God Ash: Remnants of the fallen.

The maintenance corridor stretched on like a vein carved through steel, pulsing with the faint thrum of the Grid's current. Cain's boots landed without a sound, every step deliberate. He did not look back at the others. The weight of their breathing was enough proof they followed.

Roselle's pistol swept left and right as she moved beside him. The walls hummed, vibrating faintly, like they were walking inside a living organism. She muttered, "Every server in this spire is a nerve. We're inside its skull now."

Steve, panting, clutched the tools at his belt. "Not nerves. Arteries. The Daelmonts don't think with this. They feed with it. Drain everyone below them to keep their sky towers bright." His voice cracked halfway between awe and hate.

Susan coughed, struggling to steady her rifle. Her body still trembled from the climb, but her eyes stayed sharp. "Feed or think, it doesn't matter. We cut it, they bleed."

Hunter walked last, his silence pressing like a blade against their backs. Cain felt it without turning. The man carried unspoken truths like others carried weapons.

They reached a junction: four corridors diverging, each lit by a dim pulse from server banks stretching into infinity.

Cain paused, lowering his voice. "Steve."

Steve knelt, pressed his palms to the floor, then opened a panel. Wires hissed as he worked, light from the circuits bathing his face in sickly green. "Give me a second to trace the split hub. It should—" He stopped.

Roselle's eyes narrowed. "What?"

Steve's fingers trembled over the wires. "They know we're here. Look." He pulled one strand loose, and immediately the corridor filled with a low, keening alarm. Not loud—subtle, like a warning heartbeat.

Susan lifted her rifle. "They've set failsafes."

Roselle spat on the floor. "Then let them come."

Cain shook his head. "No. We don't fight in these halls. They're designed to choke us, drive us into a slaughter. We move fast, cut, and vanish before they close the jaws."

Hunter finally spoke, his voice rasping like gravel dragged across steel. "You sound certain. Certain gets people killed."

Cain turned, meeting his gaze. "Doubt gets them killed faster."

For the first time, Hunter smiled—a humorless, jagged thing. But he said nothing else.

Steve yanked another wire. Sparks erupted, and a schematic flickered across the servers, projected like a ghost. A pulsing red node blinked at Floor 82, lines spiderwebbing upward into thousands of smaller veins.

"There. That's the split. Sever it, and everything above collapses." Steve's breath hitched. "But… there's something else."

Roselle's voice snapped. "Spit it."

Steve hesitated, eyes darting across the map. "Secondary locks. Bio-coded. They'll trigger countermeasures if it's not done with…" He looked at Cain. "…blood."

Susan swore. "Whose?"

Steve's silence was answer enough.

Roselle's hand twitched on her pistol. "This isn't just sabotage. It's sacrifice."

Cain's blade gleamed faintly as he drew it, not in threat but inevitability. His eyes swept the group. "We don't argue this here. We move."

The alarm's heartbeat quickened, echoing through the metal like a drum. Far off, boots struck steel, a cadence that grew louder by the second.

Cain started down the left corridor, the one leading straight toward the pulsing node. The others followed, pace quickening to match the encroaching march behind them.

The corridor narrowed, walls closing in with rows of humming servers. Light blinked in relentless rhythm, like eyes tracking their every step. The hum deepened, vibrating in their bones.

Then the first shots rang out—ricochets sparking inches from Roselle's head. She dropped, rolled, and returned fire without hesitation.

Daelmont troopers surged from a side passage, armored, masks blank and lifeless. Their rifles spat white-hot bursts that scorched the walls.

Susan braced against the corridor's frame and fired, her shots punching through the first two soldiers before their bodies collapsed in sparks and steel.

Cain's blade flashed in the dim light, a single strike severing a rifle in half before cleaving its wielder. He didn't pause—didn't allow himself to. Each kill was momentum.

Hunter moved like a shadow, his weapon cutting arcs of silence through the troopers. He didn't speak, but his presence filled the space—inevitable, immovable.

Steve pressed against the wall, shouting over the gunfire. "Keep them off me—I'll force a bypass here!"

Cain snarled. "No stops. We push!"

But Steve ignored him, hands flying over another panel. "If I cut this, it'll flood the side corridors and slow their advance. Buy us seconds."

Roselle snapped another shot into a trooper's throat, then covered him. "Then buy them fast."

The corridor shook as Susan's grenade thumped from her launcher, detonating in a roar that shredded half the squad. Smoke choked the hall, filling the air with sparks and ash.

Cain grabbed Steve by the collar, dragging him forward as the system screeched with the new rupture. "Seconds are all you bought. Now move."

They tore through the smoke, boots hammering metal, lungs burning. The pulsing red node glowed closer, larger, until it filled the far wall like the beating heart of the city.

It wasn't just servers. It was alive. Wires ran like veins into a core that breathed with light, each pulse echoing the rhythm of the alarms.

Steve's face went pale. "It's fused with living matter. That's… impossible."

Cain raised his blade. "Then it dies like anything else."

Roselle set her jaw, lifting her pistol. Susan steadied her rifle despite the tremors wracking her body. Hunter stood silent, watching, as though measuring which of them would fall first.

The Grid's core pulsed again, louder now, filling the corridor with a sound like a heartbeat magnified a thousandfold.

Cain tightened his grip on his blade. "End it."

Cain lunged first, his blade carving into the outer shell of the core. Light screamed out, flooding the corridor in blinding waves. The pulse faltered, then surged harder, the walls vibrating as though the spire itself wanted to tear apart. Behind him, Susan and Roselle opened fire, bullets sparking against the living machine, each shot echoing like defiance.