The facility was far more technological than it appeared from outside.
Everything had a very dark blue tone — not the kind that illuminates but the kind that strains the eyes, as if the space had been deliberately designed to disorient anyone who entered without knowing it. Dante was the first to say what everyone already sensed:
— The sword probably isn't up here. It'd be lower. Underground — somewhere with that kind of protection against surface attacks.
Víctor found what looked like a remote platform capable of descending. The drop was too great to attempt on foot safely. They took the risk of boarding it — if there had been recent human activity, the mechanism shouldn't fail.
As they descended, Axel spoke quietly.
— This gives me a bad feeling. — He glanced at Auren. — Doesn't this remind you of that facility? Cynosure.
— Now that you mention it — it's too similar. Especially with the recent activity.
— Keep moving — Dante said.
◈
The underground level was different.
More maintained, less dusty — as if someone had passed through with the intention of leaving no trace and hadn't quite managed it. Axel spotted footprints in what dust remained: the outline of a shoe sole, sharp at the edges, recent.
— Confirmed — he said. — Someone was here. If you see a stranger, demand surrender. If that's not possible, shoot.
The computers were excessive for the size of the space — rows of terminals with dark screens and physical documents piled on surfaces that had never been meant for that. Dante picked up a sheet.
— Let's see what this says. — He read quietly. — The subject responds to stimuli through specific sound frequencies... — He stopped. — The rest of the page is torn off.
— There's an older one over here — Axel called from across the room. — The boy has been placed in quarantine. Do not approach within twenty meters of him.
— This one looks current — Nadia said. — It's an archived conversation.
She read aloud:
SW: I don't know how to control this freak. He's so messed up in the head he only responds to those damn audio files. I really don't want to get involved in this.
F: You will eventually. But remember the progress I want — the project needs to be able to cover and use the artifact without damaging it. Remember that you cannot touch that thing. Neither can I.
SW: At least there's that. But that damn trinket... how did the World War II people even get it here...?
There the conversation ended. No reply from F.
— SW must be whoever's been here — Dante said. — And F... fits too well with who it should be. Neura has been in contact with this place. But apparently he can't touch Phaedra — that's the only thing that explains that line.
— SW — dig into who that could be — Auren said.
— Hold on — Axel said, with the look of someone searching their own memory. — I recognize those initials. I just can't place them.
Celia had found something different on another terminal.
— Everyone. I found a recording. Though I'd call it more of a functional animation.
The image showed something resembling a piston stretching a piece of metal threaded with tubes — the articulation of a prosthetic, but on a far larger scale.
— I know what that is — Dante said.
— You do?
— It's a model of a quadruped tank leg. — Said with the certainty of someone who has seen it in reports. — Improved designs from the old walking tanks. Never saw real use because by then mechas already existed and made them obsolete. Strange to find at least one in here. It fits, but I'm sure it couldn't get out — too narrow. Same reason we couldn't bring humanoid mobile units.
◈
Further in, the corridors of the formal laboratory ended at a large opening.
It was new in the context of the place — much bigger, considerably less maintained, with the scale of a cavern rather than a facility. An empty expanse save for a few large rocks scattered without pattern.
Before crossing, the last files in the corridor revealed words distorted but legible: cognition, outbursts, smoke, hazardous material.
— It looks like these are all the project's progress reports — Dante said, reviewing the last document. — Everything points to an extremely armored quadruped tank. If that's correct, get your grenades ready. Regular bullets will have minimal effect.
Then he found the last archived conversation.
SW: I have everything prepared, except for the part about being able to carry the artifact.
F: And that's precisely the most important part. Isn't it? I'm growing tired of your delays, you great imbecile.
SW: I know. Though it's not exactly easy — this thing needs very expensive materials to stop it from repelling. Ugh. I'll get them. But when this is done, pay me what you promised.
F: Don't worry. Your payment will come. What you need to ensure is that you finish your work before it's too late. You're at the end of the road, Sylas.
The name landed in the underground like something physical.
Auren felt something shift inside him — not exactly a memory but the process of recognizing one, the way the body identifies something before the mind can name it.
— Sylas? — he said quietly.
— You know him? — Dante asked.
— Then the W is... no. No. That can't be. That man is dead. I... I killed him.
— I remember now — Axel said, looking at Dante. — Sylas is one of the two people who killed Auren's parents when he was five.
— It's not just that — Auren continued, and his voice had something that wasn't exactly rage but the temperature just before it. — I killed him. I'm certain. Those idiots used to throw parties every weekend in some luxury house. All I had to do was leave flammable material and too many explosives. The bastards went out while they were having fun. I remember. I made sure to finish off whatever was left, just in case.
— What if Sylas wasn't at the party? — Axel said.
The silence that followed lasted exactly as long as it took Auren to process that possibility.
— Damn.
The word came out on its own.
— That son of a bitch has been just as alive as me this whole time. Listen — that man is a hitman, a cartel operative, a lowlife. There's no reasoning with him. When you see him, shoot to kill.
— Auren. — Víctor's voice was direct but without hardness. — That's exactly what will happen, you can count on it. But calm down. Remember what you're here for. Those who are ruled by anger find their end at the bitterest point of the road. We don't want this going any further than it needs to. Understood?
— Understood. — A pause. — I couldn't control myself. I'm sorry.
— Seems like he's better — Johnny said. — Continue—
He didn't finish the sentence.
◈
A sound.
The entrance to the cavern had been sealed — not with the noise of machinery but with the dull impact of something very heavy locking into place. The lighting didn't go out. It disappeared. It wasn't that light was missing: it was that the space became somewhere light simply didn't reach, where eyes searched for a reference point and found nothing.
Then the noise came. Impossible to ignore, coming from the wrong direction — behind them, from inside the cavern, not from the sealed entrance.
And with the noise, light. But not the kind that illuminates.
A searing bolt crossed the space and disintegrated everything it touched, leaving a trail burning like lava — the kind of mark that doesn't cool quickly but keeps consuming whatever surrounds it with the patience of something that is in no hurry.
— EVERYONE DOWN! — Víctor shouted.
Auren found the source.
It wasn't a tank. Nothing about it looked mechanical — no visible metal, none of the recognizable structures Dante had described. It was a spider.
At a scale no spider should ever exist, with dense hair that absorbed what little light remained, sparse eyes that didn't look in the direction one expected, and jaws proportioned not for biting but for destroying. From between those jaws dripped something that resembled lava but burned with far greater intensity than any lava — something the project had been developing in that underground for a length of time the documents never quite specified.
The creature's bloodshot eyes swept over everyone present.
Not with the indifference of an animal that doesn't know what it's facing.
With a hunger that was too heavy to look at directly.