The underground "cube" in the Satpura Range was a fortress of blinding light, its caverns flooded with LEDs that banished shadows. Aryan Kapoor—The Man—sat in his soundproofed office, 15 stories below, eyes fixed on a wall of monitors showing every inch of the facility. His trap had faltered: the 500 fighters outside, their Sound-enhanced senses scanning 10-15 kilometers, had missed Amar's infiltration. The 25 fighters inside, now dead by shadows or their own cyanide capsules, lay as a grim warning. Kapoor's bearded face twisted in fury. "He's inside," he hissed to Rajan via comms. "Call the outer force back—now! Pin him in the cube. All 500, flood the corridors. No escape."
Rajan's voice crackled. "Master, he's moving fast. The light weakens him, but he's… unnatural."
"Then overwhelm him!" Kapoor snapped, his Sound power humming, sensing ripples of Amar's presence. "Every fighter—inside, now!"
Amar stood amidst the fallen 25, his chaotic heart heavy but resolute. The blinding light sapped his shadows, his vision blurred, but he refused to falter. His 12 shadow soldiers—fluid, dark forms summoned from his jacket's pockets—swirled around him, their unnatural limbs coiling like ropes. "Find him," Amar commanded, his voice low. "Find Aryan Kapoor."
The shadow soldiers shot off, moving like liquid night, slipping through the tiniest cracks and gaps in the cube's walls. Their forms, unbound by flesh, passed through concrete seams, under doors, even through ventilation slits, faster than any human could track. Amar's bond with them let him see through their senses, a web of awareness spreading through the facility. In two minutes, a shadow signaled—a pulse in his mind. "Fifteen stories below," Amar murmured, golden eyes narrowing. "He's there."
Kapoor had planned for a maze of corridors, hundreds of fighters, and Sound pulses to slow Amar's advance. He hadn't anticipated this. Amar clenched his fist, shadows swirling around it, pooling darkness from his jacket's depths. With a roar, he punched the steel-reinforced concrete floor. The impact was cataclysmic—an earthquake rumbled through the cube, lights flickering, monitors glitching in Kapoor's office. The floor cracked, spiderwebbing under the force, but the reinforced structure held—barely.
The section directly beneath Amar's fist wasn't so lucky. Concrete shattered, steel groaned, and a jagged hole opened. Amar dropped through, landing on the floor below with a thud, shadows cushioning his fall. The corridor blazed with light, but he didn't pause. Fighters' footsteps echoed—hundreds converging from above and outside, their Sound senses homing in. "Ten minutes, maybe less," Amar muttered, his window closing.
He clenched his fist again, shadows surging, and punched the next floor. Cracks exploded outward, concrete crumbling as he plummeted to the second level below. Dust swirled, alarms blared, and the cube trembled. Kapoor's voice boomed through comms, a panicked vibration: "He's breaking through! All units, converge!" But Amar was a storm, descending relentlessly toward his prey.