The Steam Core was dying. The high-pitched scream of the cooling towers had faded into a low, mournful groan as the mercury vapor began to settle, coating the brass walkways in a layer of toxic silver frost. In the center of the junction, Captain Kaelen remained fused to the metal of the primary tower. His armor, once the pristine pride of the Third Division, was now a jagged, blackened husk melded to the industrial piping. Steam hissed through the hole in his chest, the sound indistinguishable from the labored, wet whistle of his failing lungs.

Vane stood three paces away, the star-metal spear held low. His left arm hung uselessly at his side, the bone shattered by Varkas's final strike, but his grip on the shaft remained iron-tight. He didn't look like a victor. He looked like a man who had survived a collapse, covered in the grey dust of the refinery and the dark, cooling blood of the elite.

Beside him, Valerica leaned heavily on her own spear. The golden glow of the Celestial Heart had receded, leaving her eyes a deep, exhausted violet. She looked at Kaelen—not with pity, but with a weary, clinical detachment. Mara stood behind her, small and silent, her hands still trembling from the resonance of the Soul Mirror.

Kaelen's head lolled forward, his violet eyes dim and fractured. A single, dark thread of blood escaped his lips, vaporizing as it hit the superheated metal of the tower.

"You... did it," Kaelen wheezed. Each word was a struggle against the cauterized vacuum in his chest. "A gutter rat... and a disgraced Sol. You killed... the Third."

"The Third died the moment they entered the groves," Vane replied. His voice was a dry rasp, devoid of triumph. "You just took a few hours to notice."

Kaelen let out a sound that might have been a laugh if his lungs still held the capacity for it. "Arrogant. Just like... the rest of us. You think this is the end? You think... the Empire lets two Justiciars vanish in a hole without a response?"

Vane's eyes narrowed. He took a step forward, the tip of his spear hovering just inches from Kaelen's throat. The Silver Fang hummed, a low and hungry vibration that seemed to sense the proximity of its final meal.

"Talk," Vane commanded.

"The 4th Division... the 'Iron Hounds,'" Kaelen whispered, his eyes rolling back in his head. "They were behind us. A backup squad... to secure the perimeter. They'll be at the exit... before you can even... find the sun."

He coughed, a violent, wet sound that sent a spray of dark blood across Vane's boots.

"You've won a skirmish... Vane. But you've summoned... a war."

Vane didn't wait for the light to leave the Captain's eyes. He didn't offer a final mercy or a parting word. He simply thrust.

The Silver Fang utilized Absolute Severance. It was a silent, effortless movement. The law of rejection didn't encounter the resistance of Kaelen's flesh or the tempered steel of his gorget; it simply erased the space they occupied. The spear-tip passed through Kaelen's neck and anchored into the cooling tower with a dull, metallic thunk.

The 9th kill was recorded.

The tension in the Steam Core seemed to snap. The ambient mana of the Third Division—that heavy, aristocratic pressure—evaporated, leaving only the smell of burnt ozone and cooling brass. Vane wrenched the spear free, the matte silver liquid on the blade shaking off the blood with a single, sharp flick.

"It's done," Valerica said. She slumped against a nearby pipe, her legs finally giving out. She didn't fall; she simply slid down the metal until she was sitting in the silver mud. "Vane... we actually did it."

"We're not finished," Vane said, though his own legs were shaking. He turned to Mara, who was staring at Kaelen's lifeless body. "Mara. Look at me."

The girl's amber eyes flicked up. They were haunted, but they were present.

"We need to move," Vane told her. "The 4th Division is coming. They aren't Justiciars yet, but they'll be fresh. We have twenty minutes to reach the threshold and set the narrative."

Valerica looked up, her brow furrowed. "Vane, we can't fight another squad. I'm empty. My channels feel like they've been filled with glass. If we run into a fresh group of Sentinels..."

"We don't fight them," Vane interrupted. He began to strip the useful components from Kaelen's belt—mana-restoration vials and a small, high-grade transmission stone. "We become victims. We use the 'Dungeon Break' story. The Hydra, the Wyverns... they killed the Third. We only survived because we were in the lower sub-levels when the nests erupted."

He looked at the broken refinery around them. The carnage was absolute. It wouldn't take much to convince a secondary squad that the beasts had done the work. The Third had been arrogant; arrogance was a believable cause of death in a Grade 4 dungeon.

They began the climb out of the Steam Core. It was a grueling, silent journey. Vane used his spear as a crutch, his broken arm tucked into his makeshift sling. Every step was an exercise in pain management, his Internal Pulse constantly firing to keep his heart rate stable.

Beside him, Mara had found a new, quiet strength. She didn't need to be carried anymore. She walked with a stiff, mechanical gait, her hands occasionally brushing the walls of the tunnel as if she were reading the metal's memory. She had seen the "mountain" fall, and the fear that had defined her since Ash-Hollow had been replaced by a cold, sharp clarity.

"If the 4th is at the perimeter, they'll have the exit locked down," Valerica noted. Her voice was regaining its steady, noble weight, though her face remained deathly pale. "They'll be looking for survivors. If we come out looking like this, they'll interrogate us before we can get to my family's retrieval team."

"That's why we're going to give them a distraction," Vane replied.

He stopped at a junction where the mercury pipes were most unstable. He gestured for Mara to step forward.

"Mara, I need you to build one last thing. Not a shield. A delay."

He pointed to a massive pressure valve. "I'm going to loosen the bolts. I want you to encase the entire valve in a crystalline lattice. Make it brittle. I want it to hold for exactly ten minutes, then shatter under the steam pressure."

Mara understood immediately. She reached out, her fingers glowing with a soft, amber light. The crystal grew over the valve like a shimmering frost. It was beautiful and fragile—a ticking clock made of glass.

"When that valve blows, the lower refinery will flood with mercury steam," Vane explained. "The 4th will see the eruption from the surface. They'll think the dungeon is collapsing. It'll give us the window we need to slip through the secondary exit near the ridge."

As they approached the final threshold of the Iron-Groves, the air began to change. The oppressive, heavy humidity of the refinery gave way to a sharp, biting chill. It wasn't the natural cool of the evening; it was a dry, hollow cold that made the hair on Vane's neck stand up.

He stopped, his hand going to the star-metal spear.

"Do you feel that?" Valerica whispered. She had her hand on her own core, her brow furrowed. "The mana... it's gone flat."

Vane looked toward the light at the end of the tunnel. It was a Bruised purple twilight, the color of a fading wound. There were no sounds of an incoming squad. No shouts of knights, no rhythmic pounding of boots on the forest floor. There was only a silence so absolute it felt physical.

"Maybe they haven't reached the perimeter yet," Mara said, her voice small in the darkness.

They stepped out of the dungeon's maw.

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