The violet fog didn't just obscure sight; it felt oily, crawling across Kaelen's skin like thousands of microscopic insects. This was the Miasma in its purest form—the "Breath of the Abyss." To a normal man, three breaths of this would turn the lungs to stone.
"Masks on! Now!" Jax roared, snapping a heavy brass respirator over his face and slamming a smaller one onto Lyra.
Kaelen didn't reach for a mask. He couldn't. The Void-Core in his chest was reacting to the Miasma like a starving predator. The indigo light flared, turning a jagged, angry purple. He took a breath, and instead of choking, he felt a surge of cold, hollow power.
"I don't need a mask," Kaelen rasped, his eyes glowing so bright they pierced the fog. "Nova, keep them clear! I'll deal with the ghost!"
Nova raised her hands, creating a shimmering silver "clean-zone" around Jax and Lyra. "Be careful, Kaelen. She does not fight with iron. She fights with the gaps between things."
From the swirling purple clouds above, a figure descended. She didn't use a ship or a jetpack; she drifted down on threads of solidified shadow. This was Vespera, the Second Harbinger, known as the Weaver. Her armor was thin, elegant, and etched with runes that seemed to swallow the light. She held no sword, only ten silver thimbles on her fingers, each trailing a nearly invisible filament of Miasma-glass.
"The Little Crow has learned to eat the fog," Vespera purred, her voice vibrating through the very threads she controlled. "But can you eat a web that spans the soul?"
She flicked her fingers. The filaments lashed out, faster than the eye could follow.
Kaelen ignited his glass hilt, but as he swung, he realized the trap. The threads weren't aiming for him—they were weaving around the air in front of him.
"Miasma-Style: Gossamer Cage!"
Suddenly, the space around Kaelen tightened. The Miasma threads hardened into a lattice of razor-sharp glass. Every move he made caused the "walls" to constrict.
"Jax! Get to the door!" Kaelen yelled, his voice strained. "I've got her!"
Jax didn't hesitate. He knew Kaelen was buying them seconds. He slammed his bionic fist into the Level 4 blast doors. "Hold on, son! I'm coming!"
Vespera laughed, a sound like breaking ice. "He's not there, Smith. He's been moved to the Exhaust-Spire. He's the one who has to open the valves manually when the Miasma becomes too thick. He's breathing the poison you're standing in right now."
Jax froze, his face contorting in agony. "You monsters..."
"Kill her, Kaelen!" Lyra screamed, firing her flintlocks at the Weaver. The bullets hit a shimmering web-shield and fell harmlessly to the ground.
Kaelen looked at the cage around him. He couldn't slide through it; the threads were too dense. He couldn't cut it; they were made of the same void-stuff as his blade.
He remembered Jax's lesson. Don't delete the resistance. Fold it.
He closed his eyes. He stopped fighting the cage and instead began to pull the Miasma into himself. The violet fog rushed into his chest, feeding the Void-Core. The "Burn" intensified until he felt his very blood boiling, but he didn't stop.
"Void-Style: Singularity Collapse!"
Kaelen didn't push outward. He pulled the entire cage—and the space it occupied—inward toward his palm. The Miasma threads snapped and were sucked into a tiny, vibrating violet sphere hovering above his hand.
Vespera's eyes widened behind her mask. "That's impossible! No one can contain that much corruption!"
"I'm already dead, Vespera!" Kaelen roared. "You can't kill a ghost with a haunting!"
He threw the sphere.
It didn't hit Vespera; it hit the ceiling. The resulting implosion ripped the ventilation shafts out of the walls and sucked the Miasma out of the room in a violent, reverse-wind. The vacuum pulled Vespera off her threads, sending her crashing into a heavy brass piston.
"Jax! The Exhaust-Spire! Go!" Kaelen commanded, leaning heavily on his sword. His skin was now shot through with violet veins, his breath coming in ragged, glowing puffs.
They sprinted through the now-clear corridor, reaching a massive circular chamber where the very air screamed. In the center, suspended over a pit that dropped straight into the Miasma-sea, was a young man chained to a giant iron wheel. His skin was pale, and he was coughing violently.
"Elian!" Jax screamed.
The boy looked up, his eyes glassy. "Father?"
But between them stood the Garrison guards, their pneumatic pikes leveled. And from the shadows, Vespera rose again, her armor cracked, her silver threads glowing with a vengeful, toxic light.
"If I cannot take the Core," Vespera hissed, "I will ensure there is nothing left for you to save."
She pointed her fingers at the chains holding Elian over the pit.
"Nova!" Kaelen shouted, but he saw Nova was already moving.
She wasn't looking at the guards. She was looking at the pit. She placed her hands on the floor, and the mercury in her eyes began to pour out, flowing across the metal like a living tide.
"Rise," Nova commanded.
The Miasma in the pit didn't stay down. It rose in a solid pillar of violet crystal, catching Elian's platform just as Vespera's threads snapped the chains.
"The Engine... is mine," Nova whispered, her voice no longer human.