The tunnel swallowed them whole.
Nathan stepped through the opening in the black wall, Moonlight drawn, his boots crunching on something that wasn't stone. It was metal. Cold, riveted, industrial metal.
The air hit him next—not the dry heat of the desert or the organic dampness of the forest. This was something else entirely. It tasted like a forge that had been running for a thousand years and never once stopped.
The party filed in behind him. Thirty Climbers. Six nations. All of them blinking against the sudden shift in environment, their weapons raised, their eyes adjusting to the dim orange glow that pulsed from somewhere deep below.
"What the hell is this?" Dillon muttered, his voice echoing off metal walls.
Nathan didn't answer immediately. He was staring.
Layer 4 was not a forest. It was not a desert. It was not a nest or a ruin or a battlefield.
It was a factory.
