The geothermal chamber became a pressure cooker. The deep thrumming shifted from rhythm to rage, vibrating the glassy walls. Dust rained down. The steaming pool churned violently. **\[HOLLOW KING RESIDUAL CORE: AGITATION CRITICAL. DIRECTED ERUPTION IMMINENT.\]** **\[ERROR PATCHER SIGNATURES: CONVERGING. ETA: 90 SECONDS.\]** Vex moaned, curled on the floor, human again but broken. Elara's crystal pulsed faintly, a dying star.
No time for mercy. No time for doubt. Only the brutal calculus of survival.
Kael scooped up the Seedling fragment, its warmth a desperate anchor. He spared a glance at Vex. "Malakai lied. The void consumes." He didn't wait for a response. He bolted for the only exit – a smaller, downward-sloping tunnel radiating intense heat. Deeper. Always deeper.
*Live…* The thought wasn't his own. It was a ghostly whisper, maybe Elara, maybe the void, maybe just his own screaming will. He plunged into the tunnel, the scorching air searing his lungs despite **Heat Sink Regulation**. Behind him, the chamber *exploded*. Not with rock, but with a geyser of superheated void-mud, amplified by the Hollow King's fury. It engulfed the entrance he'd just passed through. Vex's weak cry was instantly silenced.
**\[GEOTHERMAL/VOID ERUPTION DETECTED AT PREVIOUS LOCATION. SIGNATURE SPIKE.\]** **\[PATROL SIGNATURE: TEMPORARILY OCCLUDED.\]**
Bought seconds. Kael ran, navigating by **Mineral Sense** and the pounding thrum in his bones. The tunnel wound down, heat intensifying to near-lethal levels. His Void-Chitin glowed faintly red at the edges. **\[PLATING INTEGRITY: 88%\]** **\[HEAT SINK REGULATION: OVERLOAD IMMINENT.\]** He passed fissures venting poisonous gas, leaped over bubbling pits of molten mineral slag. This wasn't sanctuary; it was a descent into hellfire.
Elara remained silent. **\[PSIONIC INTEGRITY: 5% - COMA STATE PERSISTENT.\]** He poured ambient geothermal energy towards the crystal through the Synthesis link as he ran, a clumsy, continuous trickle. **\[ENGINE ASSISTANCE: SUSTAINED GEOTHERMAL TRANSFER - MINIMAL EFFICIENCY.\]** He felt nothing in return. Just the crushing weight of her silence.
The tunnel opened abruptly. Not into another cavern, but into… ruins. Pre-Integration ruins, impossibly preserved within the geothermal inferno. Shattered lab equipment fused to the walls. Twisted metal frames half-melted into the stone. And in the center, partially collapsed but still recognizable, a massive cylindrical structure – a geothermal tap, much larger and more advanced than the one in the Prometheus lab. **\[IDENTIFIED: PROJECT PROMETHEUS PRIMARY DEEP SITE (SITE ALPHA). STATUS: DESTROYED/BURIED.\]**
This was the source. The *real* Prometheus. Where Elara's fate, and perhaps the System's attention, began.
Before he could process it, his **Void-Sense** screamed. Not Patchers. Not the Hollow King. Something else. Cold. Calculating. *Familiar*. **\[ANOMALY: SYSTEM SIGNATURE DETECTED. INTEGRATED WITH GEOTHERMAL TAP STRUCTURE. PROFILE: DEFENSIVE AUTOMATA.\]**
From shadowed alcoves around the ruined tap, figures unfolded. Not human. Not Sentinel. Humanoid drones, sleek and skeletal, constructed of a dark, crystalline alloy that drank the fiery light. Faceless heads swiveled towards him. Arms ended not in weapons, but in complex emitter arrays. Name tags flickered: **\[PROMETHEUS WARDEN (Lvl. 8) x3\]** **\[DIRECTIVE: QUARANTINE BREACH. TERMINATE INTRUDERS.\]**
Malakai's experiments were crude imitations. This was the real, pre-Integration nightmare. The tap wasn't just broken; it was *guarded*.
The lead Warden's emitters glowed blue-white. Not a purification lance. A **Spatial Lock Field**. Kael felt the air solidify around him, pressure crushing in, attempting to pin him in place. **\[WARNING: KINETIC NULLIFICATION FIELD ENGAGING.\]**
Instinct screamed. He triggered **Shadow-Step**, pouring extra power into it, fueled by terror and geothermal energy. He phased *through* the coalescing field, the spatial distortion tearing at his insubstantial form. Agony lanced through him – not physical, but existential. **\[SHADOW-STEP OVERLOAD! COOLDOWN INCREASED: 30 SECONDS! MINOR SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION: +1%\]** He reappeared behind the Warden, stumbling, his vision blurring with static.
The other two Wardens reacted instantly. Emitters shifted. One fired a beam of superheated plasma, cutting through the space he'd occupied. The other unleashed a barrage of micro-singularities – tiny gravity wells that ripped equipment from the walls and tried to drag Kael off his feet. **\[GRAVITIC ANOMALY DETECTED. EVASIVE MANEUVERS REQUIRED.\]**
Kael danced a deadly ballet. He ducked behind a half-melted console as plasma seared overhead. He used a gravitic distortion to slingshot himself sideways behind a support column, avoiding a cluster of micro-singularities that imploded where he'd stood. He couldn't fight them head-on. Their tech was too advanced, too alien. He needed to use *their* environment.
He spotted his chance. The central geothermal tap structure, though damaged, still pulsed with immense, unstable energy. Conduits snaked from it, cracked and leaking raw geothermal power. **\[ANALYSIS: PRIMARY CONDUIT JUNCTION - STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY CRITICAL.\]**
As the Warden that fired plasma recharged, Kael lunged. Not at it. At the damaged conduit junction near its base. He slammed his **Voidtouch**-coated fist into the cracked housing. **\[VOIDTOUCH DISRUPTION INITIATED ON GEOTHERMAL CONDUIT.\]**
The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic. The unstable void energy met the raw geothermal power. The conduit junction exploded. Not silently. A deafening roar filled the chamber as a torrent of superheated steam, molten rock, and chaotic void-energy erupted. The plasma Warden was engulfed, its crystalline form cracking, melting, then dissolving entirely in the chaotic maelstrom. **\[PROMETHEUS WARDEN TERMINATED.\]**
The gravitic Warden staggered, its emitters flickering as the spatial distortions interfered with its own field. Kael didn't hesitate. He charged the Spatial Lock Warden, the only one still fully operational. It raised its emitters again, blue light building. Kael had no Shadow-Step. No fancy tricks. Only speed, stolen strength, and desperation.
He dove *under* the emitter arms as the field began to coalesce. He rolled, came up inside its guard, and slammed his obsidian claws, reinforced with every ounce of **Enhanced Musculature**, into the joint where its torso met its leg. **\[CRITICAL STRIKE: STRUCTURAL WEAK POINT.\]**
Crystalline alloy shrieked. Sparks flew. The Warden staggered, its spatial field sputtering out. Kael wrenched, tearing the leg partially free. The construct crashed to the ground, emitters flaring erratically. He finished it with a brutal stomp to its faceless head, shattering the dark crystal. **\[PROMETHEUS WARDEN TERMINATED.\]**
The gravitic Warden recovered, unleashing another wave of micro-singularities. Kael was thrown backwards, slamming hard into the ruined tap structure. Pain exploded in his back. **\[MINOR SPINAL TRAUMA DETECTED. STABILITY: 68%\]** The Warden advanced, emitters charging for a killing blast.
Suddenly, the entire chamber shook violently. Not from the fight. From *below*. A colossal impact. The deep thrumming became a deafening roar. **\[HOLLOW KING RESIDUAL CORE: FULL ERUPTION INITIATED!\]** **\[ERROR PATCHER SIGNATURES: ARRIVAL CONFIRMED! PURIFICATION PROTOCOL ENGAGED ABOVE!\]**
The convergence had reached its peak. The Patchers had arrived topside, directly above the Hollow King's position. Their cleansing beam met the ascending void-eruption head-on.
The deep site chamber became hell incarnate. The ceiling cracked. Superheated steam and void-mist geysered from new fissures. The remaining gravitic Warden was thrown off its feet, its micro-singularity field collapsing chaotically. Kael curled around the Seedling fragment, shielding it with his body as debris rained down. Light – blinding white from above, consuming purple-black from below – warred through the cracks, casting nightmare shadows.
**\[SEISMIC EVENT: MAJOR.\]** **\[STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF SITE ALPHA: COLLAPSING.\]**
Amidst the chaos, a flickering holographic display sparked to life on a mostly intact console near Kael – miraculously still powered. It showed schematics. Not for the geothermal tap. For something else. A complex, multi-layered energy matrix labeled **"APOTHEOSIS ENGINE PROTOTYPE v.0.00 - SOURCE CODE."** Below it, fragmented logs scrolled:
`> ...Source Code derivation from recovered System Fragment (Designation: EDEN CORE) successful but unstable...`
`> ...Null-Type psionic resonance required for initial binding... incompatible with standard Integration protocols...`
`> ...Theo Malakai (Lead Psionics) insists on human trials despite instability... Subject Elara shows unprecedented compatibility...`
`> ...WARNING: EDEN CORE FRAGMENT EXHIBITING CORRUPTION VECTORS... CONTAMINATION RISK EXTREME...`
`> ...Malakai override: "Proceed. The God Engine will elevate us beyond the System..."`
`> ...CONTAINMENT BREACH... SUBJECT ELARA FUSION EVENT... SITE ALPHA LOCKDOWN INITIATED...`
Malakai. Theo Malakai. Not just a scavenger boss. The *Lead Psionics* of Project Prometheus. The architect of Elara's torment. The man who'd recovered a piece of the System itself ("EDEN CORE") and tried to build his *own* God Engine, long before Kael's glitch. And he'd failed, corrupting it, creating the Seedling... and now, he was out there, in the ruins, still chasing that power, using his own people as test subjects like Vex.
Kael's stolen Engine wasn't a unique glitch. It was a corrupted echo of Malakai's failed ambition. And Malakai knew *exactly* what Kael carried. He wasn't just after the Seedling fragment; he wanted the living Engine itself.
The ground beneath Kael heaved violently. A massive crack opened directly under him, revealing not rock, but a seething river of molten magma far below, laced with strands of void-darkness. The gravitic Warden, regaining its footing, saw him vulnerable. Its emitters glowed, targeting him and the Seedling.
**\[WARNING: TERMINATION IMMINENT.\]** **\[EVASION IMPOSSIBLE.\]**
Kael did the only thing left. He clutched the Seedling fragment tight, whispered "Hold on, Elara," and let himself fall backwards into the crack, into the seething river of fire and void below. The Warden's gravitic blast tore through the space he'd occupied as he vanished into the inferno. **\[HOST LOCATION: UNKNOWN. VITAL SIGNS: CRITICAL. APOTHEOSIS ENGINE: EMERGENCY PROTOCOLS ENGAGED.\]**
The last thing he registered before the molten darkness took him was the Engine's frantic crimson text, flickering like a dying star:
**\[ASSIMILATION CRITICAL: MAGMATIC/VOID ENERGY MATRIX. SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 0.7%... RECALCULATING... INITIATING CORE OVERRIDE... APOTHEOSIS PROTOCOL v.0.01α... ACTIVATED.\]**
Then, nothing but fire, darkness, and the terrifying sense of the Engine tearing itself apart to save him, unleashing something primal and unknown.