The boiler room was a tomb of white steam and screaming metal.

  ?Ronan stood in the center of the haze. His skin felt too tight, his bones too heavy. The Level 3: Vein-Warden transformation had finished, but the price was being extracted in real-time.

  ?His marrow burned like liquid lead.

  ?[INTERNAL RESONANCE: UNSTABLE]

  [SKELETAL DENSITY: +120%]

  [PROGRESS TO LEVEL 4: 0.01%]

  ?"Ronan! We have to move!" Kaelen's voice was a jagged edge through the steam.

  ?He tried to step forward, and the metal floor-plating groaned. He felt three times heavier than he had ten minutes ago. Every movement was a struggle against his own increased mass.

  ?"I'm... coming," Ronan gasped.

  ?His voice was different. Deeper. It vibrated in his own chest like a low-frequency hum.

  ?A heavy thud shook the reinforced door. Then another. The Purge-Seekers were using a pneumatic ram.

  ?"The vents," Ronan said, pointing toward the ceiling.

  ?"You're too heavy for the ducts," Kaelen snapped, her Pressure-Flail sparking in the mist. "You'll pull the whole ceiling down."

  ?Ronan closed his eyes. He didn't just hear the room anymore; he felt it.

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  ?The vibrations of the boiler. The hum of the steam-pipes. The rhythmic hammering on the door. It all flowed into him, translated by his new skeletal lattice.

  ?This was Aetheric Resonance.

  ?He reached out and pressed his hand against a massive overhead brass pipe. It was pulsing with high-pressure steam.

  ?"What are you doing?" Kaelen shouted.

  ?"Creating a ghost."

  ?Ronan didn't just touch the pipe. He matched its vibration. He sent a rhythmic pulse from his marrow into the metal, amplifying the pipe's internal frequency until it hit a harmonic peak.

  ?The brass shrieked.

  ?The pipe didn't just burst—it disintegrated into a localized fog of shrapnel and superheated vapor.

  ?The door finally gave way with a screech of tearing iron. Three Purge-Seekers charged in, their blue visors scanning for targets.

  ?They found nothing but a wall of white death.

  ?The steam blinded their sensors. The shrapnel shredded their outer cloaks.

  ?"Now," Ronan hissed.

  ?He grabbed Kaelen by the waist. He didn't run; he launched himself. His legs, reinforced by the ritual, hit the floor with enough force to crack the plating, propelling them through the steam-curtain and into the darkened service corridor.

  ?He didn't feel like a hero. He felt like a machine breaking apart.

  ?The Hunger hit him then—a sudden, hollow ache in his gut that made his vision swim. His body was screaming for minerals to stabilize the new lead-lattice in his bones.

  ?"Keep moving," he whispered to himself, his fingers digging into the stone wall of the corridor. "Don't stop."

  ?They reached the end of the hall, a sheer drop into the grease-pits of the Low-Sump.

  ?"We jump," Kaelen said, looking down at the fifteen-meter drop.

  ?"I'll break the floor," Ronan said.

  ?"Better the floor than our necks. Move!"

  ?They jumped.

  ?Ronan hit the grease-slicked concrete like a falling anvil. The impact sent a shockwave through his spine that made his teeth bleed, but he didn't break. He couldn't afford to.

  ?He looked up as the first blue pulse-lanterns appeared at the edge of the ledge above.

  ?"They're tracking the resonance," Ronan realized.

  ?He wasn't a scribe anymore. He was a beacon in the dark. And every second he spent breathing was a signal to the High Houses.

  ?"Kaelen," he said, his voice trembling with the effort to stay standing. "I can't hide this."

  ?Kaelen looked at him, the fear finally reaching her eyes. "Then we find someone who can."