Chapter 1107: Straight to the Void.
The Grid screamed like a living thing. Lights flickered, systems convulsed, and the hum that had once been steady cracked into jagged bursts of sound. Cain felt the floor vibrate beneath his boots as if the spire itself had grown restless, a body convulsing around a wound.
Steve’s hands moved furiously, dragging lines of code across the console as if pulling veins from a corpse. Sparks leapt, screens bled red, and still he pushed, jaw clenched tight enough to draw blood.
Susan shielded her face from the shower of dust falling from above. "They’ll be here in seconds."
"Let them come," Cain said, though his grip tightened on the hilt of his blade.
The door on the far side of the corridor buckled with the impact of a ram. Metal whined. Bolts shook. Roselle’s pistol was already raised, her stance calm in the storm. Hunter lingered behind them, his silence more dangerous than any weapon.
"Almost there," Steve hissed. "If I can reach the split hub, their entire surveillance collapses. They won’t see, won’t hear, won’t coordinate. It’ll blind them."
The door shrieked again. A jagged crack split the steel, light pouring through from the other side. Cain braced, every muscle coiled.
Then the door gave way. Hunters poured in—armored, disciplined, their visors glowing with Grid-fed data. Rifles lifted, their muzzles hungry.
Roselle’s pistol barked first. One shot, then another, clean and deliberate. A hunter collapsed, another staggered. Susan joined her, rifle screaming bursts into the wave. The corridor filled with thunder, smoke, and fire.
Cain moved forward instead of back. He was a streak of steel in the chaos, his blade carving arcs that found gaps between armor. Blood spilled hot across the floor, slick beneath boots.
Still they came.
Steve shouted above the roar, "Cain! I need thirty more seconds!"
"You’ve got fifteen," Cain growled. He kicked a hunter back through the breach, blade sliding free from another’s throat.
The Grid’s lights around them strobed wildly, red veins pulsing faster, brighter. The hum climbed to a shriek. Systems didn’t just falter—they rebelled. Elevators froze in shafts. Security doors slammed shut on their own soldiers. Cameras went blind, their feeds scattering into static.
"Got it!" Steve roared, fingers slamming down on the breaker.
The world lurched.
Every visor in the room went dark. The hunters stumbled, their formation collapsing as though someone had ripped out their bones. Confusion cracked discipline. Cain did not hesitate—he cut through the hesitation with steel.
Roselle advanced, firing into the blind chaos. Susan’s rifle spat fire until the clip clattered empty.
In the sudden lull, Steve staggered back from the console. His chest heaved, sweat plastering his hair to his forehead. "The hub’s gone. Their eyes are out. But..." He swallowed hard. "It wasn’t clean. I tore deeper than I meant to."
The building groaned around them, deep and angry. Lights overhead sparked and died, plunging half the corridor into darkness. Somewhere above, machinery screeched like an animal caught in its own trap.
Hunter finally spoke, voice rough. "You didn’t just cut their sight. You cut their spine."
Cain turned toward him, blade dripping. "Good."
"Not good," Hunter snapped. "You’ve made the city a battlefield. Power grids, transport lines, emergency systems—they’re all collapsing. You’ve blinded Daelmont, yes, but you’ve crippled everyone else too."
Susan spat blood, her grin wolfish. "Collateral damage."
Hunter’s eyes narrowed. "This isn’t war. It’s ruin."
Roselle stepped closer, gun still warm in her hand. "Ruin is the point. From ruin, we build."
The floor shuddered again. Dust rained in thick sheets. Steve glanced at the console, face pale. "This whole floor’s going to come down if we don’t move."
Cain nodded once. "Then we move."
They fell back into the shaft they had climbed, boots hitting rungs hard, breath ragged. Hunters above and below scrambled in confusion, their comms dead, their vision stolen. The shaft echoed with shouts and boots, but without the Grid’s coordination they sounded lost—dangerous, but scattered.
Cain led upward. Every muscle burned, but he refused to slow. Behind him Susan swore under her breath, each rung another battle with her broken ribs. Roselle climbed like a shadow, silent but swift. Steve hauled his pack higher, his limbs trembling. Hunter came last, slower, but his silence carried like a curse.
By the time they reached the vent to Floor 90, the city was screaming in full. Sirens wailed, fires painted the skyline, drones plummeted like dead stars into the streets. The Grid’s collapse had spread like a disease.
Cain pulled himself into the corridor, blade drawn. The air tasted of ozone and smoke. Screens flickered on the walls, each showing nothing but fractured code and static.
Susan crawled out beside him, coughing hard. "We’ve broken the world."
Cain looked at her, then at the chaos outside the shattered windows. "No. We’ve shown the world it can break."
Roselle joined them, her gaze sharp, unflinching. "Now we see who still stands."
Hunter stepped into the corridor, his voice flat. "The council will not forgive this."
Cain’s jaw hardened. "Let them come. Forgiveness isn’t what we’re after."
Steve dragged himself upright, eyes darting between the failing lights. "We’ve got maybe minutes before this floor caves. Where do we go?"
Cain turned toward the heart of the spire, where the Grid’s last arteries pulsed faintly in the dark. His voice was calm, steady, but it carried the weight of everything they had torn down.
"Up," he said.
The building trembled again, a beast bleeding but not yet dead. And they climbed, leaving ruin behind them, carrying war higher with every step.
The climb was endless, metal groaning under their weight. Cain’s mind sharpened with every rung, not dulled.
The Grid’s scream still echoed, but beneath it was something else—silence, vast and waiting. He realized then the truth: they hadn’t just stolen sight from their enemy. They had carved a void. And in voids, monsters—or gods—were born.
He tasted the silence like iron; somewhere, something listened and found its appetite renewed again.