Cain swung his blade in a vicious arc, shoving the line of hunters back for a heartbeat. He turned, eyes fierce. "Then stretch eternity."
The fight pressed closer, the circle tightening. Their breaths came harsh, weapons screamed, and above them the ruined spire groaned like it might collapse entirely.
They stood together, blood and grit binding them tighter than any council or contract. Whatever came next—death, collapse, or another climb—they had already made their choice.
The chamber where they fought bled smoke. Hunters' bodies lay strewn like broken statues, armor dented, visors cracked, weapons abandoned. The Grid's hum had weakened to a hollow murmur, but the city itself seemed to breathe harder, as though it had noticed the cut and was already trying to clot around the wound.
Cain leaned against a steel column, his blade slick, his shoulders heaving. Every strike carved at his strength, and every decision pressed deeper into him than the wounds he'd ignored. The others gathered in the flicker of half-dead lights, their silhouettes cut from exhaustion and defiance both.
Susan dragged herself upright, clutching her rifle like a crutch. Her face was pale, lips bloodied, but her eyes were sharp enough to pierce stone. "We're not done. Not by half. That was the vanguard. Daelmont won't send their whole hand blind. They'll tighten their grip, not loosen it."
Roselle reloaded with quick, precise movements. Her hands shook, though she masked it behind grit. "Then we tighten faster. Hit the next hub before they reroute."
Steve sat cross-legged on the floor, hunched over a half-dead terminal he'd torn from the wall. His fingers moved fast, too fast for his trembling body. "They're not just rerouting. They're rewriting. You cut one nerve, and the system builds another. Self-healing architecture. Smarter than we thought."
Cain watched him, the words sliding into place in his mind. "So we don't bleed it. We gut it."
Steve looked up, hair plastered to his forehead, eyes wide. "You gut it, the city crashes. Transit. Water. Medicine. You'll turn skyscrapers into coffins."
Hunter finally spoke, voice low but steady. "And when those coffins close, the people inside will remember who sealed them. That's a war you can't fight with blades."
Cain met his gaze, fury and restraint tangled. "You think there's no war already? Look around you. Look at them." He motioned to the corpses littering the floor. "That's Daelmont's idea of peace."
The silence stretched, heavy, before Roselle cut it with steel in her voice. "So we make their peace cost more than war."
Susan spat blood and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Council's not blind. When the lights go dark, they'll call it betrayal. Hunter's right about that. They'll turn knives inward. And some of those knives will be ours."
Steve tapped the console, coaxing a map fragment onto the cracked screen. Red arteries flickered across it, glowing weak. "You want the root? It's not in this spire. This was a feeder, a lung. The heart's above the council chambers. They sit on it. Probably smile every time it hums."
Hunter's face hardened. "And you think you can just carve the heart out? That's not war. That's suicide."
Roselle's laugh was sharp, humorless. "Everything worth doing sounds like suicide to men who'd rather kneel."
Cain sheathed his blade, the motion deliberate, his voice iron. "We climb. We cut. If it breaks us, at least it breaks them too."
Susan's shoulders sagged, not from reluctance but inevitability. "You're turning us into executioners."
"No," Cain said, eyes burning. "We're turning their tools into wreckage. Execution's what they've done since the first Grid tower rose."
The floor trembled beneath them, the spire's bones shuddering as power shifted elsewhere. Somewhere above, alarms howled, a chorus that spoke of closing jaws. The Daelmonts were aware now, not staggered, not blind. They would fight with the whole weight of a city bent to their will.
Steve ripped the console from its mount and stuffed it into his pack. "Then we'd better move. Next surge will seal this level like a tomb."
They forced themselves onward, through a hall where light failed in stuttering pulses. Every shadow moved, every sound echoed with threat. The spire no longer felt like a structure but a body, scarred and vengeful.
At the stairwell, Cain halted. The way up was blocked—collapsed steel and fire-blackened beams. Roselle raised her pistol and fired into the ceiling, sparks raining down, the sound of futility echoing. "So what now, hero?"
Cain scanned the walls, his hand brushing along plates of iron, listening for weakness. "There's always another way."
Steve frowned. "That's the problem. There's always another way. The Grid built redundancies everywhere. If we're lucky, it left us one too."
Hunter's voice came from the back, quieter now, almost resigned. "Luck's not what keeps people alive."
Cain turned, staring at him for a long beat. "Then stay behind."
The words froze the air. Susan's sharp inhale broke it. Hunter didn't move, didn't argue, just met Cain's gaze like stone meeting stone. Finally, he stepped forward, brushing past. "No. If I die, I want it to be on my feet."
They climbed through broken ducts, hands and knees raw from steel and soot. The spire groaned with every motion, as though it wanted to shake them loose.
Cain led, blade strapped across his back, each motion pulled from will more than strength. The climb felt endless, their breaths ragged, but still they moved, higher and higher into the city's throat.
At last, a grate gave way, and Cain pulled himself through into a wide chamber pulsing with power. The walls shimmered faint blue, coils of energy running like veins. At its center, a monolith of servers rose like an altar, humming with the heartbeat of the Grid.
Steve's face went pale. "That's it. The heart."
Roselle raised her pistol, eyes gleaming. "Then let's bleed it."
Cain stepped forward, blade in hand, the chamber's hum vibrating through his bones. He looked at the others, their faces lit in the eerie glow—bloodied, broken, but unbent.
"This is the choice," he said. "We cut, or we kneel."
The hum seemed to rise in response, as though daring them.
Cain lifted the blade.
And the Grid's heart began to tremble.