The grey dust of the dissolved Barnacles still hung in the air like a mist. After a few minutes of no other attacks coming and a thankfully empty stretch of corridor.
"Are you okay Chief?" Lyria asked softly with a slight concern on her face.
"I'm good, it didn't touch me." Aether says with a faint smile before glancing to the gun and noting it was charging back up.
Huh, that passive recharge really will be a blessing to me.
Lyria nodded before then saying. "What about you, Mila?"
Mila, who had been scanning the ceiling with her harmonic sight, gave a bright, thumbs-up. "Absolutely fine, my mind is still stable and good."
Lyria gave a nod. "Good. The Chief can help suppress the madness, if it appears while we're still down here."
Mila's head turned towards Aether, her golden eyes shining. "Is it through the Shackles?"
"Yeah." Lyria confirmed, her tone leaving no room for elaboration.
A slow knowing smile spread across Mila's face. "Interesting. The Lyria I know wouldn't believe something could do that unless she'd experienced it herself. Or unless the Paragon had told her."
She watched her Team Leader's back while Lyria's shoulders slightly tensed. "You almost went mad when you first found the Chief, didn't you? But the Shackles stopped it… They pulled you back. Did I get it right?"
Aether laughed, leading Mila's gaze to shift to him and he said. "You're correct."
Mila's eyes widened in delight. "My dear Chief… The value has just reached the platinum standard. And it hasn't even been five minutes."
"And it will continue growing," Aether promised with a grin.
"I hope so!" Mila chirped, the tension of her deduction melting back into her usual upbeatness.
The trio fell back into their urgent rhythm.
They passed through a cross-section where the walls were lined with fossilized smashed and darkened control panels.
Then Lyria stopped dead with her entire body going still. A beautiful blue glow ignited in her eyes as she glanced around before swiftly turning towards Aether.
But he felt it before he saw it.
The air beside him, thick with damp and decay, began to warp. It was a subtle visual distortion of a spiral mixed with white and grey.
The sounds it produced made his ears ache but he reacted on instinct, putting distance between himself and the phenomenon. To his surprise, the warped patch of air didn't lunge. It drifted slow as a cloud, keeping pace with his new position.
"Chief, you have to keep evading till it rushes forward!" Lyria shouted!
Aether nodded as he shifted again, moving closer to Mila and the distortion followed, its speed constant. The instant Aether was within arm's reach of Mila, the warped air rushed forward. It solidified, and formed into a grey five-fingered claw of translucent force.
It was the shape of something that belonged in a deep ocean trench, massive and crude. Aether and Mila swiftly moved to the side again just as the claw arrived.
Without a sound, it swept across the space they had just occupied and smashed into the wall.
A crashing sound rang through the area as everything trembled. The wall caved in, buckling inward in a smooth dent as if struck by a giant's hammer while dust rained down from above.
The claw lingered for a second, then dissolved back into nothingness, leaving only the mangled wall as proof.
Mila frowned slightly. "So it's already at the Pressure Shift stage."
"Is that a part of the Nightmare Zone you mentioned before?" Aether asked Lyria.
Lyria nodded. "It's the Deep Type which means the phenomena will be related to the ocean. But in general the Nightmare Zone manifests in stages."
"Based on what? Time?'
"Yes. The first alerts and agitates all resident Nightmare creatures to our location which is what we dealt with when we came to get you. The second stage…" Lyria gestured at a dent formed in the wall. "Triggers invisible attacks which we call Pressure Shifts. They are conceptual 'echoes' from leviathans that don't exist here, basically dimensional attacks striking from another place."
Mila tapped both of their shoulders with a faint smile. "And we need to hurry. The next stage is… Troublesome and something I really want to avoid."
"I agree, let's go." Lyria says with a slight tremble which Aether took note of.
He gently took her hand before squeezing them, making her blink as he gave her a smile and then she nodded before rushing ahead. Mila and Aether followed along through the corridor that stretched ahead, lined with terrible silhouettes.
Behind them, the sound of metal groaning, something massive shifting position and then the air warped again.
To his left this time.
"Down!" Lyria's voice rang out as her eyes flared brighter and then a grey field erupted around them, shimmering and nearly invisible.
The Pressure Claw formed faster than before, a concentrated region of space that suddenly exerted crushing force. It slammed into Lyria's Stillness Aura and slowed down while they moved away from the area before then the field faded.
Then the claw burst forward until it crashed into the floor, right behind them. The floor was shocked with fragments scattered around the area.
Aether's eyes narrowed as he took in their surroundings.
The massive walls, the ruined and broken gravity-stabilizer grinding in the center. The warped vault door at the far end, bent inward with its edges melted.
They were heading for the exit, a stairwell that would take them up to Level 3.
But then another distortion began to stir, this one directly ahead.
Mila vaulted over a fallen beam without breaking stride. "Chief, stay close to Lyria! Her aura will slow them down!"
Aether adjusted his position, moving within arm's reach of Lyria as they ran. Her Stillness Aura pulsed outward in waves, creating a bubble of altered space-time around them. When the next Pressure Claw formed and struck, it moved down a crawl.
They shifted right before moving past the extremely slow moving attack before then it sped up once the field left it.
The hall shook once more as they reached the stairwell.
Lyria grabbed the railing and pulled herself up. Mila followed and Aether brought up the rear, casting one last glance at the chamber behind them.
It was changing.
The silhouettes on the walls were moving now, their frozen poses shifting slightly when he wasn't looking directly at them. He took the stairs three at a time and once they burst through the door at the stairwell.
Aether blinked before he realized they were back in the same corridor. The Core Lock Chamber stretched before them again, identical in every detail. Four massive ruined and old Anchor-pillars, the spinning rings, and gravity-stabilizer grinding at the center.
Aether's eyes narrowed. "We're back in the same hall as before."
"This is another phenomenon of the Nightmare Zone." Mila's voice came from ahead with a light sigh. "We'll have to loop through the same area three times in total before we can break through it. I thought we had more time but it seemed it had reached the Loop Stage."
"How troublesome." Aether sighed, but his smile never wavered. "But it does make me curious as to why."
"Is it because we're trapped in the Nightmare Realm that took over the Vault, so we must play by its rules." Mila laughed. "There is a way to break it, but it would take a lot longer. So just keep moving, Chief!"