Kayvaan, cloaked in a camoufge shroud, led the way. His multi-funal goggles were set to low-light mode, allowing him to see every detail of the steps beh his feet, from their cracked masonry to the thin yer of dust that coated them. His movements were silent, blending seamlessly into the shadows, but his unease grew with every step. Something was wrong.

  Kayvaan stopped abruptly, raising a hand to signal the group behind him. The Battle Sisters, armed with shock mauls and searchlights, halted a few meters back, their ons at the ready. A beam of light swept across the staircase, illuminating Kayvaan as he emerged from the shadows. “Elizabeth,” he called out, his voice steady. “Something’s nht here.”

  Elizabeth approached, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “That’s why you stopped? This pce reeks of Chaos, and Serapheas are lurking in every shadow, hungry for fresh blood. Did you just now notice? Your remarkable insight never ceases to amaze me.”

  Kayvaan narrowed his eyes. “Are you okay, Elizabeth?”

  Elizabeth’s breathing was bored, her pale face ghastly uhe harsh beam of the fshlight. “I-I just had a small auditory halluation,” she stammered, f a weak ugh. “It’s nothing. An old issue. o worry.”

  Two of the Battle Sisters apanying her subtly shifted their stance, positioning their ons for a potential threat. Another Battle Sister adjusted her position, clearly ready to shield Elizabeth if he maneuver didn’t escape Kayvaan's notice. ‘How could I not be tense?’ he thought, suppressing a grimace. The situation iraling fast. While cursing his misfortuernally, he uood that ign the issue would only make things worse.

  Elizabeth was an Inquisitor—and a psyker. Most Inquisitors trained in psychic powers were adept at maintaining trol, strug mental fortresses to fend off Serapheaifluence. But psykers were never entirely safe. They were like pressurized gas tanks—useful, yet dangerous if mishandled. Even among the rigorously traihe risk of corruption was never zero. The Ordo Malleus taught its operatives to monitor psykers closely and act decisively at the first sign of possession. If Elizabeth’s dition worsened, her owinue wouldn’t hesitate to execute her. The tension among the Sisters alpable; two were ready to fire, while oood prepared to shield her.

  Kayvaan swallowed hard, weighing the likelihood of internal flict. They’d barely ehe dungeon—what if their first fight wasn’t against Chaos, but among themselves? “What exactly did you hear?” he asked cautiously.

  Elizabeth shivered, her voice trembling. “Chewing. Like bones being crushed. Something g itself. And… cries. Women and children, terrified, drowning in despair.”

  “Elizabeth, focus!” Kayvaan snapped, his voice firm but steady. “Don’t let it get to you. Remember your training. Calm your mind, check your defehis is Cha to worm its way in. You’ve faced worse—you fight this.”

  “I know,” she whispered, nodding shakily. “I’ll be fihe Emperor protects.” Her voice steadied as she began a breathing exercise, eahale and exhale measured and rhythmic. The oppressive atmosphere of the spiral staircase seemed to hold its breath as Elizabeth worked through the psychic disturbance. Moments ter, she opened her eyes, her posure restored. “I’m fine now,” she decred, her tone cold. “My apologies for the trouble, ander Kayvaan. There’s something very wrong with this city—not just Chaos. Something unique affected me.” She hesitated, a rare flicker of vulnerability crossing her face. “Thank you for notig. If you hadn’t…”

  “No thanks needed,” Kayvaan replied tersely. “Let’s focus on staying alive. Something’s definitely wrong, and I don’t mean just psychically. What did you see before?”

  Elizabeth gave him a faint, approving smirk. “Is this a test? Always cautious, aren’t you? Admirable.” She swept her gaze across the staircase, her sharp eyes catg details most would miss. “This city’s ruins are aens of thousands of years, if not more. But…” She ran her fingers along the railing, brushing off a thin yer of dust. “This dust is fresh. No more than a week old.”

  Kayvaan frowned, breaking off a se of the wooden railing. “That doesn’t add up. Wood like this should have rotted away turies ago. Instead, it’s as solid as newly-made furniture. Whatever Gustav told us about this city was surface-level guesswork. He barely scratched the surface, literally. His intel isn’t reliable—we’ll o tread carefully.”

  Elizabeth nodded, still examining the dust. “Could it be a stasis field? Something keeping the city in temporal suspension?”

  “No,” Kayvaan said after a moment’s thought. “If time was frozen, we’d be affected too. And who would use that kind of teology to keep dust off furniture? I’ve never heard of anything like this.” He tossed the woment aside and shrugged. “Maybe someone ed up retly. Either way, it doesn’t ge our mission. We move forward, stay sharp, and deal with whatever we find.”

  With that, he stepped into the darkness, his cloak blending into the shadows. The team followed, the king of armor and distant echoes the only sounds apanying their dest. The dest sted three hours, the spiral staircase seeming endless. Finally, they reached the fifth level. Kayvaan pushed open a small, unassuming door. What y beyond wasn’t a tinuation of the staircase but airely different world.

  As the door creaked open, the sight before them was surreal. Instead of a ruins or decayed halls, they were greeted by a sprawling cityscape. The streets were paved with crete, fnked by rows of dim streetlights. Skyscrapers loomed in the distaheir silhouettes outlined by flickering neon signs. A pair of bck vintage cars stood parked along the street, their polished surfaces catg faint refles of the glowing lights. Pedestrians in sharp suits passed by, casting brief, curious g Kayvaan and his group before hurrying on their way. Neon signs overhead blinked itently, their crimson glow illuminating the shocked expressions of the party. The pulsing red light gave the illusion of their faces appearing and vanishing in the dark.

  Kayvaan froze, an absurd thought creeping into his mind. ‘Could this be the Uates of the 20th tury?’ He immediately shook the idea off and turo gnce back at the door. Beyond it was still the long, spiraling staircase they had desded. No, they hadn’t somehow teleported. His gaze shifted upward toward the “sky.” Instead of stars, it was a dome of swirling clouds, lit sporadically by fshes of lightning. The rumble of distant thunder echoed through the city. But Kayvaan's trained eyes saw the truth—it roje. The sky was nothing more than an eborate s, simuting the oning storm.

  Amid one of the lightning fshes, he caught a glimpse of t structures pierg through the false clouds, eg what seemed like different yers of the city. The colossal architecture was remi of the mythical Tower of Babel, serving as a passage between the upper and lower levels. “What is going on here?” Elizabeth muttered, her voice tinged with disbelief. “Blocks of buildings, streetlights, cars… pedestrians?” She paused, visibly struggling to recile the se with reason. After a moment, she posed herself, though her tone was still incredulous. “What kind of underground ruins is this!?”