For a terrifying moment, still nothing happened. No response, no familiar weight returning behind his mind.

Only the creature moving with strange motions in the filthy water, Kael’s heavy breathing, and Arin’s heart flapping like a bird trapped in his ribs.

Then...

A ripple occurred. Not in the water, but in the world itself.

A breath just behind his neck, colder than death.

“We’re here, master?”

Azimushan’s voice was deep and distant, as if swirling inside his bones.

Arin clenched his teeth and quickly started speaking inwardly. “Come here–”

Azimushan did not allow him to finish. “You know the price, master. Your own soul… or his soul? Which will it be?”

Arin’s mind seemed suspended in a void.

The creature continued to approach swiftly with the unsteady movements of its limbs in the filthy water. Kael silently carried him, struggling to breathe.

Arin’s eyes locked onto the thing in the water. Suddenly, something clicked in his mind.

It wasn’t breathing.

Its heart wasn’t beating.

It had no soul.

That thing… was not alive.

It couldn’t pay the price of the pact to Azimushan unless Kael or he offered their soul.

“I have good news and bad news, Kael,” he said slowly.

Kael turned his head slightly toward him, looking back.

“My jinn has returned, but it’s useless for us because whatever is after us definitely isn’t alive,” Arin said anxiously. “That thing is completely mechanical.”

Kael staggered for a moment but managed to keep his pace. The creature once again tried to leap from the wall toward them but failed.

Arin remembered something Kael had said: “I have a biologically supported power circuit… integrated into muscle tissue… but ultimately limited by human metabolism.”

“How does it move then?” Arin asked, narrowing his eyes at the grotesque creature.

Without hesitation, Kael said methodically, “We need to understand what kind of power source it uses to defeat it. Now I want you to do a few things. First, slide to the side and take the scanner out of my pocket.”

Arin sighed in frustration. In this state?

Kael seemed to sense his reluctance. “You have to do it.”

Arin involuntarily grimaced, pressed the side of his head against his hip, and reached one hand to his side pocket. The metallic sounds of Kael’s mechanical parts and the smell of his sweat mixed into the air filled his nose.

His hand drifted into Kael’s pocket, fingers brushing the boundary between metal and flesh just above his lower thigh. It was warm… almost beating like a pulse.

Kael hesitated for a moment. He turned his head slightly but couldn’t see Arin’s face.

Arin froze for a moment.

A strange involuntary sound came from his throat as he realized where his hands were. It was the very boundary between the human and the machine in Kael’s body.

“I’m not inspecting you, don’t worry,” he said with a teasing yet defensive tone.

Kael responded with a slight grunt. “I’ll believe you if you take your hand away.”

He quickly withdrew his fingers and finally found the right object. A small, cold device lay in his palm.

“I found it,” he said with exaggerated seriousness.

Kael turned his head again. “Good. Now give it to me… or wait. You use it.”

Arin frowned. “Why?”

“Because I still have to carry you.”

Arin turned the device in his palm; the small screen flickered and emitted a faint light as he touched it. A small vibration spread. The scanner started working silently. First, it sent a brief signal through Kael’s body; scanning the strange combination of organic and mechanical tissues. Then it turned to the creature.

The twisted silhouette in the water briefly trembled and took a clearer form on the scanner’s screen.

Arin narrowed his eyes. The screen showed simple but clear data flow: artificial tissue, external power source, corrupted signal network. Not organic. Not mechanical. Not hybrid.

“Kael…” he said slowly. “I told you this thing isn’t alive…”

“Yes?”

“It’s not like you either.”

Kael looked forward. “What then?”

“This thing… is like an armored vehicle. Completely protected inside. Physically reaching its power core… is nearly impossible,” Arin said, biting his lip.

Kael nodded slightly as if he’d already reached the same conclusion. “I suspected.”

The scanner caught something on the screen. Very faint, very far away, but… it was there. A connection.

Arin lowered his voice: “Kael. There’s a transmitter here. It’s not as protected as the power core, less shielded. I can’t track its signal. It’s very weak.”

Kael’s jaw muscles tightened. “So someone is controlling it.”

Arin asked like a curious child, “What happens if we damage the transmitter?”

“The creature will either stop… or go berserk,” Kael said and added hopefully, “Either way, it makes our job easier.”

“Let’s do it!” Arin said excitedly.

“First, you have to tell me exactly where the transmitter is on the creature,” Kael said.

Arin lifted his head, dangling from Kael’s shoulder, and looked at the creature’s shapeless body. He studied the strange, writhing torso for seconds, then turned to the flickering screen of the scanner in his hand.

“Just under its left arm… near the surface. Not buried deep,” he said quickly.

Without wasting a second, Kael, still holding Arin on his shoulder with one hand, instinctively reached for a rusty pipe on the tunnel’s sidewall and snapped it off with a crack. The metallic sound echoed in the narrow tunnel.

Arin groaned with concern and looked up.

Kael was now breathless from exhaustion. He gripped the pipe; its tip now looked like a jagged, sharp spear.

“Hold tight,” Kael said in a low voice. “This will be our only chance.”

Arin squinted, still watching the light flicker on the creature’s left side on the screen.

Despite the water’s weight and his body’s fatigue, Kael quickened his steps. When they reached the tunnel’s narrow and slippery corner, the creature gained speed again in the water behind them.

Arin, still hanging upside down on his shoulder, held his breath, trying to guess what Kael would do.

Kael stepped toward the damp wall as the creature had done before, pushing off and almost leaping, turning his body suddenly backward.

One hand on Arin’s shoulder, the other tightly gripping the rusty pipe.

He took a breath.

Gathered all his strength into one move.

And hurled it.

The creature didn’t have a chance to react to the unexpected maneuver, and as the pipe plunged like a spear, Arin clung with both hands to Kael’s waist.

The pipe struck the transmitter, and the creature flailed wildly, its arms and hands swinging irregularly, rolling over and crashing against the tunnel wall.

Kael landed and slid backward to stop; Arin quickly slid off his shoulder and looked at the scanner’s screen. “Direct hit!” he exclaimed excitedly, jumping up.

The creature suddenly stirred; its arm impaled by the rusty pipe was useless, but it continued to move unevenly and slowly, the scraping of metal parts echoing through the tunnel. Yet it was still threatening.

Kael and Arin exchanged looks and without hesitation ran at the creature together. Kael quickly wrapped his arms around the creature’s body to hold it in place. He also trapped its shapeless legs between his own. Arin, holding his breath, climbed onto it to drive the pipe deeper.

“Deeper, Arin! We have no other chance,” Kael said, breathless but determined.

With trembling hands, Arin gripped the pipe and pushed with all his strength. The pipe carved a deep gash in the creature’s body; its movements were now severely restricted.

For a while, the three of them struggled in silent life-or-death combat in the dark, damp tunnel. The creature writhed desperately as Kael and Arin stared each other down, fighting with the last of their strength.

Finally, when the pipe was fully driven in and stuck in the ground, the creature went motionless. Kael and Arin rolled away from its body; Arin collapsed onto Kael’s chest, and they looked at each other with victorious relief.

From afar, the sound of footsteps echoed, first faintly, then growing louder in the dark corridors of the tunnel. The cold clank of metal shoes shattered the silence in the dampness. Kael and Arin held their breath for a moment; as the sounds approached, frantic whispers and radio crackles of the team could be heard.

“Signal shows here! Take position!” a voice rang out.

Soon after, lights appeared; the team emerged one by one from the twists of the tunnel, holding flashlights and equipment.

Kael closed his eyes in exhaustion and managed to say, “Finally,” before fainting.