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Chapter 36 – Clearance Omega
The Spiral Vault’s echoes had always been unsettling, but tonight they sounded different—hungrier, sharper, as if the walls themselves were waiting for the kill order.
Dante crouched behind a toppled security console, Lira kneeling beside him with her rifle pressed tight against her shoulder. Across the dimly lit corridor, Mira’s breathing was shallow, her gaze locked on Aria. The younger woman stood like a taut wire, her hands trembling not from fear, but from the flood of something dangerous searing through her veins.
It had been building since they fled the Vaultborn in the lower levels—an itch under her skin, a whisper that wasn’t entirely her own.
Aria’s eyes were wrong. Not just glowing faintly in the dark, but alive with a shifting pattern of cr
