The interior of the Eiger was no longer a laboratory; it was a throat.
The black fluid, the liquefied consciousness of the Blackwood legacy surged through the chamber like a tidal wave of ink and static. It didn't just coat the walls; it began to rewrite them, the translucent stone turning into a jagged, crystalline obsidian that pulsed with a dying violet light. In the center of the vortex, Lila was suspended, her body a pale anchor in a sea of shadows.
"Lila!" Ethan’s voice was a ragged scream, nearly drowned out by the metallic grinding of the mountain’s shifting tectonic plates.
Marcus had him by the harness, dragging him toward the emergency egress, but Ethan fought with the strength of a man who had already lost his soul once and refused to do it again. He kicked off the wall, b
