The metal hatch screamed a final, desperate protest, then tore open.
The first Mechanist Corps Enforcer didn't drop. He fired instantly. A focused beam of concentrated Aether—pure, sizzling purple energy—shot into the maintenance tunnel, vaporizing the metal wall just above Kaelen's head. The blast wave rattled his already-broken ribs.
Kaelen didn't flinch. He couldn't. His focus was entirely on the Quantum Disc pressed against the pipe wall.
The Disc was working at maximum output, its silver surface glowing with a sickly, unstable green light. The Gravitic Pulse was fighting the physical reality of the tunnel, holding back the tons of rock and soil above the breach. It was a sheer effort of logic against gravity.
Aura: Gravitic field stability degrading. Force scalar reduced by 40%. The structure will fail in 3.5 seconds.
"Elara! Now!" Kaelen yelled, his voice strained and raw.
Elara was a blur of focused speed. She didn't look up or flinch from the laser fire whipping past her head. Her tiny hands worked with frightening efficiency, braiding the complex wires of her circuit board into the main power conduit of the Aether Waste Line. She was performing surgery on the city's nervous system.
The first Enforcer, a hulking figure in bronze armor, stepped fully into the tunnel. He raised his heavy Steam-Shotgun—a weapon designed for brutal close-quarters combat.
"Drop the Relic, Scrapper!" the Enforcer bellowed.
Kaelen knew the Gravitic Pulse had one more function: repulsion. He had to time it perfectly.
Aura, when the shotgun fires, release the Gravitic energy as a directional burst. Aim for the ceiling.
Aura: Calculation complete. The Gravitic recoil will throw us backward. But it is the only way to clear the breach. Executing on detection of Steam-Shotgun firing sequence.
The Enforcer pulled the trigger. The resulting blast was a massive, roaring FWOOMP of superheated steel pellets.
Simultaneously, Kaelen released the Gravitic Pulse.
The Quantum Disc didn't just stop the blast; it redirected the energy of the explosion. The Gravitic force, released as a singular shockwave, didn't hit the Enforcer. It hit the already-weakened tunnel ceiling right behind him.
The ceiling shattered.
Tons of rock, concrete, and sewage-laced soil slammed down, collapsing the tunnel entrance. The first Enforcer was completely swallowed by the landslide, his desperate, muffled scream instantly cut short by the crushing weight.
Kaelen and Elara were thrown violently backward down the smooth, waterlogged pipe. The Gravitic recoil felt like a giant's fist punching him in the spine.
They slid a hundred feet before splashing into a stagnant pool of industrial runoff.
Kaelen gasped, dragging himself and the now-inert Quantum Disc onto a small, concrete maintenance platform. The pain from his ribs was blinding, making him momentarily black out.
When he opened his eyes, Elara was already upright, soaked, and triumphant.
"Thirty minutes," she muttered, wiping black water from her face. "I needed thirty minutes. You gave me eight seconds of total chaos. Enough."
She slammed her fist onto a junction box beside them—the final, critical connection point for her circuit board. The Master Switch.
CLICK.
A low, deep groan resonated through the entire tunnel system, a sound that came not from the immediate environment, but from the depths of the city's infrastructure.
Then, the world changed.
The constant, deafening industrial hum of Ironheart—the churning of the massive Aether pumps, the grinding of the Steam-Golems, the pervasive hiss of the pressurized pipelines—died.
The maintenance tunnel plunged into a deep, total, absolute darkness.
It wasn't just a local power cut. It was the sound of a million machines choking at once.
Blackout. Grid Override Complete.
Aura: The diversion is successful. The resulting data anomaly will prevent the Chronophage from launching Time-Shock Echoes for approximately 4 hours, 38 minutes. The Mechanist Corps is blinded. We must utilize this window.
Elara was smiling, a feral, gleeful look in her enlarged eyes. The darkness didn't bother her.
"The Clock Tower Regulator is now isolated from the main grid," she whispered. "We can hit it without the Guild knowing we were ever here. The path is clear, Scrapper. You just started a war."
Kaelen felt the cold, hard logic of the situation wash over the pain. They had bought time, but at a massive cost: they had declared war on the entire economic and military infrastructure of Aethelgard.
"The Clock Tower," Kaelen said, forcing himself to stand, the Quantum Disc now heavy and silent in his hand. "Show me the way, Architect of Scrap. Let's find the First Aetheric Surge."
Elara pointed her small gas-lantern down the dark, twisting length of the sewage line, its light swallowed almost instantly by the oppressive blackness.
"This waste line runs directly under the Grand Plaza. The Regulator is a hundred feet below the Tower's foundation. It's a tight squeeze, and we have neighbors," she said.
"Neighbors?"
"Wastelanders. People who never made it out of the Undercity. And the things they breed in the dark. Come on, Kaelen. The clock is ticking, and for once, it's not ticking on the surface."