Chapter 14 The Abandoned Subway Tunnel
The abandoned subway tunnel exhaled a wet, metallic breath as the strike team advanced. Jonathan's boots crunched over shattered chitin, the remnants of the Beetle Tyrant's passage. Guild floodlights carved through the gloom, their harsh beams catching on walls that were not scratched by claws, but deliberately carved with strange, pulsing symbols.
Lilith stopped abruptly, her sword tip hovering over one of the glyphs."This isn't a nest," she said, her voice tight. "It's a shrine."
The Excavation
Seraphina kicked a carapace fragment aside, revealing a shallow depression in the stone floor. The bowl-like indentation was crusted with blackened residue.
"That Tyrant wasn't just hunting," she muttered. "It was collecting."
Jonathan's System flared to life in his vision:
RESIDUE ANALYSIS: ORGANIC MATTER + ETHELDRIS-CLASS ENERGYESTIMATED VICTIMS: 14–16
A hand clamped onto his shoulder. Seraphina's grip was too tight, her fingers digging in."You're shaking," she observed.
"It's the air," he lied. His eyes remained fixed on the symbols coiling across the altar's base, identical to those appearing on his mother's skin.
The First Collapse
The ground trembled without warning. Dust rained from the ceiling, the air filling with a deep, groaning sound that seemed to come from inside the stone itself.
Jonathan's gaze snapped to the altar. Hairline cracks traced across its surface, glowing faintly with a sickly light.
The fissures spread like veins. The sound changed. It was less like stone breaking and more like bone tearing apart.
A muffled chittering rose from deep below, growing louder with each heartbeat.
Then the altar split open.
From the gap spilled shapes. Wrong, human-sized silhouettes crawled into the floodlights. They weren't beetles. They weren't human. Chitin plated their twisted limbs, and smooth, eyeless faces turned blindly toward the strike team.
Lilith's sword flashed in the dim light. "Fall back!" she ordered.
Jonathan stood rooted to the spot. The nearest creature turned its head toward him. Its blank face rippled, shaping itself into lips he knew too well.
His knife found its throat before the echo of his mother's voice could fade.
The Retreat
Back in the relative safety of the tunnels, Seraphina doubled over and vomited violently. Lilith watched her with narrowed eyes before turning her sharp gaze on Jonathan.
"Seal it," she ordered. No one argued.
As the others trudged ahead, Jonathan lingered behind. The System logged a new discovery:
ARTIFACT RECOVERED: ALTAR FRAGMENTENERGY SIGNATURE: MATCHES VESSEL SYNCHRONIZATION PATTERNS
The shard burned against his gloved palm.
The Revelation
Steam curled through the decontamination showers as Jonathan stood under the scalding spray, watching black ichor swirl down the drain. The altar shard in his belt pouch still hummed with unnatural energy.
The stall partition creaked open beside him. Lilith's voice cut through the mist.
"That creature in the tunnel," she said. "It looked at you differently."
Jonathan kept his breathing even as water drummed against his shoulders.
"You hesitated," she continued. "Like you recognized it."
A scrap of parchment slid under the divider between them. Even through the steam, the runes were unmistakable, identical to those on the altar.
"These were in the east wing archives," Lilith said. "Restricted section. And you knew them the moment we entered that chamber."
Jonathan said nothing. The water turned abruptly cold.
"Whatever game you're playing, Havery," Lilith's voice grew quieter, more dangerous, "it's using pieces you don't understand."
Her footsteps retreated. Only then did Jonathan look down at the parchment. The System's analysis pulsed in his vision:
MATCH CONFIRMED: WARD FRAGMENTORIGIN: GUILD MASTER'S PRIVATE COLLECTION
The Bargain
That night, Jonathan pressed the altar shard against his mother's stasis pod. The glass frosted where it made contact.
APPLYING ARTIFACT...STASIS INTEGRITY INCREASED: 93%SYNCHRONIZATION DELAYED BY 48 HOURS
His mother's breathing deepened, the first peaceful sleep she'd had in weeks.
The shard crumbled to ash in his palm.