Tomb-01's interior defied physics. Space twisted. Distances lied. Lin Mo navigated by the Seed's pull towards the Core, emulating Omega's multi-limbed agility to scuttle along sheer surfaces.
He saw Silas below, moving fast towards a pulsing nexus of light. Handler's voice crackled from his comms, guiding him. Tomb-01 reacted. Defenses awoke:
Gravity Whips: Tendrils of distorted space lashing out.
Erasure Drones: Small, swift Seekers spitting micro-beams of unmaking.
Reality Flux Zones: Areas where physics randomly failed (air solidified, fire froze).
Silas fought with Pagoda tech and desperate cunning, but was being herded, harried. Bait.
Lin Mo avoided the traps. The Omega Ghost form granted instinctive understanding of Tomb-01's predatory nature. He flowed through shadows, absorbing stray energy pulses ([ENERGY +2... +1...]), letting Silas draw the fire.
The Core Chamber was a cavernous space dominated by a single structure: a colossal, obsidian lattice cradling a swirling vortex of pure, chaotic Void energy – the true Consumer fragment Tomb-01 was built to contain. It pulsed with the same rhythm as Lin Mo's Seed. The Source.
Handler's Revenant materialized inside the chamber, phasing through the Tomb's skin. Silas scrambled towards its lowering ramp.
"The Key, Silas!" Handler's masked figure stood at the ramp's edge. "Insert it into the lattice! We control the Cage!"
Silas raised Lin Mo's stolen Void Seed ring (a clever holographic decoy Lin Mo had let him take earlier).
[VOID SEED INTEGRITY: 90%]
[VOID FIST: MAXIMUM OUTPUT - TARGET: REVENANT PHASE DRIVE]
Lin Mo struck from above. Not at Silas. At the Revenant. A sphere of absolute negation slammed into its shimmering hull.
SHUNK.
The phase drive shorted catastrophically. The Revenant didn't explode; it flickered, half-phased, half-real, screaming metal trapped between dimensions. Handler stumbled, mask cracking further.
"Fool!" Handler shrieked, not at Lin Mo, at Silas. "He played you!"
Tomb-01's defenses, momentarily confused by the phased ship, refocused. A gravity whip snapped, crushing Silas against the lattice. His cyborg body sparked, dying.
Handler looked at Lin Mo, then at the unstable Core Vortex. "If I can't control it…" He triggered a device on his wrist. "...I'll break it!"
A pulse of resonant energy, amplified by the dying Revenant, slammed into the containment lattice.
CRACK.