Cain stood over the breaker, the hum of the Grid's veins rising until it filled the corridor like a second heartbeat. Steve's hands shook as he gripped the final line, a cable pulsing with white light, alive and defiant. Every instinct screamed at him not to sever it. Every nerve told him it was death.
"Cut it," Cain said again, voice flat as stone.
Steve grit his teeth and yanked.
The corridor erupted in a scream that was not sound, not electricity, but something older—a distortion that pulled at the marrow of their bones. Lights ruptured in a chain of explosions, one after another, until the ceiling rained sparks and fire. The Grid convulsed. Every server, every cable, every humming console buckled as though it had been waiting for this strike.
Susan clutched the wall, coughing through the acrid smoke. "You didn't just cripple them," she rasped. "You tore the spine out."
Steve collapsed against the breaker, chest heaving, eyes wide with something halfway between awe and terror. "I didn't… I didn't think it would fall this fast."
Roselle holstered her pistol and scanned the corridor. "It hasn't fallen yet. Listen."
They did. Beneath the chaos of sparks and sirens, another rhythm pulsed, fainter but steady—a hidden layer of the Grid that still thrummed, unreachable from the breaker.
Hunter finally spoke, his voice hoarse. "They built redundancies. You thought you were tearing out the roots. All you did was hack off a limb."
Cain's eyes narrowed, his jaw set like a blade. "Then we go deeper."
The floor shuddered. A low vibration climbed through the walls, like the approach of something massive and mechanical. The hunters were coming—metal-shod boots and rifles in disciplined hands, but also something worse. A machine-voice split the air, a metallic howl that bent the walls with its resonance.
Steve's face drained of color. "That's not soldiers."
Roselle raised her weapon. "That's their guardians."
Through the smoke, shapes emerged: towering constructs of steel and bone-white plating, each with a burning lens where a head should be. They moved with inhuman precision, the hum of the Grid nested in their cores.
Susan spat blood into the smoke and raised her rifle. "Then let's see how gods bleed."
The first guardian stepped forward, its limbs reshaping as blades and cannons unfolded from hidden joints. It swung, and the entire corridor shook. Cain met the strike with his blade, sparks cascading as steel shrieked against alloy. The impact drove him to his knees, but he forced the weight aside, muscles straining like chains about to snap.
"Move!" he barked.
The others scattered, Steve dragging himself toward another console, Roselle firing into the guardian's joints, Susan laying suppressive fire downrange. Hunter stayed back, eyes locked on the machine, studying its rhythm the way a predator studies prey.
"Cain," he called, voice cutting through the roar. "They're bound to the Grid's pulse. Sever the link, they fall."
Cain's blade slid into guard again, his body burning from the impact. "Then tell me where to cut."
Hunter's eyes tracked the guardian's chest, where light flared with every movement. "Center. Beneath the lens. That's where the current lives."
Cain lunged, rolling beneath a sweeping arm, sparks chasing him as he drove upward. His blade bit deep into the guardian's chest. The machine shrieked, light spilling from the wound. For a heartbeat, it staggered. Then it exploded, shards of plating ricocheting through the corridor.
The shockwave threw Cain into the wall. He landed hard, coughing blood, but forced himself to his feet. Another guardian was already stepping into the corridor, lens burning brighter than the first.
Susan reloaded, her laugh raw, savage. "One down. How many left?"
Hunter's eyes stayed cold. "Enough to bury us if we stand still."
Cain lifted his blade, shoulders squared despite the tremor in his arms. "Then we keep moving. Through them."
The corridor became a storm—gunfire, sparks, screams, steel. The Grid's scream deepened, its pulse unraveling with every strike they landed. And yet, even as the guardians fell, Cain knew this was only the first wall. The deeper they went, the louder the Grid would fight back.
And he was ready.
Cain steadied himself against the fractured server bank, the blue-white glow painting harsh angles across his face. The Grid's collapse echoed like a storm still unfolding in the distance. Every pulse through the walls sounded less like order and more like an animal thrashing against its own cage.
Roselle kicked debris aside, pistol raised, eyes narrowing toward the corridor ahead. "We're not finished. If Daelmont built redundancies, they'll be rerouting even now."
Steve's hands trembled from exhaustion, but his voice carried steel. "Not redundancies. Failsafes. Systems they thought untouchable. The kind that run deeper than floors. Deeper than this whole spire."
Susan leaned her shoulder against the wall, sweat dripping down her jaw. Her grin was wild, almost manic. "So we keep cutting. Strip them until there's nothing left to wear."
Hunter finally spoke, his tone calm in a way that set Cain on edge. "Every cut weakens more than them. The city runs on these lines. When they fall, people starve. Lights go dark. Streets burn."
Roselle turned, sharp enough to wound him without touching her trigger. "Good. Let the people see who really feeds them poison."
Cain said nothing, but inside him the question gnawed: were they burning chains or scaffolding? Was freedom worth collapse if the rubble buried those who had nothing to do with the war? He forced himself not to let it show, because hesitation was a luxury the hunters below wouldn't grant.
The hum beneath their boots shifted, a deeper rumble that meant reinforcements were moving closer. He heard boots, heard steel, heard the Grid itself screaming through the vents. The window was closing.
"Hunter," Cain said, voice like iron. "You wanted compromise. Here's yours: you slow them. We finish the job."
Hunter's jaw worked, something unspoken grinding between his teeth. At last, he gave a sharp nod and turned back toward the shaft they'd climbed, pistol drawn.