The thing that emerged from the new crack in the earth did not look like the pale man.It did not look like anything Kai had a name for.It moved on too many limbs, its silhouette flickering between solid and translucent, as though the world itself couldn't decide whether it wanted the creature to exist. A low, grinding hum accompanied its every motion, vibrating through the soles of Kai's boots and up into his teeth."What is that?" Victor's voice had gone thin and reedy with terror.The pale man's jaw tightened. "A Hollow Walker. A remnant of the war. I thought they had all been destroyed.""Clearly not," Kai said through gritted teeth, pulling Aria fully behind him this time, and this time she didn't argue."Kai." Her voice was tight. "I can fight. Let me help.""I know you can fight. That's not the problem.""Then what is?""The problem is that thing is looking directly at you, and I would like it to keep looking at me instead.""That's not how this works.""It's exactly how this

Kai took one step toward the door before he'd fully decided to.Aria's hand closed around his arm instantly, fingers digging in. "Don't.""You told me it was calling us.""I know what I said.""Then maybe it's calling us because there's something inside we're meant to find.""That's not it." Aria's voice shook, though her grip on his arm didn't loosen. "I don't think it's calling us because it needs help, Kai."He went still. "Then why?""I think it's calling us because it needs us."The words landed heavy and cold, settling into the pit of his stomach.Kai turned to the ancient survivor. "What do you think?"The survivor's gaze didn't leave the door. "I think we should leave.""You said we're trapped.""We are.""Then where exactly do you propose we go?"The survivor pointed to the far side of the garden, where a narrow passage had torn itself open, spilling white light across the roots and stone."That wasn't there a moment ago," Kai said.The prisoner regarded it with something clo

The ground beneath Kai's feet began to glow.An ancient formation bloomed upward through the stone, shaped unmistakably like a human body, arms outstretched, and Kai stood dead center of it, boots rooted to its heart. Aria's mark answered instantly, lines of golden light spilling from her forehead and racing across the garden floor toward him like a living current.The creature's laugh rippled through the chamber. "Finally.""GET KAI OUT OF THE FORMATION!" the survivor bellowed, already lunging.Kai tried to move. Couldn't. His feet were sealed to the stone as though the floor had swallowed them.Aria ran for him without a second's hesitation, and the prisoner caught her wrist hard enough to jerk her off balance."Don't!""Let me go!" Aria wrenched against his grip, fury and terror tangled together in her voice."If you enter that formation, it will activate completely.""Then what happens to Kai?"The prisoner's gaze slid to Kai, and for the first time since Kai had met him, somethin

The light did not stop at the floor.It climbed the broken pillars, threading itself into the cracks the way water finds every low place, and where it touched, the black rot retreated — briefly, uncertainly, like something that remembered being afraid of blue fire and hadn't yet decided whether to trust the memory.Kai stared down into the widening fissure. Far beneath, past strata of stone and root and what looked disturbingly like fused bone, something enormous shifted. Metal ground against metal. A single vast eye — if it was an eye — opened, dull gold, and fixed itself, unhurried, on the chamber above."That's a machine," Aria said, very evenly, in the tone of someone determined not to sound as unsettled as she felt. "That is a colossal, ancient, definitely-going-to-kill-us machine.""Correct," Shen Tian said."You built these, that will be amazing. You are amazing.""My ancestors built the first ones. Not this. This predates the Crimson Sect by centuries." He hadn't taken his eye

"Convergence," Aria repeated, backing up a step. "That's not a good word. That is objectively not a good word to hear right now.""I noticed," Kai said, pulling her back further as the floor's hum deepened into a vibration they could feel in their teeth.Around the chamber, the newly lit constructs began to move — not attacking, not yet, but turning, all at once, to face the center of the room where Kai and Aria stood. Their red eyes flickered in unison, like a held breath."Options," Aria said. "Give me options. Fast ones.""We run for the wall, find another way out—""There is no other way out, Kai, you can see there's no other way out, that's the whole problem with this plan—""Then we fight!""With what, your fists and my terrible aim?""Your aim isn't terrible.""It's situational.""This is not the time—""You're the one who keeps starting these conversations mid-crisis!"Despite everything, despite the hundred glowing eyes and the floor shaking under their boots, Kai almost laug