The air down here never felt clean.
Every breath tasted faintly of rust and ozone, the hum of old machines echoing through endless metal corridors. Dim lights flickered overhead — not firelight, not mana, just dying electricity clinging to existence.
Noah Turner wiped the grime from his visor, watching static crawl across the lenses. His fingers trembled.
Ever since he'd sent that encrypted message to Lucas, his interface had been glitching.
[Signal Integrity: 68%]
[Connection: unstable.]
He cursed under his breath. "Come on, not now…"
Beside him, Kira crouched over a cracked relay node, sparks lighting her face. "It's your fault for pinging the surface," she said flatly. "You know what happens when you draw attention."
He smirked despite himself. "Guess I wanted to feel useful."
"Useful?" She glanced up. "You just told the System's favorite anomaly it's being watched. You painted a target on all of us."
A metallic screech echoed through the tunnels — distant, mechanical, rhythmic. Both froze.
[Security Drones Deployed – Sector 7B]
[Purpose: Trace unauthorized transmission origin.]
Noah's heart dropped. "They found us."
Kira killed the relay and stood, grabbing her rifle. "We move. Now."
They ran through narrow service halls, old concrete giving way to glowing veins of data etched into the walls — veins that pulsed like the heartbeat of a digital god.
All around them, the Network Below buzzed with noise — hundreds of people hiding in the shadows, patched together with scavenged tech and prayer.
Children peeked from behind broken terminals. A man whispered about angels. Another drew runes across the wall with blood.
It wasn't a city. It was what was left when the System stripped a civilization clean.
The first drone appeared in the corridor ahead — a sphere of black alloy and shifting glass. Its voice was calm and genderless.
"Unauthorized data activity detected. Source: Tier 5 Network."
"Action: Elimination."
It opened like a flower — blades humming, sensors glowing.
Kira fired first. The bullet pinged harmlessly off the drone's shell.
[Weapon damage insufficient.]
"Great," she hissed.
Noah ducked behind a rusted pillar, yanking out a scavenged EMP baton. The handle buzzed weakly — low charge, one shot only.
The drone turned toward him.
He waited.
Waited until the hum of its wings was right above his head.
Then he stood, thrust upward, and slammed the baton into its core.
A pulse of white light filled the corridor.
[Hostile neutralized.]
[Trace signal partial match – User: Noah Turner.]
"Shit," Noah breathed.
The drone disintegrated into black dust, leaving behind faint red glyphs that hovered in the air like warnings.
Kira stared at him. "They know your name."
"Yeah," he said quietly. "They didn't before."
They reached the lower depths — the place the light didn't reach. There, the tunnels opened into a massive chamber filled with broken glass tubes, ancient cables, and faint blue mist rising from the floor.
In the center: a cracked System console, still alive, faintly pulsing with code.
[Accessing...]
[Fragment: D-ECHO02 – Corruption level: 92%.]
Kira crouched beside it. "What is that?"
Noah leaned closer, his HUD trying to interpret the symbols. They weren't human. Not anymore.
But one word stood out.
[Resonance.]
And below it — a log entry.
[Origin: Haven-01]
Kira looked at him. "You think this is connected to the one up there? The Divine?"
Noah swallowed. "I think it's another one."
The console flickered violently. Static tore across their vision, the System's voice whispering through the interference.
"Unauthorized access detected."
"Eliminate all observers."
The walls lit up with hundreds of red eyes — drones emerging from the dark, one by one.
Noah grabbed Kira's arm. "Run."
The last thing he saw as they fled was the corrupted display flashing over and over — a message repeating in fragmented code.
[Divine Echo – 02 initializing…]
[Synchronization attempt: pending.]