Drogo walked past the "Defensive Battery." The two hundred Nulls were still on their knees, but they were no longer in a trance. They were coughing, their silver eyes red from the acidic smoke. They looked at Drogo as he passed. They didn't look at him with fear. They looked at him with a desperate, hollow hope."We held, My Lord," an old man wheezed, leaning against a cracked pillar. "The shield... it didn't break."Drogo stopped. He looked at the old man. He saw the burns on the man’s charcoal skin. He saw the way the man’s hands were shaking.[HUMANITY: 0.02%.]The struggle in Drogo’s heart was a heavy, cold weight. He had built this place to be a sanctuary. He had promised them they would be safe. And yet, the ceiling had almost fallen on their heads. The water they drank was boiling. The air they breathed was poison.He realized a terrifying truth. The sewers were no longer enough.As long as they stayed underground, they were in a box. The Emperor could always find a bigger bom

The "Iron Pipes" were the deepest part of the city’s guts. They were not made for people. They were made for the heavy, toxic waste that the High Spire did not want to see. The walls were thick, black iron, dripping with a liquid that smelled like old batteries and vinegar. The air was so thin it felt like breathing through a wet cloth.Inside these pipes, two thousand Imperial soldiers were huddled together. They were the "Deep-Strikers," the best of the best. But right now, they looked like frightened children. They had stripped off their rusted outer plates, but they still wore their "Under-Armor"—a flexible suit of Star-Iron mesh that was supposed to protect them from magic.Captain Boros sat against a curved wall. His "Vibration-Mask" was dead. He had pushed it up onto his forehead, revealing eyes that were wide and bloodshot."He’s coming," a soldier whispered. The man was shaking so hard his teeth were clicking. "I can feel the cold. It’s not in the air. It’s in my bones.""Q

The air in the "Iron Pipes" was no longer just thin. It was hungry.Five thousand soldiers of the Imperial Pacification Force were packed into the narrow, black tunnels. They were the best the Sun-King had. They were the "Deep-Strikers," men who had been told their whole lives that they were the masters of the world. They were covered in gold and Star-Iron. They carried weapons that could cut through mountains.But as Drogo Payne descended into the dark, the rules of the world changed.Drogo did not use a sword. He did not use a shield. He used the Void. He used the "Nothingness" that lived in his blood. He had turned the entire tunnel system into a [Void Zone], a place where magic went to die and matter went to rot.Soldier Marcus was a veteran of ten years. He had fought in the Southern Isles and the Northern Wastes. He gripped his Sun-Spear so hard his knuckles were white. The spear was a beautiful thing, made of white gold and tipped with a diamond that glowed with a steady, holy

The "Iron Pipes" were no longer a place of metal and stone. They had become a place of absolute, crushing nothingness.A moment ago, the tunnels had been filled with the sound of clattering iron and the whimpering of five thousand men. There had been the faint, dying glow of rusted Sun-Lanterns and the flickering blue sparks of broken armor. But then, Drogo Payne had raised his hand. He didn't just turn off the lights. He snuffed them.It happened in a heartbeat. The golden flames inside the glass lanterns didn't flicker or fade. They were simply deleted. The blue sparks on the floor vanished. Even the faint violet glow of the Abyssal Torches in the distance went out.The darkness that descended was not normal darkness. It was not the kind of dark you see when you close your eyes. It was the Abyssal Dark. It was thick. It was heavy. It felt like being buried alive in a mountain of black velvet.The five thousand soldiers of the Imperial Pacification Force froze."My eyes!" a soldier

The darkness in the Iron Pipes was not just a lack of light. It was a physical weight. It pressed against the skin of the five thousand soldiers like a cold, wet blanket. It crawled into their ears and sat on their tongues. It made them forget that the sun had ever existed.Drogo Payne, the Abyssal King, stood at the head of the tunnel. He was a ten-foot shadow, his obsidian skin invisible in the dark, but his presence was like a mountain standing in a small room. He didn't need to see them with eyes. He felt them through the "Lattice." He felt the heat of their bodies and the frantic, messy rhythm of their fear. "Walk," Drogo commanded.The voice didn't come from one place. It echoed from the iron walls, the floor, and the ceiling. It sounded like the earth itself was giving an order.The five thousand soldiers of the Imperial Pacification Force began to move. They were no longer an army. They were a single, long line of shivering, naked men.Drogo had forced them into a "Single Fi