The descent toward Colony 9 felt less like flying and more like sinking into a dark, heavy ocean.
The sky here wasn't blue or even violet; it was a bruised, crushing slate-gray. This was the Compressed Stratum, the layer of atmosphere where the weight of the High Spires pressed down on the world below. The air was so dense that every creak of the Silver-Wing's hull sounded like a gunshot.
"Pressure at four hundred atmospheres and climbing," Jax grunted. He was chest-deep in the engine well, his bionic arm buried in a mass of glowing pipes. He was manually tightening the brass seals as they warped under the external force. "If those Null-Iron plates weren't fresh, we'd be a tin can in ten minutes."
"I can't hear the wind anymore," Lyra whispered from the helm. Her blindfold was off, and her sightless eyes were wide. "The air... it's not moving. It's just pushing. It's like the sky is trying to hold its breath."
Ahead of them, the Iron Lung emerged from the gloom. It was a terrifying feat of engineering—a hollowed-out floating mountain, wrapped in colossal bronze bands and ribbed with miles of vibrating bellows. Every few minutes, the mountain would "inhale," sucking in millions of tons of air to be filtered and pumped up to the High Spires.
"There it is," Jax spat, climbing out of the well. "The intake valves. They open for ten seconds every hour. If we miss the window, we get smashed against the filter-screens. If we hit it too fast, the pressure change will pop our lungs like grapes."
"Nova," Kaelen called out. He was leaned against the railing, his face pale. The high pressure was making the "Burn" in his chest act strangely—the indigo light wasn't flickering anymore; it was glowing with a steady, haunting intensity. "Can you create a pocket for the ship? We need to equalize."
Nova stood at the bow, her silver hair standing on end from the static in the air. She didn't look at the mountain. She looked at the space inside it.
"The air here is tired," she said softly. "It wants to expand. I will give it permission."
She spread her arms. A sphere of silver light erupted from her, encasing the Silver-Wing. Inside the bubble, the crushing weight vanished instantly. The crew all let out a simultaneous gasp as their lungs finally expanded fully.
"Six minutes until the next intake," Lyra announced, her hands steady on the wheel. "Kaelen, get ready. Once we're inside, we lose the ship. We have to move on foot through the ventilation shafts."
"I'm ready," Kaelen said, drawing his glass hilt. He looked at Jax. "Where is your son kept?"
"Level 4. The Piston-Garrison," Jax said, his voice thick with emotion. "They use the prisoners to manually grease the main shafts. It's a death sentence. Nobody lasts more than a year."
The mountain let out a low, tectonic moan. The massive bronze shutters at the front of the Iron Lung began to slide open, revealing a dark, yawning abyss lit only by the red glow of internal warning lights.
"Here we go!" Lyra shouted. "Engaging full thrusters!"
The Silver-Wing surged forward, caught in the sudden, violent vacuum of the Lung's inhalation. They were sucked into the dark throat of the mountain at terrifying speed. For ten seconds, the world was nothing but screaming wind and the screeching of metal.
Then—SLAM.
The shutters closed behind them.
The ship hit a massive, cushioned safety-net designed to catch debris. The Silver-Wing groaned, the Null-Iron plates groaning but holding.
"Everyone alive?" Kaelen coughed, shaking off the daze.
"Still got all my limbs," Jax grunted, already hauling a massive crate of gear onto the deck. "But we've got company."
The red emergency lights of the docking bay revealed a squad of Consensus Pressure-Guards. They were encased in heavy, bulbous suits designed to withstand the Lung's interior, carrying pneumatic pikes that could punch through stone.
"Intruders!" the guard captain's voice echoed through a speaker. "Deploy the paralyzing gas!"
"Not today, tin man," Kaelen hissed.
He didn't slide forward. He used his new technique. He breathed in the heavy, pressurized air of the chamber, drawing the resistance into his very marrow.
"Void-Style: Singularity Step!"
Kaelen vanished. He didn't move fast; he simply "folded" the space between him and the guards. He reappeared in the center of their formation, his hand glowing with a white-hot intensity. He slammed his palm into the floor.
The release of pressure was so violent it created a localized sonic boom. The guards didn't just fall; their heavy suits imploded under the sudden shift in density Kaelen had triggered.
"Move!" Kaelen ordered. "Jax, lead the way! Lyra, stay with the ship—if we don't make it back in twenty minutes, you blow the Aether-Core and get out of here!"
"Not a chance, Captain," Lyra smirked, drawing a pair of flintlock pistols. "I'm not leaving without a taste of Jax's victory dinner."
They sprinted into the dark, steam-filled corridors of the Iron Lung. The walls vibrated with the rhythm of the Great Bellows—the heartbeat of a prison that was never meant to be opened from the inside.
As they reached the heavy blast doors of Level 4, Nova stopped. She pressed her ear to the cold metal.
"Kaelen," she whispered. "The Second Harbinger... she isn't in Scrap-City. She's here. I can feel her weaving the Miasma in the vents."
Kaelen froze, his hand on the door lever. "She's here? Why?"
"Because," a smooth, melodic voice drifted through the ventilation grates above them, "the High Spires don't just want their Core back. They want to see the Little Crow broken."
A thick, violet fog began to pour from the ceiling—the Miasma.