The heart of the harvesting factory was a cathedral of suffering. The air was so thick with amplified despair it was hard to breathe, each inhalation a conscious effort against the psychic weight. The central spire they had seen from afar was even more monstrous up close—a grotesque fusion of biological and mechanical parts, its walls a mosaic of shifting, tormented faces, all weeping black, oily tears. A massive, obsidian core, the likely housing of the "Heart of the Void," pulsed at its center, each beat sending a wave of corrosive energy through the facility.
Alexander, carrying Scarlett, and Luna moved cautiously through the vast chamber, their footsteps echoing in the space between the heartbeats and the wails. They had evaded the patrols sent after the incident with Marcus, but the place felt like a living entity aware of an infection within its veins.
