The Abyss Sector was a legend, even among the Undercity dwellers.
It wasn't just "down." It was the basement of the basement. A sealed-off level below the waste processing plants, below the sewage lines, below the tectonic stabilizers.
"The air filters stopped working down here fifty years ago," Isolde's voice crackled over the comms inside their helmets. "The oxygen density is low. Methane pockets are high. Don't light a match."
Julian adjusted the grip of his new mechanical hand. It was raw steel, unpainted, humming with the faint vibration of a hydraulic pump. It wasn't the sophisticated nanite weapon he used to have, but it was strong.
"We're at the coordinates," Julian said, pointing his flashlight into the gloom.
They stood before a massive blast door, welded shut and covered in decades of grime and warning graffiti.
DANGER: GEOTHERMAL VENTING.
RESTRICTED: EMPEROR'S EYES ONLY.
"This isn't a vent," Skid scanned the door. "The alloy is Star-Metal. Same stuff the Space Elevator was made of. This door cost more than the entire city above it."
"Can you open it?" Lyra asked, her rifle light sweeping the dark tunnels behind them.
"It's DNA locked," Skid said. "Royal blood."
"We don't have a prince," Zephyr muttered.
"We have a wrench," Julian stepped forward.
He didn't try to hack the lock. He looked at the hinges. They were corroded by the toxic air of the Abyss.
"Isolde, liquid nitrogen charge."
Isolde handed him a canister. Julian sprayed the massive hinges until they frosted over.
"Lyra, explosive round."
BANG.
The frozen metal shattered. The massive door groaned and tilted, falling inward with a deafening crash that echoed for miles into the darkness below.
The Long Drop
Beyond the door lay the Deep Shaft.
It was a cylindrical void, fifty meters wide, dropping straight down into the infinite black. Along the walls, a rusted service elevator clung to a single guide rail.
"Going down?" Julian grabbed the cage door and rattled it. It held.
They piled into the creaking cage. Julian pulled the manual brake lever.
SCREEEEECH.
The elevator dropped.
It didn't glide. It stuttered, shaking violently as it descended past layers of strata.
They passed the Sewage Layer—pipes leaking green sludge.
They passed the Sub-Basement—ancient concrete bunkers from the First War.
They passed the Fossil Layer—embedded bones of leviathans in the rock.
"Depth: 5 miles," Skid read her altimeter. "Temperature rising. 40 degrees Celsius."
"The wind is dead here," Zephyr whispered, clutching his staff. He looked terrified. "The earth is squeezing us."
"Look at the walls," Julian shone his light.
The rock had changed. It wasn't rough stone anymore. It was Obsidian. Smooth, black, glass-like volcanic rock, cut with laser precision into hexagonal blocks.
"This architecture," Isolde ran her scanner over the passing wall. "It's not Imperial. It's not Human."
"It's Harmonic," Julian said. "The Pre-Collapse civilization. The ones who built the Titans."
The elevator jolted to a halt.
DEPTH: 10 MILES.
STATUS: THE MANTLE GATE.
The City of Silence
They stepped out of the cage.
They were in a cavern so vast their flashlights couldn't find the ceiling. The floor was a bridge of black stone spanning a lake of glowing magma far below.
But on the other side of the bridge lay a city.
It was a Necropolis.
Massive, silent structures made of black iron and obsidian rose from the rock. They had no windows, no doors. Just towering monoliths covered in glowing purple runes—the same color as the Dissonance, but stable. Controlled.
"It's a prison," Julian realized. "The whole city is a cell block."
They began to cross the bridge. The heat from the magma below was intense, distorting the air.
Suddenly, Lyra stopped.
"Movement," she whispered. "Twelve o'clock."
Emerging from the shadows of the Necropolis were figures.
They were tall, draped in rags of grey cloth. They moved silently, hovering slightly off the ground. Under the hoods, they wore masks.
Black Iron Masks. Mouthless. Just like the one Julian had received.
"The Ushers," Skid whispered. "The jailers."
There were a dozen of them. They blocked the path.
One of them glided forward. It didn't speak. It raised a hand.
A wave of Silence hit them.
It wasn't just quiet. It was a physical dampener. The sound of the magma bubbling vanished. The sound of their breathing vanished.
Then, the lights on their suits died.
"EMP!" Isolde tried to reboot her scanner. "They're draining the energy!"
"Weapons free!" Lyra shouted, but she couldn't hear her own voice.
She fired her rifle. The muzzle flash lit up the dark, but there was no BANG. The bullet hit the Usher and simply stopped in mid-air, falling to the ground like a pebble.
Kinetic dampening, Julian realized. They stop vibration. Sound, heat, impact.
The Ushers glided closer. They drew long, thin blades made of glass.
The Vibration of Rust
Julian stepped forward. He couldn't shout orders. He couldn't use his nanite arm (it was gone).
He looked at his new steel hand. It was simple. Mechanical. Analog.
They dampen energy. They dampen high-tech.
But can they dampen a gear?
Julian grabbed a heavy iron chain lying on the bridge (part of the old railing).
He spun it.
The Usher swung its glass blade.
Julian didn't try to block with energy. He blocked with mass.
CLANG.
The chain wrapped around the glass blade. The impact vibrated up Julian's arm.
Sound.
The impact created a sound. The Usher flinched. The Silence field flickered for a microsecond.
They hate noise, Julian realized. Real, physical noise. Percussion.
He looked at Zephyr. He pointed to the floor. Stomp.
Zephyr didn't understand.
Julian grabbed his own metal arm with his flesh hand. He wound up the internal spring-lock mechanism.
CLICK-CLICK-CLICK.
He released the tension.
His metal fist snapped forward like a pile-driver, hitting the obsidian floor.
BOOM.
The vibration traveled through the bridge.
The Ushers recoiled. Their hovering faltered.
Julian pointed at Lyra's rifle. He pointed at the stock, then mimed hitting something.
Don't shoot. Club.
Lyra nodded. She reversed her rifle.
She charged the lead Usher. It tried to dampen the kinetic energy, but Lyra wasn't firing a high-velocity projectile. She was swinging a ten-pound block of metal.
CRACK.
She smashed the Usher's mask. The black iron shattered.
Underneath, there was no face. Just a swirling void of purple smoke. The creature dissipated with a shriek that finally broke the silence.
"Hit them!" Lyra yelled, her voice returning. "Break the masks!"
The Brawl on the Bridge
It turned into a brutal, medieval melee.
Isolde used her heavy wrench, swinging it like a mace. Every impact rang like a bell, weakening the Ushers.
Zephyr used his staff, not for wind, but as a quarterstaff, tripping and smashing.
Julian was a whirlwind of steel and chain. He wrapped the chain around an Usher's neck and pulled. The mask popped off.
Poof.
Another one down.
But there were more coming. From the Necropolis, hundreds of Ushers began to glide toward the bridge.
"We can't fight an army!" Skid yelled, throwing a rock at an Usher.
"The gate!" Julian pointed to the massive archway at the end of the bridge. "We have to get inside!"
They sprinted. The Ushers pursued, a silent gray tide.
They reached the massive obsidian doors. There was no handle. No keypad.
Only a depression in the center. Shaped like a mask.
"The key," Julian pulled the Black Iron Mask from his pocket.
He slammed it into the slot.
THRUM.
The door resonated. Deep purple lines lit up on the surface.
The massive slabs of stone began to grind open.
"Get in!"
They dove through the gap just as the Ushers reached them.
Julian grabbed the mask and pulled it out from the inside.
The doors slammed shut.
BOOM.
They were safe.
The Inner Sanctum
They stood in the dark, breathing hard.
"Is everyone okay?" Julian asked, checking his mechanical arm. The servos were whining; he had pushed them too hard.
"Alive," Lyra checked her ammo. "Those things... they were ghosts."
"Guardians," Julian corrected. "They keep the noise out."
He turned his flashlight to the room they were in.
It wasn't a room.
It was a Throne Room. But unlike the Emperor's, this one was made of rough, natural rock.
In the center sat a figure.
It was huge—twenty feet tall. It sat on a throne of basalt.
It was armored in ancient, rusted iron. Chains thick as tree trunks wrapped around its limbs, binding it to the throne. The chains glowed with the light of the seven surface Titans.
Its head was lowered, chin resting on its chest. It wore a mask similar to the Ushers, but crowned with spikes of gold.
Titan 08: The Silent King.
"It's dormant," Skid whispered, checking her scanner. "No energy signature. It's dead."
Suddenly, the chains rattled.
The giant head lifted.
The eyes of the mask didn't glow. They were dark voids.
A voice echoed. Not in their ears, not in their minds, but in the atoms of the air itself.
"YOU HAVE BROUGHT THE NOISE."
The Silent King leaned forward, the chains straining.
"ARE YOU HERE TO BREAK THE CHAINS? OR TIGHTEN THEM?"
Julian stepped forward. He looked at the giant.
"I'm here to ask why you're locked up," Julian said.
The King laughed. It was a sound like an earthquake.
"BECAUSE, LITTLE CONDUCTOR. I AM NOT THE PRISONER."
The King raised a shackled hand and pointed upward, toward the surface.
"I AM THE ANCHOR. THE WORLD IS THE CAGE. AND THE THING WE ARE HOLDING..."
The ground beneath them became transparent, revealing a swirling core of pure, chaotic violet energy beneath the throne.
"...IS THE HEART OF THE DISSONANCE."