The gate sealed behind them with a slow, organic hum.

Hale and Gray stood at the edge of what had once been the industrial ring—miles of foundries, conveyor towers, and dormant forges—but now, the landscape pulsed like something alive.

Where metal beams had corroded, crystalline latticework had grown through the gaps, glowing faintly with veins of amber light. Machines half-melted into the floor whispered with faint code, their gears turning not by power, but by a steady current of the ...