The tunnels swallowed them in a throat of rusted metal and flickering lights. Lucent's boots kicked up sprays of stagnant water as he dragged Kai deeper into the Junkyard's corroded tunnels. The thing behind them didn't just run, its elongated limbs cracking and reforming with each lurching movement, its too wide mouth stretched in a permanent scream of needle teeth.
Kai's breath came in ragged gasps as they rounded another corner. His fingers fumbled with his Conduit, the cracked screen flickering as he tried to compile a Flashburn glyph - rank 1, the most basic illumination spell every corporate mage learned in their first year at the Spire academies. The lines stuttered into existence, casting just enough light to see the blood smeared across Lucent's knuckles where the knife grip had bitten deep.
"Left!" Lucent barked, shoving Kai into a narrower side passage where the ceiling dipped dangerously low. The air here reeked with something worse - the sweet, fungal stench of Dripfeeder colonies clinging to the pipes overhead.
The Hollowed's shriek echoed behind them, vibrating through the metal walls until Kai's teeth ached. He risked a glance back and immediately wished he hadn't. The thing was moving faster now, its limbs stretching to navigate the tight space, its milky eyes now shot through with pulsing veins of corrupted Aether.
Lucent didn't slow. His free hand sketched a Kinetic Pulse - rank 2, the glyph flaring blue-white as it formed in the air before him. With a sharp exhale, he released it backward without looking. The spell hit a sagging support beam, which groaned before shearing free in a shower of sparks. The collapsing metal forced the Hollowed to contort violently, buying them precious seconds.
Kai's Conduit beeped a warning - 18% charge remaining. He swallowed hard and traced a Static Veil - rank 1, barely more than a shimmering haze in the air. It wouldn't stop the creature, but it might slow it down, disrupt whatever senses it used to track them through the dark.
The tunnel opened suddenly into a wider junction where three rusted maintenance shafts converged. Lucent skidded to a stop, boots sliding in the muck, and immediately began carving a Rust Sigil into the nearest pipe with his knife - rank 2, the metal hissing where the blade bit deep.
"Keep moving!" he snarled at Kai, who stood frozen, watching the darkness behind them. The Static Veil was failing already, the Hollowed's distorted silhouette visible through the fading barrier.
Kai's hands shook as he compiled another glyph - Sonic Burst, rank 1. The spell detonated with a sharp crack against the tunnel ceiling, raining debris down in their wake. It wouldn't kill the thing, but maybe, just maybe, it would buy them time.
Lucent's sigil flared crimson as he finished it, the rust spreading unnaturally fast across the junction's supports. With one last glance at the approaching horror, he grabbed Kai's arm and yanked him toward the narrowest of the three passages.
The ceiling collapsed behind them with a roar like a dying beast, burying the junction under tons of rotting steel. The impact sent both men sprawling, Kai's Conduit skittering across the wet concrete as the world dissolved into dust and darkness.
For three heartbeats, there was only silence.
Then - a wet, crunching sound.
Metal screaming as it was torn apart.
And the thing's shriek, closer than ever.
Lucent rolled to his knees, tasting blood. His fingers found Kai's collar. "Run."
But the word was barely out of his mouth when the wall beside them bulged, the steel plating warping outward as something enormous pressed against it from the other side.
The last light flickered and died.
In the perfect dark, something began to laugh.
The thing's footsteps echoed behind them—not the steady thud of pursuit, but something worse. A stuttering, uneven rhythm, like a broken machine learning to walk. Each footfall landed just slightly wrong, the timing between them shifting as the creature adapted and evolved.
Lucent's mind worked faster than his legs could carry him.
Most Hollowed were walking corpses—Aether-poisoned husks that shambled until someone put them down. They healed fast, yes, but there were always limits. Burn them enough, and their flesh stayed burned. Cut them apart, and the pieces stopped moving.
This thing wasn't following those rules.
The Rust-Bite glyph should have eaten it down to bone. Instead, the creature had shed the rotting flesh like a snake shedding skin, the blackened layers sloughing off to reveal fresh, glistening tissue beneath.
Like it's not just healing. Like it's... choosing what to be.
The thought sent a cold spike through Lucent's skin.
Kai stumbled beside him, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "We can't—we can't just keep running—"
"Shut up and listen." Lucent grabbed a pipe overhead, swinging them both around a sharp corner. The movement wrenched his shoulder, sending fresh blood soaking through his jacket. "Every Hollowed's got an Aether core. Usually burns out after a few heals. But this one—"
A crash behind them. Closer.
"—this one's different."
Kai's eyes widened in realization. "So if we destroy the core—"
"We need to overload it." Lucent's mind raced through possibilities, discarding them just as fast. No weapons they had could pierce deep enough. No glyphs strong enough to burn through whatever shielding the creature had developed.
Then he remembered.
The old Myriad labs.
Buried deep in Sector 12, where the scavengers disappeared. Where the air itself crackled with unstable energy. Where the walls were lined with containment units meant to hold experimental Aether cores—cores that had been left to rot when Myriad abandoned the facility.
Cores that would detonate like miniature suns if ruptured.
Lucent's lips peeled back from his teeth.
"We bait it."
Kai nearly tripped. "What?"
"We lead it to the old labs. Trap it near the core chamber. Then we blow the whole damn thing."
The plan was madness. The labs were a death trap on the best days, filled with half-collapsed corridors and worse things than Hollowed. But it was the only play they had.
Behind them, the creature's footsteps changed again—faster now, more confident. Learning. Adapting.
Lucent didn't look back.
He knew what he'd see.
"When I say run," he growled, shoving Kai toward a side tunnel, "you run like hell. Don't stop. Don't look back."
Kai opened his mouth to argue.
Then the wall beside them exploded inward in a shower of rust and twisted metal, and the thing was there, its too long fingers brushing Kai's jacket as Lucent yanked him clear.
Its mouth split open in what might have been a smile.
"Now!" Lucent roared.
And they ran.
The air in the tunnel had turned thick and cloying, clinging to their skin like the damp breath of some unseen beast. The walls here were no longer just rusted metal and crumbling concrete—they pulsed with veins of bioluminescent fungus, their sickly blue glow revealing what lay ahead in stuttering flashes.
Kai's breath came in ragged gasps, each exhale puffing white in the suddenly frigid air. His fingers brushed against the tunnel wall as they ran, coming away slick with a viscous, translucent slime that smelled faintly of rotting fruit and burnt copper. The substance clung to his skin, tingling unpleasantly, as if alive.
Then they rounded a corner—and froze.
The tunnel opened into a vast chamber, its ceiling lost in shadows. And there, standing motionless in perfect rows, were the Hollowed.
Dozens of them.
Hundreds.
Their gray, papery skin stretched tight over bones that had warped into impossible configurations—spines curved like question marks, limbs elongated and jointed wrong, fingers fused into grasping claws. Some crouched on all fours like grotesque insects, their ribcages visibly expanding and contracting beneath translucent flesh. Others hung suspended from the ceiling by filaments of glistening mucus, swaying gently in some unfelt current.
But most horrifying of all was their silence.
No moans. No hungry growls. Just the occasional wet click of a jaw working soundlessly, or the drip of blackened saliva hitting the flooded floor.
Kai felt his stomach heave. "They're... why aren't they—"
"Don't move," Lucent breathed, his voice barely audible. His fingers twitched toward his knife, though what good it would do against so many, he didn't know.
The nearest Hollowed—a thing that might have once been a woman—tilted its head at the sound, milky eyes reflecting the fungal glow. Its lips peeled back from teeth that had grown too long, too sharp, but it didn't attack. Just... watched.
That was worse.
Hollowed didn't watch. They didn't strategize. They were supposed to be mindless husks, driven only by base hunger.
Unless something was controlling them.
The realization struck Lucent like a physical blow. The mutated Hollowed behind them—the one that learned, that adapted—it wasn't just hunting them.
It was herding them.
Straight into the heart of its nest.
A wet, clicking sound echoed through the chamber as, one by one, every Hollowed turned its head in perfect unison. Milky eyes fixed on the intruders. Mouths slack with anticipation.
Kai's fingers found Lucent's sleeve, gripping tight enough to bruise. "They're waiting for something," he whispered, his voice cracking.
Lucent didn't answer. His eyes darted across the chamber—past the rows of Hollowed, past the pulsating fungal growths, to where a rusted maintenance ladder clung stubbornly to the far wall. It led up to a ventilation shaft, its grating half-collapsed but still passable.
A gamble. But their only chance.
The first Hollowed took a jerky step forward. Then another. The movement rippled through the ranks like a wave, each creature mirroring the last with unnatural precision.
They were surrounded.
Lucent's fingers found the cracked screen of his Conduit. One glyph left. Maybe. If it didn't fry itself first.
"On my mark," he breathed, shifting his weight onto the balls of his feet.
The Hollowed tensed as one.
"Now!"
They moved—Lucent shoving Kai toward the ladder as the first wave of Hollowed lunged, their too-long fingers scraping against metal where his back had been seconds before.
Kai hit the ladder at a run, the rusted metal shrieking in protest as he scrambled upward. Lucent followed, kicking out at grasping hands, feeling bones crunch under his boots even as more hands replaced them, cold fingers brushing his ankles.
The ventilation shaft was a tight, claustrophobic hell, barely wide enough to crawl through, the metal groaning ominously with every movement. But it was their only—
A sound cut through the chaos below. Not the mindless shrieks of Hollowed, but something worse.
Laughter.
Wet. Guttural.
And unmistakably intelligent.
Lucent didn't look back. He didn't need to.
The mutated one had arrived.
And it was pleased.
The ventilation shaft pressed in around them like a rusted coffin, the air thick with the scent of oxidized metal and something fouler - the damp, fungal reek of the Hollowed's passage.
Lucent could feel each labored breath scraping against his ribs, the constricted space turning every gasp into an effort. Behind them, the mutated Hollowed's laughter had given way to something worse - the methodical, relentless sound of claws tearing through steel, each impact sending vibrations through the metal that traveled up Lucent's spine like electric shocks.
His Conduit felt suddenly heavy in his hand, the cracked screen casting jagged shadows across his face. The decision balanced on a knife's edge before him. Rawcasting here would be like setting off a bomb in a glass room - the containment alone would amplify the feedback tenfold. He remembered the last time all too clearly.
Yet the alternative...
Another impact shook the shaft, this time close enough that droplets of rust rained down onto Lucent's face. He blinked them away, tasting iron, and saw the metal ahead of Kai bulging inward, forming the grotesque silhouette of grasping fingers. The creature wasn't just following anymore - it was learning the shaft's weak points, adapting its approach.
Kai's shoulders trembled visibly in the dim light, his progress slowing as panic threatened to lock his muscles. Lucent could see the exact moment the kid realized their predicament - the way his breath hitched when another section of the shaft collapsed behind them, cutting off any retreat. The ventilation system wasn't just their escape route anymore, it had become a death trap, slowly being crushed around them by an enemy that refused to die.
The Conduit's surface grew warm beneath Lucent's fingers, responding to his building desperation. He knew the calculations by heart - the angle needed to direct the blast backward, the precise millisecond he'd need to shield Kai's body with his own, the way the metal walls would reflect and amplify certain frequencies. Every variable screamed at him that this would be suicide.
But the creature's claws punched through again, this time close enough that a single blackened talon grazed Lucent's ankle, leaving a thin line of fire across his skin. The pain was clean, sharp - nothing compared to what was coming.
Lucent's thumb found the activation sequence. The glyphs lit up beneath his touch, their usual blue-white light tinged red at the edges - a warning his battered device could barely contain what he was about to unleash. He opened his mouth to shout a warning to Kai, but the words died in his throat. There was no time for explanations, no space for last-minute adjustments.
Just the raw, terrible calculation of survival.
As the final claw tore through the metal with a shriek that vibrated in their teeth, Lucent exhaled... and let the power come.
The world didn't so much explode as unravel. Light bent in ways that hurt the eyes, shadows stretched like taffy before snapping back with enough force to dent the metal around them. The air itself seemed to crystallize for one impossible second before shattering outward in a shockwave that sent both men tumbling forward even as it hurled the creature back through the collapsing tunnel.
Lucent barely registered the impact as they spilled out into a wider chamber. His entire nervous system was on fire, every synapse screaming as the raw Aether coursed through him. Somewhere beyond the ringing in his ears, he could hear Kai coughing, could feel hands pulling at his shoulders. But the world had taken on a liquid quality, edges bleeding together, sounds arriving seconds after they should have.
The last thing he saw before darkness took him was the ventilation shaft collapsing in on itself, the twisted metal glowing cherry-red at the edges... and the unmistakable movement of something still stirring within the wreckage.