Sheba worked with frantic speed, wedging the iron bar into the compression-release pins, effectively gagging the machine’s safety valves.
She sensed the vibration change; the steady, rhythmic thrum shifted into a violent, high-pitched scream as the steam reached critical density.
‘Now the injectors,’ Idan commanded, his eyes reflecting the orange sparks flying from the stressed metal. ‘Once the internalstress exceeds the casing’s tensile strength, the vacuum seal will fail. It won’t just explode; the pressure differential will cause the entire structure to implode inward before the ultimate blast.’
‘The cooling lines are dead!’ Sheba panted, stumbling back as superheated vapor hissed through the failing joints like a warning.
‘Good. Now move,’ Idan said, snagging her waist and hauling her toward the ridge. ‘In ten seconds, shit’s going to blow.’
He glimmered them up the granite spur just as the immense machinery gave a guttural bellow.
Pausing in a small glade, they turned to see the fused valves snap under the impossible PSI.
The contrivance didn’t just crack; it collapsed into its own vacuum and into the massive mining pit below it. Its gigantic brass gears ground into dust as the trapped energy detonated.
The shockwave triggered a localized landslide.
Sending a roar of cascading rock and twisted scrap down to tumble into the deep bole, sealing the greed of Rhixon Corp beneath a tomb of stone.
15
The God-Eater
Just as the couple prepared to leave the decimated quarry, a ripple went through the air.
Idan moved, fast as lightning, placing Sheba to his rear as he rounded on the source of the unseen energy.
The pressure surrounding the glade shifted as a localized vortex tore through the atmosphere just above them, in a screaming tear.
Idan’s internal compass spun into a void of static, but before he had the chance to escape with Sheba, a series of vortexes erupted from the distortion.
He just managed to shove his woman aside as a series of webbed nets fell over him.
Sheba hit the ground hard and rolled.
‘Get thehellaway,’ he roared at her in a bellow that echoed off the cliffs around them.
She took off, slipping and sliding to hide behind a tree.
Idan tried to raise his hands to pull the offending meshes off him until he recognized what they were with a groan.
Fokkin’ null webs,he thought as his Sacran god potency leaked from him.
Idan collapsed to the ground as the nullification lattice tightened its grip, draining the reservoirs of hisSsignakhtandSukkanaghtpower.
He groaned as the divine current that pulsed within him became a leaden sludge.
He clawed at the filaments, his fingers tangling in the lustrous alloy.
The mesh was not physical; it was an energetic hexed parasite.
Every time he attempted to summon a spark of his celestial heritage, the ponderous weave throbbed with a dull, gray resonance. Absorbing the energy before it reached his limbs.
The iridescent fibers leached away his godhood, and for the first time, Idan experienced the hollow terror of being mere flesh and bone.
A manstepped from the center of the vortex.
He was a mountain of engineered muscle and tactical grime, encased in interlocking plates of vermilion carbon fiber.
