Wolfen walked through the corridors.
The facility was silent. Not the peaceful silence of empty rooms and sleeping people—the wrong kind. The kind that pressed against your ears, that made every footstep echo too loud, that made you feel like you were the only thing left alive.
He felt it before he saw it. A rise in power, immense and wrong, pulsing through the walls like a second heartbeat.
He turned. Walked toward it.
The cafeteria doors were open.
Inside, the tables were overturned. The chairs were scattered. A bowl of soup lay spilled on the floor, still steaming, spreading across the tiles like blood.
Jordan stood against the far wall, his katana drawn, his face pale. Leo was beside him, his fists crackling with weak, flickering lightning. Sasha was in the center of the room, her hands raised, her body trembling.
And there was a man.
Wolfen recognized him—the one who always worked in the cafeteria. The one who smiled and served food and never said much. He was on the ground, his body twisted, his eyes open and empty.
He was dead.
Wolfen's gaze moved past him.
Eva stood in the center of the destruction.
She was changing.
Tentacles ripped through her back—long, fleshy, wrong, coated in something that glistened wetly. Her eyes had gone dark, the purple replaced by something deeper, something that swallowed light. Her teeth had lengthened, sharpened, becoming points that didn't belong in a human mouth. Her fingers had grown longer, sharper, ending in claws that scraped against the floor.
She looked at Wolfen.
Something happened.
His vision went white. His body went limp. He collapsed, unconscious before he hit the ground.
---
He woke under rubble.
His body screamed. His arms wouldn't move. His ribs were broken again—the ones that had just healed. His Pulse was failing, sputtering, refusing to respond.
He couldn't heal.
Someone lifted the rubble off him. A hand, strong and steady, pulling him free.
Derek.
His face was pale, his clothes torn, his body covered in dust and blood. He coughed—red staining his lips.
"What the hell is going on?" Wolfen's voice was raw, barely a whisper.
Derek helped him sit up. His hands were shaking.
"The guy," Derek said, coughing again. "The cafeteria guy. He mixed something in her food. Henry gave it to him. She lost control. Killed him. Sasha's trying to stop her—"
Wolfen looked past Derek.
The destruction stretched for miles. The facility was gone. The forest was gone. The land itself was gone—replaced by a crater that went on and on, flames licking at the edges, smoke rising into a sky that had turned grey and wrong.
"Where's Selene?" Wolfen asked. "Warden? The other Eva?"
Derek shook his head. "While you and Eva were gone, Angstrom trapped them. Different universes. He left them there. We don't know if they're alive."
Wolfen's jaw tightened. "Where is everyone?"
Dead."
Wolfen stared at him.
Derek's voice was hollow. "All the people here. The scientists. The guards. They're dead. Henry did it. He—"
"He was behind it."
Derek nodded. "Sasha found out. The Thantos-39 virus—the one the Architects made—it wasn't made to be released. It wasn't made to kill you." He paused. "It was made to kill Lily."
Wolfen's eyes narrowed.
"Lily's blood had a special ability. Something so powerful it could have made her a goddess. The Architects found out. They made the virus to kill her before she could reach that potential." Derek's voice cracked. "Henry had Lily's blood. He gave it to the cafeteria guy. He mixed it into her food."
Wolfen looked at the destruction. At the crater. At the flames.
"She ate it," he said.
"She lost control."
The ground shook.
Far in the distance, the sky split with purple fire. Sasha and Eva were fighting—two forces colliding, destroying everything between them.
Wolfen forced himself to stand. His body screamed. His Pulse sputtered.
"I need to get there," he said.
Derek grabbed his arm. "You're in no condition—"
"I don't care."
He started walking. Derek followed.
The flames rose higher. The ground shook harder. The fight was still far away, but Wolfen knew where it was going.
He had to get there before it was too late.