The "Elevator" was not an elevator. It was a bullet fired through the planet's crust.
The capsule screamed through a vacuum tube buried miles beneath the surface. Three agonising hours of chronological time stretched into an eternity of crushed bone. The G-force was not merely heavy; it was a physical rejection of biology, pressing flesh against steel until the two became indistinguishable.
Inside, Lack Flameheart sat slumped against the wall.
The Atlas Exo-Frame (Labour Model) hummed with a heavy, industrial grinding sound. It wasn't sleek like the Elite armour above. It was bulky, brutal, and ugly—designed for lifting girders, not fighting gods. The black metal spines were locked rigidly into his vertebrae, acting as a full-body cast for a corpse that refused to die.
The hydraulic pistons hissed every time he breathed, forcing his shattered ribs to hold their shape against the crushing deceleration.
"How long..." Lack wheezed, his voice distorted by the rattling of the pod. "How long was I out down there, Sarah?"
Sarah sat opposite him, holding onto a strap. The soft light of the console illuminated a face that had changed. The naive healer from the start of the semester was gone. In her place sat a girl who had been force-fed a god and survived. Her eyes were sharp, scanning the readout with a cold, analytical focus.
"The internal clock on the console said 'Cycle 21'," Sarah whispered, her voice barely audible over the roar of the tunnel. "You were in stasis for three weeks, Lack. The Map... it kept us alive."
"Three weeks," Lack closed his eyes, letting the information sink in. "They think we're dead."
Dead is good, the Light Devil chirped, floating in the back of his mind wearing a spectral construction helmet. Dead people don't pay taxes. And they don't have to fight Aliens.
"Speaking of Aliens," Lack gritted his teeth as the pod hit a magnetic bump, sending a jolt of pain up his spine. "Distract me, Devil. The pain is getting loud."
A distraction? Okay. Why did the Outer God cross the road?
"Why?"
To get to the other side of the Cage. But he couldn't, because the Architect forgot to build a door! Hahaha!
The Devil wiped a tear from his spectral eye. It’s a 'Lobster Trap', kid. I told you. Aethalgard is designed to let things in—Karmic Energy, Souls, clueless tourists—but nothing gets out. It’s the Hotel California of solar systems.
"So we're trapped in a hotel with bad room service," Lack muttered.
PING.
The pod slowed. The deceleration hit them like a physical punch, throwing them forward against their restraints. The Exo-Frame hissed violently, locking Lack's joints rigid so he wouldn't turn into jelly.
[Safety Protocol: Impact Brace Engaged.] [Destination Reached: Sector 2355 - The Northern Bunker.] [Warning: Seismic Activity Detected. Active Combat Zone.]
"We're here," Lack groaned, the suit forcing him to stand up with a whine of servos. "Sector 2355. The Wall."
The heavy blast doors hissed open. They didn't open into a quiet hallway. They opened into an apocalypse.
General Valerius's Command Bunker (Sub-Level 1) Time: 09:05 AM (The Ascension Phase)
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The bunker was a hive of panicked activity. Red lights strobed, painting the frantic officers in flashes of blood-coloured urgency. Dust rained from the reinforced ceiling with every distant BOOM, coating the holographic maps in a fine layer of grey grit.
Outside, the sun was in the Ascension Phase, turning the sky a blinding white-gold, but down here, the only light came from the dying monitors.
General Valerius stood at the central holotable, his stone-grey skin looking cracked and weary. He hadn't slept in weeks. His uniform was stained with sweat and the grime of the front lines.
Around him were his officers—and the remnants of the Illogical Club.
They looked haggard. Torin was leaning against a wall, his bowstring frayed, looking thinner than ever, his eyes haunted by twenty-one days of siege warfare. Mina was bandaging Borg’s arm; the Glutton looked smaller, deflated, as if he hadn't eaten a good meal since the tournament.
Volt, Terra, and Rian were there too, their pristine Elite uniforms scorched and torn, their arrogance stripped away by the reality of the Wall.
"Zone 4 wall is collapsing!" an officer screamed, clutching a headset. "The Devil Sovereign has breached the outer layer!"
"Hold the line!" Valerius roared, slamming his fist on the table. The force of it shook the holograms. "We are the Wall! If we fall, the world ends!"
"We can't hold it, General!" Volt shouted, his voice cracking with exhaustion. "We're out of mana! The supply lines are cut!"
"Then fight with your teeth!" Valerius snarled.
HISSSSSS.
The sound of depressurisation cut through the chaos like a knife. The secret blast door at the back of the room—the one labelled "ARCHITECT ACCESS ONLY - DO NOT TOUCH"—began to grind open.
The entire room froze. Every weapon turned toward the door. The red lights reflected off fifty barrels aimed at the darkness.
"A flank?" Valerius growled, summoning a floating cube of hard light in his palm. "From the rear? How did they bypass the sensors?"
Smoke billowed out from the tube, thick and cold. Through the haze, heavy, rhythmic footsteps echoed on the metal grating.
CLANK. WHIRRR. CLANK.
It sounded like a war machine.
Out walked a figure. He looked like a corpse piloted by a forklift.
He wore a battered, industrial black metal exo-skeleton. The hydraulics hissed with every step, venting steam. His face was pale, covered in three-week-old soot and dried blood, but his eyes were alive.
Beside him walked a girl in tattered white robes, glowing faintly with Moon mana.
Torin dropped his bow. "L-Lack?" he whispered, his voice trembling.
The room went dead silent. Even the sirens seemed to pause in reverence.
"You..." Valerius lowered his hand, his eyes widening for the first time in a century. "We saw you die. We saw the beam hit you."
Lack took a step forward. The Labour Frame whined, struggling to keep his broken body upright.
"I got better," Lack rasped.
Torin’s eyes rolled back in his head. "Ghost!" He fainted, hitting the floor with a thud.
Borg paused, a half-eaten grenade in his hand. "Lack... back? Lack... zombie?"
"Lack is tired," Lack said, limping toward the table. "But Lack brought intel."
He reached into the pocket of the exo-suit—a pocket that shouldn't exist on a piece of construction equipment—and pulled out the Data-Drive from the University Undercroft.
He tossed it onto the holotable. It clattered against the General's strategic map.
"The University is a farm," Lack stated, his voice cutting through the noise of the bunker. "The High Council is eating us. And Aamon tried to delete the evidence."
He looked Valerius in the eye.
"And unless you want to be the next course, General... I suggest we stop fighting the Devils blindly and start asking why the Cage is rattling."
BOOM.
A massive explosion shook the bunker, knocking dust into everyone's hair. The lights flickered and died, replaced by emergency amber.
"That wasn't a skirmish," Rian (Ice) noted, checking the seismic sensors with trembling hands. "That’s a Sovereign Class impact."
"It’s not just a Sovereign," Lack said, turning back to the door he just came from, his vibration sensors picking up a frequency that made his teeth ache. "It’s a desperate attempt to break in."
Look at the monitor, the Devil giggled nervously in Lack's mind. That’s not a siege. That’s a prison riot.
On the main screen, a massive figure—a Devil Sovereign the size of a mountain—was hammering against the golden Astral Line. But it wasn't trying to conquer. It looked like it was trying to escape something chasing it from the Void.
"The Devils are scared." The terrifying truth locked into place. "Something worse is out there."
Valerius looked at Lack. He looked at the drive. He looked at the Industrial Frame holding the boy together like a marionette made of iron.
"You didn't just bring intel, Lieutenant," Valerius muttered. "You brought a revolution."
"No sir," Lack grinned, the suit holding him up as his vision blurred from the pain. "I just brought the user manual."
? ? ?
[System Record: Character Progression]
- Current Status: Severely Injured (Stabilised by Atlas Labour Frame).
- Location: Sector 2355 (The Northern Wall).