Darkness clogged my mouth, my nose, and lay over my eyes like a sticky shroud.
I lay face down, feeling a pile of junk sag beneath me—whether old rags or technical waste dropped from above. Nearby, Ephraim breathed heavily, whistling out air with every exhale.
"Alive?" I wheezed.
"For now... seems so," the old man replied. "Where did you drag us, kid? There's nothing here. Absolutely nothing."
I didn't hear Zeno's voice.
"Finally," I exhaled. "At least for a little bit, I can be alone with my thoughts." The relief was so strong I almost burst into tears.
The icon for the [Will to Live] skill blinked before my eyes, dim and barely visible.
System Status: Critical exhaustion.
Energy reserve: 4%.
Warning: Muscle tissue degradation has begun.
Four percent. Yeah, that's very little, but still, I have at most thirty minutes of active movement. I took a firestriker out of my pocket. One strike. Another. A shower of sparks illuminated the space within a one-meter radius for a second.
We were in a technical chamber. Above us, the rusty rungs of a ladder disappeared into the darkness—the shaft we had fallen into. The walls were built of heavy stone blocks, but between them, I saw lead linings. As an engineer, I immediately understood: the lead dampened magical noise, creating a "dead zone." That's why Zeno "disconnected."
"Look," Ephraim pointed to the corner with a trembling hand.
There, half-sunk into the floor, towered a massive iron structure. It looked nothing like the elegant altars or mana-servers I had seen before.
"Is that... a pump?" I stepped closer, running my hand over the cold, rough metal.
"Some weird pieces of iron," Ephraim wheezed, trying to sit up.
I carefully examined the mechanism. My brain, accustomed to blueprints, instantly began restoring the schematic. It was a classic piston pump for draining excess water. If I could start it, we could clear the room of the stench or find a way forward.
"They found us," Ephraim whispered, gripping his broken staff.
A dry sound came from the ventilation shaft above us. Like hundreds of tiny claws scratching sheet metal. The scraping grew louder. The first muzzle poked out from the darkness of the ventilation duct—pale, eyeless, studded with rows of needle-like teeth. The creature flared its nostrils, catching my scent.
"You don't have five minutes!" Ephraim yelled, trying to lift his staff. "They're already here!"
I didn't answer. Magic was inaccessible, and engaging in hand-to-hand combat was suicide. I grabbed onto the jammed lever of the pump.
"Come on... move!"
I dumped all remaining energy into my shoulder muscles. My ears rang. The flywheel didn't budge, held back by a layer of petrified grease.
The first creature jumped quickly.
At the last moment, I leaned my whole weight on the lever. The metal squealed. The century-old crust of rust popped with a sharp click, like a gunshot. The flywheel turned.
Clack. Clack. Clack.
The pistons moved through the cylinders. From the side nozzle, which I had managed to aim at the shaft entrance, a stream of stagnant, oily water mixed with sand and rust blasted out under monstrous pressure.
The creature, which was already a meter away from me, was smeared against the wall. Its bones crunched like dry branches. The other creatures in the shaft hissed and recoiled.
I fell to my knees, gasping for air.
Energy: 1%.
Warning: Critical systems degradation. Immediate resource replenishment recommended.
My heart skipped a beat. Gray spots swam before my eyes.
"Ephraim... the vial..." I squeezed out.
The old man crawled over and placed a glass ampoule with blue liquid into my hand—concentrated ether of the Order.
"If you drink it, Zeno will wake up," he warned.
I drank the sludge without hesitation.
The taste was vile—ozone mixed with rotten mint. The liquid burned my throat, an electric current hit my veins. The crystal in my chest instantly flared.
"...Synchronization restored!" Zeno's voice burst into my consciousness with a sharp, clear impulse. "Idiot! You almost destroyed the host. Sector analysis complete. We are in the Zero Cycle. The main supply line for the Citadel runs right above us."
I raised my head. Under the ceiling ran a thick steel pipe wrapped in lead fabric. It was vibrating. The hum inside it sounded like a working reactor. My fingers began to glow emerald.
I walked over to the pipe.
"Help me hack this lock, Zeno."
"Alright."
I pressed my modified finger against a microcrack in the welding seam. The crystal trembled.
"Careful, kid," Zeno warned. "The pressure in there is extreme. If you don't hold the flow, you'll vaporize."
"Break it," I threw back shortly.
I directed a thin needle of my own mana deep into the seam, pushing the metal molecules apart. At that very second, the defense ruptured.
A scorching flow of pure mana rushed into my channels. I screamed, but instead of sound, there was ringing in my ears and the smell of burnt ozone from my own skin. My body arched, and the soles of my boots started to smoke, discharging the excess potential into the dirty water under my feet.
5%... 20%... 50%... The reservoir was filling at a maniacal speed.
And then I blacked out. And found myself in a vast, white hall. There were no walls here, only an even light. In the center, a man sat at a table. He wore a snow-white uniform. His hands, lying on the table, were so clean and motionless that they seemed porcelain.
He slowly raised his head. Instead of eyes, he had two flawless mirrors, in which I saw my distorted, terrified face.
"Found you," he said quietly. The voice vibrated directly in my brain.
I tried to sever the connection, but I couldn't. The power emanating from him was incomparable to what I had seen from the Guardsmen or even Richter.
"So Valt wasn't lying. You are a very interesting Subject," he slowly stood up. Reaching out a hand, as if trying to touch my face through space. A shadow of a smile flickered on his lips.
The contact broke with a sharp click.
I collapsed onto the wet floor of the chamber, struggling to peel my hand away from the pipe. The crack instantly sealed itself. My fingers were burned to the bone, but the mana reserve glowed 94%.
"We're leaving!" I yelled, grabbing Ephraim by the scruff of the neck and jerking him to his feet. "Right now!"
"What happened?"
"I... I saw someone," I exhaled.
"Who did you see?" Ephraim grabbed me by the shoulders, peering into my eyes. "Speak, kid!"
"I don't know who it is... But his power... it's terrifying."
"What did he look like?" Zeno's voice in my head sounded muffled.
"A white uniform. Flawless, not a single speck. And the hands... His hands were clean and motionless, like porcelain. And instead of eyes—mirrors. He said I was an 'interesting subject' and that Valt hadn't lied about me."
Ephraim recoiled sharply, as if I had hit him in the chest. He grew pale and slowly sank down onto a rusty protrusion of the pump. Dead silence fell in my head—Zeno, who usually didn't shut up for a second, froze.
"What is it?" I shifted my gaze from the pale Ephraim to the dimly glowing crystal.
"Valerius," Ephraim whispered.
"Who is that?" I frowned. "Another general?"
"If only..." Ephraim swallowed. "Valerius is the Head of the Mage Academy. And one of the Council of Five."
"Wait... Academy? Council of Five?" I shook my head. "I thought Valt was the one in charge. Isn't he?"
"Valt is the face of the Order. He is the one who leads armies and punishes rebels. But Valerius... The Academy is the cradle of all ether in the Empire. The Council of Five are the true architects of this world. Valt obeys their decisions, even if he doesn't admit it out loud."
"But how do you know this?"
"The best members of the Order and their commanders-in-chief were obliged to personally meet with the Council of Five, that's when we found out about Valerius."
"And the fact that he personally greeted you means only one thing..." Ephraim stood up, his hands still trembling. "He is a true madman, Iron. A genius devoid of humanity. If you've attracted his personal attention, then I'm even afraid to imagine what he will do with you."
The water in the sewer began to rise, becoming viscous and toxic green.
"Alright, enough history."
I looked at the pump. 94% mana. I think it will work—I said mentally.
The toxic green sludge was rising rapidly. It bubbled, emitting suffocating fumes that burned the lungs worse than smoke from burnt ozone. The old sewer shook: somewhere above, sluices of colossal diameter opened, and tons of spent mana rushed down.
We had less than a minute.
"And what are you planning, genius?" panic broke through Zeno's voice. "The level is rising. In thirty seconds, we'll be dissolved in this acid!"
"Ephraim, hold onto the central shaft! And don't you dare let go, no matter what happens!"
I gripped the massive flywheel of the pump. I channeled the energy directly, turning my body into a live cable connecting Zeno's crystal.
R-r-ra-a-a-a!
I applied colossal torque straight to the shaft. The rusty iron grew red-hot in fractions of a second. The century-old grease ignited, enveloping us in thick smoke.
A green wave of waste hit the chamber. The water level jumped up a full meter at once, knocking us off our feet. The toxic liquid burned my skin, but I held onto the flywheel, continuing to pour in mana.
"Reverse!" I roared to myself.
I forced the pistons of the pump to move in the opposite direction, sucking in the incoming green wave and forcing it into a narrow drainage shaft leading upward.
A roar filled the chamber. The iron of the pump began to deform, gears crumbled under the load. The stream of mana, compressed by the pump, blasted upwards, knocking out the heavy lead plug in the ceiling.
"Jump!" I grabbed Ephraim, and jumped straight into the raging stream rushing upwards.
The walls of the narrow shaft rushed past, scraping off skin.
We flew out of the drainage hole three levels higher, collapsing onto the hard floor of some technical corridor. The toxic stream rushed further along the drainage system, leaving us behind.
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