The descent took an eternity.
They moved lower and lower through abandoned ventilation shafts that grew tighter with each meter, as if the city itself—feeling their intrusion—was trying to crush them in its rusted embrace.
The air turned thick, wet, and heavy, tasting of ozone, mold, and something faintly sweet and rotten.
Lyra led the way, illuminating the path with an old tactical flashlight fitted with an emerald filter. Behind her, Kai limped forward, breathing heavily. Astra brought up the rear—silent, almost weightless—but her presence was undeniable: cold, dense, like pressure before a storm.
Finally, the shaft widened abruptly.
And they stepped into a level that did not exist on any official Corporation map.
The Labyrinth.
Everything here breathed differently.
Massive bundles of cables hung from the ceiling like black vines, twisting and pulsing with faint, uneven light—as if electricity had been replaced by blood. Some cables moved slowly, like living tendrils reacting to airflow.
The walls and floor were coated in a thick bio-digital slime: a viscous, semi-transparent mass glowing with dull blue-green phosphorescence. Within it, tiny sparks occasionally flared, revealing fragments of ancient binary code that immediately distorted into meaningless noise.
The temperature was higher than above, yet the humidity made the air feel almost liquid.
Somewhere in the distance came strange sounds: low humming, broken hissing, and sometimes a short, fragmented moan—as if something was trying to form words, but had forgotten how.
Lyra stopped on a metal ledge and lowered her sniper rifle, wiping sweat from her brow.
"Here, the System's sensors go blind," she said, catching her breath. Relief and tension coexisted in her voice. "No relays. No neural beacons. We're inside a blind spot in reality. Even the Dead Moon barely reaches this far."
"Welcome to the place where code forgets its own rules."
Kai looked around nervously.
His mechanical eye rotated frantically, scanning every movement in the shadows. A red beam darted from side to side.
"There's something here, Lyra," he said quietly, his voice shaking. "My sensors are picking up signals… but it's not code. It's like a computer screaming. Or crying. I can't interpret it properly. It's… alive?"
Lyra crouched and ran her fingers through the glowing slime on the wall.
The substance reacted immediately—ripples of light spread across its surface, briefly forming a distorted human silhouette before dissolving again.
"Glitches," she said softly. "Leftovers of those who tried to merge with the Omni-Field long before Astra existed. Failed protocols. Humans who willingly uploaded their consciousness into the System in search of immortality or power."
"The System accepted them… and then rejected them."
"Now they're stuck between code and flesh. Half-beings. Half-viruses. They wander here, feeding on residual energy, sometimes… trying to speak."
Astra stood slightly apart, listening.
Her left hand faintly glowed violet—Thanatos reacting to the environment.
She could feel the Abyss inside her stirring with curiosity… almost hunger.
The Labyrinth felt familiar to it.
A place where the boundary between real and unreal had already eroded long ago.
"They're afraid of me," Astra said quietly. Her voice was almost normal, but slightly roughened. "Or… drawn to me. I can't tell."
Lyra looked at her.
"Both. You're like a beacon to them. One reason is because you carry what they never achieved. The other is because Thanatos could either erase them completely… or give them what they want most: a real ending. Or a real beginning. Depends on your guest's mood today."
Kai swallowed hard as one of the cable-vines slowly lowered toward them, as if sniffing the air.
"How long are we staying here?" he asked.
Lyra shrugged, adjusting her cloak.
"Until we figure out how to stabilize Astra. Until we find a way to use Thanatos' power without letting it consume her."
"And until we decide what comes next. Because up there…" she nodded vaguely toward the world above, "they're already executing a full purge. They won't stop until Sector 01 is nothing but ash."
She stood, slung her rifle back over her shoulder, and pointed into the pulsating corridor of wires and slime.
"Move. Stay close. And if you hear whispers—don't answer."
"Especially you, Astra."
"Your voice here… might open doors that should never be opened."
Astra nodded.
But in her eyes, a faint violet spark was already returning.
The Labyrinth of Wires was watching them.
And it was hungry.