The tunnel was reduced to a choke point. Kaelen stood braced against the curve of the pipe wall, his back to the soft, rhythmic hiss of the cutting torch. The Stealth-Shield, powered by the Scrapper's energy cell and focused by the Quantum Disc in Elara's hand, provided a ghostly, invisible barrier.
It was silent inside the shield, a pocket of fragile peace amidst the warzone. The only sounds Kaelen could hear were the harsh, labored whistle of his own breathing and the delicate, surgical fizz of the cutting torch.
"Don't stop cutting. Don't look up," Kaelen thought, his eyes fixed on the blackness where the Wastelanders lurked.
Aura: Shield integrity 75%. Estimated time remaining: 3 minutes, 40 seconds. Wastelander unit Beta is advancing. They have triangulated Elara's thermal signature through the water.
Kaelen cursed internally. The water they stood in—the toxic runoff—was conducting their body heat. The shield could mute the sound, but not the residual heat.
The soft click-click-click of claws on metal grew louder, resolving into the grotesque shape of the first creature. Its skin was translucent white, and its limbs were unnaturally jointed, moving with a jerky, insect-like efficiency.
The Wastelander paused just outside the perimeter of the Stealth-Shield. It couldn't see Kaelen, but it could smell the heat and the strange, cold logic emanating from the Disc. It hissed—a dry, spitting sound—and its dead, phosphorescent eyes swiveled wildly, searching.
Kaelen knew if he struck, the shield would shimmer, revealing their position. He had to draw the attack out.
He subtly shifted his weight, allowing his elbow to brush a nearby, loose pipe fitting. Clang.
It was a small sound, but amplified in the quiet bubble of the shield.
The Wastelander shrieked—a high, painful noise—and lunged. It didn't lunge at Kaelen; it lunged at the sound, impacting the invisible barrier with a wet, sickening thud.
The force of the impact made Kaelen's ears pop. The entire shield flickered—a brief, invisible wave of energy distortion.
Aura: Shield integrity 55%. Field shock detected. You must increase the distance from the target.
Kaelen sidestepped the attacking creature. He let the Wastelander grapple with the unseen barrier for a moment, then, with a surge of adrenaline, he raised his heavy wrench and brought it down in a brutal, sweeping arc.
The wrench cracked against the exposed occipital ridge of the creature's skull with a sound that was horrifyingly final. The Wastelander collapsed without a sound, its body twitching in the toxic water.
"One down," Kaelen gasped, dragging the body back against the pipe wall to block the path.
Elara's voice, focused and tense, broke the silence. "One-third done, Kaelen. The bronze is thick. I need clean contact."
Kaelen turned to face the advancing threat. Two more shadows were approaching, moving with greater caution now. They had learned.
This time, they didn't lunge blindly. They began to scrape their claws along the inner circumference of the pipe, moving in an unsettling, rhythmic pattern. They were trying to feel the edges of the distortion field.
Kaelen felt a wave of crushing exhaustion. The pain neutralizer was wearing off, and the throbbing in his broken ribs was returning with a vengeance, making every breath a shallow, desperate effort.
He had to strike a primal fear.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small, copper wire he had used before. He pressed one end of the wire against his forearm, directly onto the copper wire scars that ran up his arm—Relic Wounds. He stabbed the other end into the inert silver surface of the Quantum Disc, which Elara had connected to the torch.
The Disc wasn't generating energy for the shield, but for the torch. Kaelen was briefly acting as a living conduit, pulling raw Aether from the external battery and running it directly through his scarred flesh into the Disc, bypassing the shield's dampeners.
A thin, visible arc of blue-white Relic Energy jumped from his arm to the Disc, a flash of horrifying, cold light.
The two approaching Wastelanders instantly froze. They didn't fear a wrench or a gun; they feared the logic. They feared the clean energy of the pre-Collapse, which was deadly to their mutated, Aether-waste-fed forms.
They shrieked—a chorus of high-pitched, desperate terror—and began to retreat.
"They're running!" Kaelen yelled, pulling the wire free, the blue scar fading from his vision.
Elara didn't cheer. She only spoke with cold focus. "Two minutes, Kaelen! I'm almost through the primary casing. But this thing is ancient. The metal is crystallizing."
Aura: Shield integrity 15%. Time remaining: 1 minute, 10 seconds. The retreated units are regrouping. They are calling the rest of the hive. You have successfully bought time, but the resulting surge in localized Gravitic anomaly will be catastrophic.
Kaelen looked at the Disc. The shield was failing. The Wastelanders were retreating to gather strength. And Elara was hitting a metal blockage.
He pushed his body off the pipe wall and staggered toward the cutting torch.
"Elara, give me the Disc," Kaelen ordered, his voice low and firm.
"What? I'm almost there!"
"You're cutting into pure titanium alloy now. You need more than Aether heat. You need digital coherence," Kaelen explained, remembering Aura's brief lecture on the Disc's true function. "I'm going to run the raw Aether through the Disc, not to the Disc. It won't just cut the metal. It will nullify the metallic structure momentarily."
He took the Quantum Disc from Elara. Her eyes were wide with fear, not for her life, but for her mechanism.
Kaelen disconnected the torch's power supply, slammed the Quantum Disc back onto the hatch, and connected the raw Aether battery directly to the Disc's data port—a move that was recklessly dangerous.
He gripped the silver disc and focused his mind, not on the metal, but on the cold, distant voice of Aura.
Aura. Protocol: Focused Structural Nullification. Three second pulse. Now.
The Quantum Disc didn't glow. It simply shuddered. A soundless, internal shockwave hit the hatch. The ancient titanium alloy, for a flicker of a second, ceased to be metal. It became pure concept.
Shlink.
The circular hatch fell inward with the clean, soft sound of a dropped coin. Elara immediately grabbed the hatch wheel and began turning it.
Aura: Shield integrity: 0%. Gravitic Anomaly approaching. We have 15 seconds before the tunnel collapses from external pressure.
"We're in!" Elara shouted, kicking the loose hatch aside. She dove into the dark, vertical shaft.
Kaelen followed her, scrambling into the gap just as the mass of regrouped Wastelanders hit the now-collapsed shield area. He heard their furious, desperate shrieks as the tunnel ceiling, no longer held by the Gravitic Pulse, began to tear apart, collapsing the Aetheric Waste Line around the panicked creatures.
They descended the dark shaft, moving from the stench of the sewer to the dry, cold air of the foundation.
They landed hard in a pristine, circular room—a chamber built of clean white ceramic and obsidian glass. In the center, mounted on a pedestal of perfectly smooth, unblemished brass, was the object of their quest: the Aetheric Regulator.
It was a complex array of spinning gyroscopes, polished crystal coils, and humming steam gauges. It looked ancient, but utterly perfect.
"The Regulator," Elara whispered, awestruck. "It's uncorrupted."
Kaelen approached the pedestal, his eyes fixed on the device. His hand, still tingling with the residual charge from the Quantum Disc, instinctively reached out.
Aura: Mechanist. We must synthesize the First Surge Signature. Connect the Quantum Disc to the Primary Crystal Coil. Now.
Kaelen slammed the Quantum Disc onto a flat access panel near the main crystal.
Shhhwooong.
A sound unlike any Kaelen had heard—not steam, not logic, but a deep, musical resonance—filled the chamber. The chamber lights flickered to life, bathing the room in a gentle, warm light.
And then, a smooth, articulate voice echoed, not in Kaelen's mind, but in the air itself, startling both him and Elara.
"The Primary Regulator is currently operational. Identity verification required for key synthesis. Welcome, Scrapper Kaelen. And welcome, Fragment Aura. We have been waiting."