The smell of rosin and old machine oil was the only thing keeping me from sinking into a sticky, dragging sleep. I sat at a workbench in the technical sector of the Lower Horizon, trying to hammer a dent out of my left pauldron. The metal resisted. Every strike echoed in the back of my skull with a dull, throbbing ache.

  Zeno sat across from me on an overturned crate, slowly wiping down his short blade with a rag. In the dim light, he looked like part of this underground world—just as gray and unyielding as the concrete walls.

  “You overtightened the joint straps,” he said without looking at me. “You’ll move like a rusted golem. Leave two fingers’ worth of slack.”

  “If I leave slack, mana condensate will seep in during the next surge,” I replied, still working. “It’ll burn through the skin.”

  “Skin heals with salve. A dislocated elbow in a fight is death. Pick one.”

  I said nothing. Zeno was always right about things like this, and that was infuriating. I loosened the leather tension and felt my shoulder finally settle into a more natural position.

  At that moment, the heavy steel door to the workshop screeched and slid open.

  Gil stood in the doorway, looking like he’d just seen his own ghost. Behind him were two figures in perfectly clean gray cloaks. On their chests gleamed the emblem of the Order—a stylized eye inside a gear.

  “Zeno…” Gil hesitated, shifting awkwardly. “They’re here for you. From the commission.”

  One of the newcomers stepped forward. A middle-aged man named Richter. He had the face of someone who never smiled because he saw no practical value in it. His gaze swept over me like a surgeon’s scalpel.

  “Subject Iron,” Richter said, his voice dry as parchment. “And his guardian, mercenary Zeno. We’ve been looking for you.”

  Zeno stood. Slowly. No sudden movements. But the air in the room grew heavier. He didn’t sheath his knife—just let it hang loosely at his side.

  “You found us,” Zeno said coldly. “Now what?”

  “Now comes work.” Richter pulled a small recording crystal from his pocket. “We reviewed your… reports. Or rather, your conversations in the Blind Sector. Fascinating things you discussed. Some ‘survival skill’ that allows a child to channel mana streams lethal to an adult mage.”

  Something inside me went cold. [Will to Live] pricked faintly in the depths of my mind—a warning. They had listened. Every phrase. Every doubt. Archived.

  “That’s private information,” Zeno growled, stepping half a pace forward to shield me.

  “There is nothing private in the Lower Horizon,” Richter replied without blinking. “Everything underground belongs to the Order. And a resource like Iron should not be wasted in workshops.”

  He pulled up a schematic of the lowest level—Sector Zero.

  “Three hours ago, a breach of primary matter occurred. Sensors are spiking. The mana background is high enough to boil human blood in ten seconds. Standard crews can’t even approach the airlock. But we have Iron. His ‘skill won’t let him die,’ correct?”

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  “Are you insane?” Zeno’s voice broke into a snarl. “That’s suicide. He’ll burn alive even if the skill keeps patching him together. This isn’t magic—it’s biology!”

  “If he doesn’t go,” Richter interrupted calmly, “the sector will be sealed along with Gil’s residential block. Fifty technicians will suffocate within five hours. The choice is yours. Though I suspect Iron will volunteer. He wants to be useful, doesn’t he?”

  I looked at Gil. He avoided my eyes. He knew these people. He knew they weren’t bluffing.

  “I’ll go,” I said, rising from the bench. My hands trembled, but I clenched them into fists.

  Zeno turned to me, fury and something close to despair burning in his eyes.

  “Iron, no. You have no idea what primary matter is.”

  “I know what fifty corpses look like,” I answered. “Let’s move. You’re coming with me to the airlock.”

  The descent into Sector Zero felt like falling into hell.

  The deeper we went, the hotter it became. The walls were coated in a luminous residue that hissed beneath our boots. The hum in my ears grew unbearable—the sound of space itself tearing apart.

  At the airlock, Zeno grabbed my shoulders and pulled me close.

  “Listen to me. Don’t rely on the skill completely. If your consciousness starts slipping—get out. Screw the hatch. Screw the Order. I’ll drag you out if I have to tear the place down. Understood?”

  I nodded. My throat was too dry to speak.

  The airlock opened.

  Heat slammed into me, reeking of ozone and scorched copper. The world turned violently violet. [Will to Live] roared to life without my command.

  It wasn’t a superpower.

  It was torture.

  Every cell in my body began to scream. I felt the skin on my face dry and split, capillaries bursting in my eyes from pressure. The skill held my organs together—but it did not remove the pain. It simply forced me to keep functioning where life was impossible.

  I crawled along a narrow maintenance bridge, a heavy magnetic wrench clutched in my hands. I had to reach the emergency lever and hold it until the system rerouted the flow.

  “Temperature: 85 degrees. Mana radiation: critical. Tissue failure projected in 120 seconds. Correction…” The skill fed data straight into my brain.

  I reached the lever. The metal was incandescent. Even through thick gloves I felt the flesh in my palms begin to sizzle.

  I screamed—but no sound came. The air was too dense.

  I pulled.

  Millimeter by millimeter.

  The skill drained everything from me. I felt muscles tearing under strain, bones vibrating in harmony with the reactor’s pulse.

  Survive. Survive. Survive.

  At last—click.

  The shutters sealed. The roar began to fade. The violet glare dimmed.

  I collapsed onto the bridge, unable to unclench my burned fingers.

  They dragged me out. Zeno stormed into the sector the moment the sensors showed pressure drop. He didn’t wait for Richter’s permission.

  I woke in our room. The lights stabbed at my eyes. The smell of blood and charred flesh filled my nose. When I tried to move my hand, white-hot pain nearly knocked me unconscious.

  Zeno sat beside me. He looked ten years older than he had that morning. His hands trembled as he wrapped my palms in fresh bandages.

  “You did it,” he said quietly. “The hatch is sealed. The sector’s stable.”

  I turned my head. Richter’s scroll lay on the table.

  “Are they… satisfied?” I rasped.

  Zeno glanced toward the door, where Order guards stood watch.

  “They think you’re the perfect tool, Iron. Richter is already drafting your next assignment. Surface work. Active fracture zone.”

  I closed my eyes. A thin stream of blood slid from my nose—the aftermath of magical overheating. [Will to Live] was silent, curled into the furthest corner of my mind. It had done its job. It had kept me alive so the Order could throw that life back into the furnace tomorrow.

  “Zeno,” I whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re not staying here, right?”

  Zeno tied off the final knot on my bandage and looked me straight in the eyes. There was no fear there. Only cold, calculated fury.

  “No, Iron. We’re not staying. Let them try to come for you again.”

  I nodded and fell into a heavy, painful sleep.

  In that sleep, I was no longer an engineer. I was a cog in a vast, merciless machine that had begun to turn, grinding my flesh between its teeth. And only Zeno’s hand on my shoulder kept that machine from crushing me completely.