The silver-white passage was so silent that a pin drop could be heard, broken only by Ming Xin's faint footsteps and the soft rustle of fabric.
Soft white lights illuminated every corner, making the deep scratches on the walls—marks that seemed to have been left by the claws of some enormous beast—
appear especially savage and glaring. Dried dark purple stains dotted the polished floor like ominous splashes of ink.
The air carried a faint scent of ozone and a subtle metallic smell resembling coolant, traces left behind by a sealed system that had operated for a long time.
The aura of Chaos pollution had been suppressed to an extremely low level here, but it had not been completely eliminated—the scratches and stains were proof of that.
Moreover, the closer he drew to the Circular Airtight Door at the end of the passage, the more distinct that faint, icy malice of Chaos lingering in the air became.
Ming Xin remained fully alert, pushing his senses to their limit like invisible feelers probing the path ahead and his surroundings.
The passage itself seemed to have no additional traps or defensive mechanisms.
Perhaps that was due to its nature as a maintenance corridor, or perhaps they had failed after the disaster struck and the system was damaged.
He arrived before the Circular Airtight Door. It was thicker and more precise than the damaged metal door at the entrance.
It was cast entirely from some sort of silver-gray high-strength alloy, its surface smooth as a mirror. At its center was a circular locking mechanism formed from intricate energy circuits.
It was currently dim and lifeless. Embedded in the wall beside the door was a palm-sized energy card reader or control panel covered in dust.
He tried injecting a thread of Order energy into