The air was heavy with the smell of burnt metal and something way worse—fried synthetic flesh. That massive hybrid guard thing was sprawled out at the edge of the room, its twisted arms jerking around one last time before everything went still. Those creepy red eyes just... went dark.
Micah stood there breathing hard, his shoulders all tight. His sword was still dripping with oil and what used to be blood, maybe. Everyone around him was trying to catch their breath—some patching up cuts, others just staring in shock at whatever the hell they'd just fought.
Tern Vale was already crouched by the thing's busted chest, tools out and ready. "If this piece of junk had anything worth saving, it's toast now. Completely fried."
Micah dropped down beside him. "You sure about that?"
"Oh, I'm sure," Tern said, looking grim as he poked around the wreckage. "Whatever brain this thing had—it's gone. No logs, no feedback, no leftover data. Someone wiped it clean, or it did the job itself."
Kaelin kicked some broken drone parts out of the way, the metal clanging through the huge chamber. "So it takes its secrets to the grave."
Micah's hands curled into fists. "It knew something. It knew something about my mother. And now..." His voice cracked a little, all that frustration bleeding through. "Always a step behind."
Sera Lin put her hand on his shoulder. "Hey, you're not behind, Micah. You've already dragged more truth out of the darkness than any of us had a right to find."
But he wasn't buying it. Micah got up slow, eyes gone cold. "Can't bring her back. But I can still find out what happened."
The room stretched out around them—this massive cathedral full of dead machines and old labs. Everything went quiet after the fight, like the whole place was holding its breath.
Harka Slen was moving around the edges, keeping watch, while Nyra Tal checked for booby traps. Blitzfire and Warden Pike went back to standby mode, standing guard like metal statues.
Then Varn Roath stopped, staring at part of the far wall.
"Something's not right over here," he said, his voice rumbling like distant thunder.
Everyone gathered around this huge stone wall covered in crazy symbols and overlapping marks. Unlike everything else in the chamber, this thing was perfect—untouched, ancient, and humming softly under their feet.
Sera Lin ran her fingers over the carvings. "Thornkin symbols... and Ashari circuits. This is old tech—mixed together before we even knew what to call it."
Tern's eyes went wide. "These grooves... they look like some kind of energy key setup. Maybe a power conduit?"
Kaelin leaned in, pointing at a round socket in the middle of the wall. "That's a lock. And I think I know what goes in there."
Micah looked back at the dead guardian.
Him and Kaelin worked together to pry the half-melted core out of its chest—still hot, still leaking burnt steam. It pulsed once in his hands, like a dying heartbeat, then went dark.
They walked up to the wall, and Micah carefully pushed the core into the hole.
Nothing happened for a second.
Then the symbols started glowing.
One by one, like old stars waking up, the marks lit up in order. This deep rumble rolled through the floor. Dust rained down from the ceiling. The wall started moving—silent as anything, like it just decided to let them through.
A hidden door split right down the middle, showing them a dark stairway carved straight into the rock, spiraling down into shadows.
Everyone just stared. Even the machines went quiet.
Liera Vossel, still watching the entrance, spoke softly into her comm. "All clear up here. No movement."
Micah took a careful step forward, peering into the darkness. The walls going down were lined with statues—twisted figures frozen in pain or deep thought. Early fusion experiments, maybe. The failures that came before something darker.
"It's a tomb," Sera whispered.
"No," Micah said. "It's a memory."
Nyra studied the walls. "These aren't just decorations. They're warnings. Or maybe... memorials."
Kaelin nodded. "This place wasn't meant to be found. But someone wanted it remembered."
Micah turned to the others. "Get ready. Whatever's down there isn't done with us."
Without another word, he stepped through the door and started down.
One by one, the Ghostline followed—pulled into the dark by echoes of a war that started way before any of them were born.
The wall behind them hummed softly, then went quiet again.
It had remembered them.
And now it was showing them what it had been hiding.
The team moved without talking, every step careful, weapons ready but not raised.
Micah led the way down, one hand brushing the curved walls as they walked. These weren't like the black corridors upstairs—these were smooth, carved with tiny mechanical veins. Copper-colored lines pulsed faintly under the surface. When the spiral finally straightened out, they stepped into something so huge it took their breath away.
A city spread out in front of them.
Not human. Not natural. A world built for machines.
Massive towers stretched up into the dark, their tops touching a low ceiling full of fake sky panels—casting this ghostly fake daylight across the metal skyline.
Wide platforms curved through the space like layered streets, connected by conveyor belts moving metal parts around.
Transport drones zipped overhead like flocks of silver birds. Along the sides, huge mechanical arms moved with scary grace, putting together drones, armor pieces, and robot limbs with brutal efficiency.
"It's a city," Sera whispered. "A city with no people."
"No," Kaelin said. "It's a factory playing dress-up."
The Ghostline team stayed hidden in the shadows of a metal archway. Every move was careful. ASC-9 Warden Pike scanned everything quietly, amber sensors sweeping for trouble. No alarms went off. No drones changed course.
They weren't noticed—yet.
Tern Vale crouched by a wall and tapped his console. "No cameras on us. It's like... we're just background noise to them."
"Maybe that's why we're still alive," Nyra Tal muttered.
Micah scanned the city's skyline, his face tight with focus. "This isn't the Core Nexus. But it's close. Support infrastructure."
Warden Pike clicked softly as it sent out its mini-drone—a tiny thing that lifted off and disappeared into the open space with a quiet whirr.
A small screen popped up on Tern's device, showing live video: the drone darted through alleys of mechanical stuff, under massive forges shooting sparks, past loading docks where cargo drones were packing entire weapon racks into armored trucks.
For two hours, the team waited in tense silence. Hidden behind the remains of a junked mech, they took turns keeping watch and patched up minor cuts from the last fight.
The whole time, Pike's drone mapped everything below—miles and miles of connected structures. No signs of regular people, no signs of anything alive.
Just automated movement—like an ecosystem that didn't need to breathe or rest.
Finally, the drone came back, its shell scratched up and battery low. It docked with ASC-9 and uploaded all the mapping data.
Tern brought it up. A hologram expanded in the middle of their hiding spot, casting blue light across tired faces.
"What the hell..." Syrran muttered.
The map went on forever—layers and layers of tunnels, buildings, towers. A hive. A machine city built in secret, big enough for hundreds of thousands of units.
"And we still can't see the edge," Tern said. "It just... keeps going."
Kaelin stepped forward. "This wasn't an accident. They've been building this for years. This is how they move without being seen—underneath everything. Under the forests, the ocean, the mountains."
Micah stared at the center of the map—where all the activity was thickest. "This might not be the Core itself... but it's part of it."
Sera looked up. "So what do we do? Go back? Warn everyone?"
Nyra shook her head. "Not without something to show for it. Can't risk giving away our position unless we can hurt them."
"Go deeper," Varn Roath growled. "Find their heart and rip it out."
"It's too quiet," Liera Vossel added, eyes narrowed. "If they're not reacting to us, maybe they're expecting us."
"Or worse," Micah muttered. "They're watching. And learning."
The team stood quiet for a long moment, watching the projection shift and pulse. Even ASC-4's usual humming was quiet now, its optical sensors pointed toward the fake horizon.
Harka Slen broke the silence. He pointed to an area on the eastern edge of the map—where power readings spiked higher, but no transport or drones moved.
"Dead zone," he said. "Could be shielding. Could be hiding something."
Micah nodded slowly. "That's where we're going next."
Tern tapped a few commands, narrowing down the route. "I'll build a temporary scrambler shield into the drones—might buy us a few extra minutes if we get spotted."
Kaelin double-checked his rifle's energy pack. "Let's be clear. If they catch us this deep, nobody's coming to save us."
"They won't catch us," Nyra said flatly.
Varn let out a low chuckle. "Then let's stop wasting time."
Micah turned back to the map one last time. His eyes stuck on a structure in the heart of the dead zone—shaped like a coiled spiral, buried underground.
Something pulsed in his chest. The Hollow inside stirred, not with fear—but with memory.
"I don't think this place is just infrastructure," he said. "I think it's practice."
The others looked at him.
"Practice for what?" Sera asked.
Micah's eyes didn't leave the map. "A world without us."
They moved quietly, deeper into the machine city.
And far above, the mountain no longer echoed with their footsteps.