The tunnels hadn't stopped groaning since the blast.
Water bled through every crack in the concrete, turning the floor into a black current that surged against their boots. Steam poured from ruptured pipes, the air thick with heat and metal dust. Netoshka's headlamp flickered as she guided the squad through the wreckage — walls shuddering, sparks hissing from torn cables.
"Keep moving," she ordered, voice tight. "Pressure's rising. These sections won't hold for long."
Alev stumbled over a fallen support beam, his satchel soaked and half-ripped.
"Charges are gone… we used everything we had back there."
"Then make do," Netoshka snapped, hauling him up by the collar. "We're not dying here."
Behind them, Taran's rifle light cut through the mist.
"It's flooding fast! Half the tunnel's under!"
Surgien glanced at his wrist console — the holographic map glitching, half the readings unreadable.
"There's a bulkhead ahead, maybe thirty meters! If we can blow it, it might lead to a higher route!"
"Then we blow it," Netoshka said.
"Raine, go—"
"I'm on it!"
He pulled the last of his detonators, clipping a single shaped charge to the rusted doorframe. The device flickered red, whining as the timer armed.
Water lapped at their knees now, swirling with oil and blood. Something heavy moved beneath the surface — a shape sliding just out of sight.
Ron turned sharply, weapon raised. "Contact?"
The sound came again — a mechanical screech, followed by the rhythmic clang of metal feet approaching through the flooded dark.
Surgien's eyes widened.
"You've got to be kidding me…"
Out of the smoke, Decapitators emerged one by one — their frames half-melted from the earlier blast, skin torn away to reveal the steel beneath. Some crawled on ceilings, others dragged themselves through the water, their red optics flickering erratically. The water carried their reflections like dying embers.
"Here they come!" Taran shouted.
Netoshka raised her rifle, braced against the trembling wall.
"Hold them off until that door's open! Go!"
Gunfire cracked through the narrow corridor, muzzle flashes slicing the dark.
Rounds sparked against metal skulls. The air filled with the stench of burnt oil and ozone.
A Decapitator lunged from the water — Netoshka pivoted, firing point-blank. The blast tore half its torso away, but its claw still raked across her arm, tearing through armor.
"Shit—!" she grunted, kicking it back into the flood. "Alev!"
"Almost—two seconds!"
Another Decapitator crawled along the ceiling, its tendrils dropping like wires, reaching. Ron switched to his shotgun, blasting it apart in a shower of hydraulic fluid.
The charge detonated — a thunderous shockwave that sent a geyser of water and flame shooting through the bulkhead.
The door blew inward, revealing a corridor beyond — drier, sloped upward, the faint glint of maintenance lights flickering deeper inside.
"Go! Move!" Netoshka shouted.
The squad pushed through, wading fast as the rear tunnel collapsed behind them. A cascade of water roared through the breach, swallowing everything in its path.
Taran turned back once — the Decapitators were being washed away, thrashing in the flood, claws scraping concrete before vanishing into the current.
They stumbled into the new section, soaked and breathless. Steam rolled around them. The floor trembled again — somewhere below, another collapse.
Alev coughed, gripping his side.
"We're out of charges. That was the last."
Surgien leaned against the wall, trying to steady his breathing.
"This sector's no better. Map says the next junction's sealed off — nothing but reinforced concrete."
"Then we find another way," Netoshka said coldly, checking her rifle's mag.
Her gloves dripped black water. The light from her headlamp danced across the ceiling — revealing deep cracks spider-webbing above them.
Ron frowned. "You hear that?"
At first it was faint — a metallic tapping, like claws on steel. Then came the deeper sound — the vibration of machinery revving to life somewhere beyond the walls.
Netoshka steadied her aim. "They're still here."
Taran slammed a new magazine into his rifle, his face pale and streaked with grime. "They'll keep coming until this whole place goes under."
Netoshka nodded slowly.
"Then we'll make sure we're above it when it does."
She looked down the corridor — a narrow route leading deeper, faint warning lights glowing amber through the haze.
Beyond that, nothing but darkness and the steady hum of the Wire pulsing through the infrastructure.
"Stay close," she said quietly. "No noise unless necessary."
The squad slowly advanced, footsteps splashing through shallow water, their shadows stretching long behind them. The deeper they went, the louder the rumble became — not from machines this time, but from rushing water gaining speed, hungry and unstoppable.
Behind them, the tunnel they came from gave one last groan before it collapsed entirely — the echo rolling after them like thunder.
They didn't look back.
The only way now was forward — toward whatever waited in the black veins of Grimshire's underbelly.