He started to run.
The world blurred.
Each stride shattered the air, trails of white fire bending light behind him.
He weaved through the floating jellyfish, their translucent bodies bursting as he passed—
molten heat scattering like shards of glass.
Ten meters. Twenty. A hundred.
He became a streak of fire cutting through blue haze.
Then he saw them.
Just ahead, behind a thin, translucent curtain of light, his team stood motionless.
Four figures.
Noah slumped against Marcus's back.
Every one of them wore the same expression—
a mixture of bliss and madness, eyes vacant, lips parted in a dazed smile.
Dozens of worm-white tendrils crawled over their bodies, sliding under armor and fabric,
squirming against skin in obscene rhythm.
They coiled around arms, chests, throats—tightening, pulsing, feeding.
The sound was slick, wet, steady—like something breathing through flesh.
Their faces were pale now, drained.
Light flickered beneath their skin, fading as their energy bled away.
Damian's steps slowed.
His stomach turned.
And then the realization hit him.
This wasn't a corridor.
It was a throat.
The walls, the air, the jellyfish—
all of it was one vast organism.
And it was eating them alive.