The interior of the high-velocity fluid pipeline was a cylindrical nightmare of wet copper and screaming vibrations.
The moment Kyle threw the hatch open and pulled Elara into the conduit, the sheer structural roar of the facility's secondary processing lines hit them like a physical wall. The air inside the shaft was suffocatingly hot, smelling violently of ozone, chemical solvents, and the heavy, iron-rich sting of unrefined blood-essence.
[Host, warning,] Snow's voice cut sharply through the acoustic chaos inside his skull, a bright red countdown timer forcing its way into the top-right corner of his vision. [The automated flush valve cycle has initialized the baseline clearance scan. You have exactly 60 seconds to traverse the 400-meter straightline conduit before the pressurized chemical runoff floods the pipe matrix.]
"Move!" Kyle barked, his voice instantly swallowed by the echoing metal pipeline.
