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Chapter 35 – The Purge Protocol
The Spiral Vault still echoed in Dante’s bones. Even though they had escaped the screaming mass of Vaultborn hours ago, the sound of their claws scraping over steel — desperate, hungry, alive — lingered like a phantom itch he couldn’t shake.
The group huddled in a forgotten maintenance wing of the Bastion’s lower levels, where cracked concrete bled rust from corroded pipes. It wasn’t safe — nowhere was, not anymore — but it was quiet. That was the only currency worth anything right now.
Aria sat on the far side of the room, her back pressed to a pillar, Mira’s jacket wrapped around her shoulders. She hadn’t spoken in nearly thirty minutes, her gaze fixed on the floor, but Dante could feel the undercurrent in her. She wasn’t resting. She was listening
