The claws struck like serpents. Steel tendrils burst from the ruptured floor, blades glinting, hydraulics hissing like monstrous lungs. Sparks showered the corridor as Gibson ducked the first strike, the claw smashing into the wall where his head had been a second earlier.He rolled, firing two silenced shots into the joint of another tendril. The rounds sparked off reinforced plating, useless. These weren’t machines to be destroyed with bullets. They were traps built to devour anything foolish enough to enter. Built for me, Gibson thought grimly, pivoting as another claw slashed across his chest.The edge grazed him, tearing cloth and skin. Blood warmed his ribs, but he didn’t falter. Pain was fuel. The claws moved in coordinated rhythm, boxing him in, leaving less and less space with every strike. A predator’s dance, tightening the cage.Gibson threw his pistol aside, it would buy him nothing. He gripped his combat knife, eyes narrowing as he watched the machines. He wasn’t lookin

The blast door shuddered, steam hissing from its edges like the breath of a dragon. Gibson stood in its crimson glow, his body slick with blood and sweat, his chest heaving. Every muscle burned, every wound throbbed, but his eyes were fire.The floor beneath him trembled as the door began to rise. First came the sound. A deep, guttural growl that wasn’t entirely human. Then came the stench, oil, scorched flesh, and something rotten, alive.The door lifted fully, and the Guardian stepped into view. It was massive. Eight feet of muscle and steel, a hulking figure fused with armor that seemed grafted into its skin.Tubes of glowing red fluid ran through its arms like veins of fire. Its face was a mask of twisted steel, but beneath it, something still breathed. Something human… once.The Guardian roared, a sound that shook dust from the ceiling. Gibson didn’t flinch. He tightened his grip on his knife, drew a second blade from his belt, and whispered to himself: “Clara. Hold on.”The beas

At first, it felt like drowning. Clara’s lungs seized as the crimson light poured into her, filling every space, every vein. She tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the roar of the storm inside the dome.Her body shook violently, her hands scrabbling against the barrier. The world outside blurred. Gibson’s fists hammered against the glass-like wall, his mouth forming her name again and again, but she couldn’t hear him.All she could hear was the heartbeat. It wasn’t hers. It was deeper, older, pounding in the rhythm of the Nexus itself. Each thud rippled through her chest, as though her small heart had been forced into synchronization with something far greater, far hungrier.“Don’t fight it,” whispered a voice, not outside, not from the villain, but inside. She froze. It was soft, almost kind.A woman’s voice. But layered beneath it was something monstrous, something vast, as if countless voices whispered in unison. Clara shook her head violently. “No! I don’t want this!

Silence .Not the silence of peace, but of a grave. When Gibson’s eyes cracked open, he saw nothing but red smoke curling upward through jagged ruins.The fortress was gone, flattened, twisted, a carcass of steel and fire. His ears rang, his body screamed in agony, but the only thought that burned through the haze was a name. Clara.He tried to move and felt pain spike through his ribs, hot and white. Every breath was broken glass. His left arm dangled uselessly, bent in ways it shouldn’t, but his right hand clawed into the rubble.Inch by inch, he pulled himself free from the slab of concrete pinning his legs. The fortress had collapsed into itself. Beams jutted upward like broken bones. Sparks hissed where wires bled. Smoke curled thick enough to choke.But Gibson dragged himself forward anyway. His knees tore open on jagged steel. His skin blistered from embers. He didn’t stop.“Clara!” His voice tore raw from his throat. It echoed through the wreckage, swallowed by the ruinous quie

The air was ash. It clogged Gibson’s throat, scraped against his lungs, burned into his eyes. Every breath was a war. Every movement was an agony. But still he crawled.The ruins of the fortress sprawled around him like the skeleton of some dead god, jagged beams jutting from the ground, walls collapsed into heaps of molten slag.Flames still flickered where fuel leaked, painting the broken world in shifting shades of orange and black. His body screamed for him to stop. His legs dragged like dead weight.His ribs stabbed at him with each crawl. But he would not stop. Clara is here. Somewhere beneath the rubble, his daughter was waiting. Alive. Or dead. Or worse.“Clara…” His voice was broken glass, his throat raw, but he kept calling. “Clara…” The only answer was the groan of collapsing steel.He pushed aside a twisted beam, every movement tearing his shoulder apart. He forced himself over shards of concrete, cutting his palms, splitting the skin open until his blood marked the trail