The Carrion Vulture didn't sail through the air; it grunted through it. The ship was a grotesque symphony of biological decay and steam-powered desperation.
Its hull, a patchwork of fossilized Titan scales and "Old Steel," groaned with every tectonic shift of the atmospheric pressure. Inside, the corridors smelled of ozone, old copper, and the sickly-sweet scent of fermented marrow used to lubricate the massive brass gears.
Corvin leaned against a vibrating bulkhead, his fingers tracing the jagged edge of his fractured blade. Every breath felt like inhaling ground glass.
The "Crimson Leak" had slowed to a crusty residue around his eyes, but his vision remained tunneled—a red-tinted lens that made the ship's flickering amber lights look like dying stars.
"You shouldn't be standing," Maren's voice cut through the mechanical hum.
She stood at the end of the narrow walkway, her glowing tattoos casting elongated, dancing shadows against the bone-walls. She wasn't holding her rifle, but her hand rested on a heavy wrench hanging from her belt—a tool that had clearly smashed more bone than metal.
"Standing is a habit," Corvin rasped, his voice a dry rattle. "One that keeps me from becoming part of the floor."
Maren stepped closer, her eyes scanning the necrotic violet stain on his shoulder—the remnant of the shadow-spear. "That wound isn't healing, Silencer. It's feeding. Whatever that smoke-warrior hit you with, it's a parasite. It's eating your energy."
"I have enough to spare," Corvin lied, though he could feel the cold void spreading from the injury, numbing his left arm completely. "Where's the boy?"
"In the galley, eating enough marrow-porridge to fuel an engine," Maren said, her expression softening for a fraction of a second before hardening again.
"He's strange, Corvin. My crew... they're whispering. They say he looks like the 'Void-Stalker' from the old stories. The one who brings the Great Sleep to an end."
"He's just a child," Corvin growled, stepping forward. "A child being hunted by a man who wants to turn him into a battery."
"Is that what you think?" Maren laughed, a harsh, metallic sound. "Valerius doesn't want a battery. He wants a key. Come with me. There's something in the hold you need to see. Something we 'scavenged' from a Synod supply ship three moons ago."
She led him down into the bowels of the Vulture, past rows of humming magnetic coils and sleeping Nomad scouts. At the very bottom of the ship, behind a reinforced door made of pure Titan-ivory, lay a cargo container marked with the 'Seal of the First Circle.'
Maren punched a code into the brass keypad. The door hissed open, releasing a cloud of freezing vapor. Inside, suspended in a vat of glowing amber fluid, was a mechanical arm.
But it wasn't a standard steam-piston. It was made of black glass, pulsing with the same obsidian light that had appeared in Kael's hair.
"It's an 'Oscillator' prototype," Maren whispered. "The Synod didn't build it. They 'found' it in the Iron Citadel's lower strata. It doesn't use resonance; it cancels it."
Corvin felt the air grow thin. The black glass arm seemed to suck the warmth from the room. "Why are you showing me this?"
"Because your boy isn't the only one who can touch the Void," Maren said, her eyes reflecting the obsidian pulse. "The Synod is building a 'Hollow-God.' An artificial vessel that can house the Titan's Seed. If they get Kael, they won't just wake the dead; they'll replace the living."
Suddenly, the ship lurched violently. An explosion rocked the hull, followed by the harrowing, mechanical shriek of a Blood-Hound's engine.
"We're being boarded!" a voice screamed over the internal brass funnels.
Maren grabbed her wrench, her tattoos flaring to a violent orange. "The 'Smoke-Face' followed us. He didn't want the boy... he wanted the prototype."
Corvin drew his blade, the kinetic friction igniting with a desperate, white-hot spark. "Then he's going to be disappointed."