should be writhed shadowy tendrils or whips of dark energy.
They moved soundlessly, leaving only ripples in the mist.
The scythe-limbed mantis creature, previously wounded by Jack and lingering nearby, was now backing away skittishly, its compound eyes filled with primal fear.
"Shade Stalkers…" Alice's voice was parched. "I… I detected similar anomalous energy signatures in deep-space radiation data… before the third Dark Day!
Low intensity, dismissed as instrument noise… They can phase through matter?!"
As if confirming, one Stalker "raised" its indistinct head-region.
No eyes, but both Jack and Alice felt an icy, soul-freezing **malevolence** lock onto them!
Then, a shadowy tendril extended from the Stalker, effortlessly **phasing through** the reinforced steel door sealing them in! Like a hot knife through butter!
"Open fire!" Jack roared, his already-cocked Glock spitting flame!
***BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!***
Bullets tore through the shadowy tendril as if hitting viscous liquid, raising only faint purple ripples before vanishing!
The tendril pushed on, unimpeded.
Where it passed, moisture in the air flash-froze; the steel groaned under unseen stress. A bone-deep chill instantly flooded the inner room!
"Useless! Physical attacks don't work!" Alice screamed, simultaneously lighting one of her homemade smoke grenades and hurling it through the firing port.
Acrid chemical smoke billowed, but seemed to have no effect on the spectral entities.
"Bollocks!" Jack knew hesitation was death. He grabbed the dim, fragile Ignis Sol Glyph – its last dregs of power.
He slammed his mental focus onto it, desperately trying to channel his own wisp of warmth (Qi) into the glyph!
***HUMMM—CRACK!***
The glyph screamed! Its crimson lines flared in a final, unstable burst!
A smaller, flickering golden phantom glyph, its edges disintegrating, barely formed.
Jack felt like his brain was being skewered; warm blood trickled from his nose. Gritting his teeth, he thrust the failing glyph towards the invading shadow-tendril!
***WHOOSH-KABOOM!***
Golden fire met shadow in a violent burst of energy annihilation!
Not a sizzle, but the sound of water hitting superheated oil! Blinding white light and a deafening blast erupted at the doorway!
A shockwave of scalding heat and biting cold shrapnel blasted inward!
Jack was hurled backwards, slamming into crates, vision greying out. Alice was thrown off her feet, ears ringing.
As the dust and chaotic energies settled, they struggled to look.
The invading shadow-tendril was severed, its stump oozing thick, tar-like dark purple "blood" reeking of pure negativity and rot.
The Shade Stalker outside emitted a soundless, glass-on-glass screech directly into their minds!
Its form fluctuated violently – injured. The other two Stalkers paused, assessing.
The glyph… was gone. Reduced to a pinch of charred ash, drifting from Jack's trembling hand. His last trump card, spent.
Mentally shattered, head pounding, vision blurred. Despair, thick as the purple mist outside, choked him.
Then, from the depths of the corridor near the service stairs, came the sudden, deafening roar of gunfire and human battle cries!
"Open fire! Fire at will! Target the glowing mist! Incendiaries! Now!"
"Cover the Sergeant! Left flank! Contact left!"
"For London! Take these bastards down!"