The one-hundred-car sovereign super-convoy plunged into the pitch-black maw of the High Mountain Pass Tunnel as the screech of iron wheels reverberated through the stone vault.
"The external illumination from the valley sun is completely cut off," Diana reported from her post atop car ten, igniting a pale blue frost beacon on her bracer.
"Look at the ceiling shafts sixty feet above our heads," Jax warned, pointing his scanner toward jagged cracks in the ancient granite ceiling.
"My void perception detects dozens of predatory life signatures nesting inside those dark vents," Nox said, standing calmly on the engine roof with his blade drawn.
"Are they standard tunnel vermin or mutated predators?" Kendra asked through the comms from her position guarding the forward cargo doors.
"They are Chitin Shadow-Hounds, Rank A- subterranean beasts that feed on concentrated mana lines," Nox answered as red predatory eyes opened in the darkness above.
