The Titan skull was screaming.
Alarms blared—a harsh, rhythmic grinding sound that vibrated the metal floorplates. The bioluminescent moss-jars shattered one by one as the tremors grew worse.
"The Basin is 90% submerged!" Voss yelled, his porcelain shell cracked from the battle. He was typing furiously on a console that was sparking with overloaded magic. "Calculating escape vector... verticality is our only option!"
"Verticality?" Elric screamed, clutching his rebar staff. "We are in a cave!"
"It isn't a cave," the First Sword said. He was leaning heavily on Kael, his light-blade gone, replaced by the weight of a dying man. "It's the bottom of the world. And the only way out is up."
Voss slapped a heavy lever. A massive hatch in the ceiling of the workshop ground open. Above them, a long, rifled barrel stretched up into the dark, vanishing towards the distant surface.
"The Kinetic Driver," Voss explained. "Siege-class railgun. It was designed to fire atmosphere-tier munitions at God-King palace ships."
He pointed to the loading chamber. It was a hollow cylinder, barely big enough for three men.
"Get in," Voss ordered.
"You're coming with us," Kael said, helping Elric and the First Sword into the cramped steel tube.
Voss didn't move. He stood by the console.
"The auto-loader is offline," the machine said. "The firing mechanism requires a localized surge. A manual bridge."
Kael froze. "A manual bridge... you mean you have to hold the wires together?"
Voss looked at Kael. The lenses of his eyes zoomed in, capturing one last image.
"It has been an interesting data set," Voss said. "The probability of your survival is 42%. It is... acceptable."
"Voss, don't—"
"Go, Knight," Voss said. "Do not let the data be lost."
The machine-man slammed his hand onto the firing stud.
A blast of blue lightning arced from the console, engulfing him. Voss didn't scream. He just stiffened as the current melted his porcelain shell.
The Kinetic Driver engaged.
Kael was slammed back against the wall of the cylinder. Gravity didn't just pull him; it crushed him.
They launched.
They shot up the barrel at speed that turned vision into a blur. They punched through layers of rock, of metal, of history.
Behind them, the Titan skull was crushed by the rising ocean of entropy. Voss was gone. The Deep Basin was gone.
They were flying.
Up through the dark. Up through the crust of the world.
Towards the Ash.