"Run!"
Will's voice was a raw, scraping bark over the deafening grind of tearing metal. "Don't look back, just run!"
They broke into a blind, desperate sprint down the pitch-black containment corridor, entirely abandoning any pretense of strategy. They didn't have a plan. They didn't have the mana or the muscle. They just had the urgent, lizard-brain instinct to put as much distance between themselves and the machine as physically possible.
The Seraphim didn't just walk after them. It flew.
Using its heavy jet thrusters and the rogue, neon-blue electricity bleeding from its halo, the cyborg manipulated the very magnetic fields of the deep-earth bunker. It glided after them with a terrifying, unnatural smoothness, hovering inches above the floor. Its sheer magnetic wake ripped the thick steel floor grates upward, tearing them free from their rivets and sending them crashing against the walls simply by passing over them.
