The shadow’s grip felt like ancient, freezing ice, plunging straight through Zulfa’s chest and mercilessly crushing his ribs. With every passing second, the oxygen in his lungs was sucked completely dry, reducing his vision—once blazing with cosmic light—into slowly dimming black dots. The roaring shriek of the alternate dimension spun wildly in his ears, singing a skull-splitting death dirge.

My blood... my blood is boiling, Zulfa whimpered in agony, his consciousness hovering on the precipice of ruin.

"Zulfa!" Naya screamed hysterically from the edge of the platform.

She didn't stand still. Amidst the billowing hot steam and radiation shockwaves, Naya fumbled through her tactical backpack with violently trembling hands. She found the sole remaining lifeline: the final military emergency flare tube casting a brilliant red glow. Without wasting a single millisecond, Naya pulled the pin, aimed with what shreds of courage she had left, and hurled the flare straight toward the center of the nest of eyes protruding from the giant palm.

Whoosh!

Screeech!

The flare streaked straight through the vortex of cosmic wind, embedding itself dead center among the hundreds of blinking, tiny eyes clustered across the shadow's grip.

Screeeet—Boom!

An intensely blinding crimson glare detonated instantly, searing the non-organic optical nervous system of the extradimensional entity.

"Arghkh...!"

A high-pitched, piercing shriek tore from behind the torn valve gap.

The freezing grip suddenly slackened. Recoil from the extreme heat of the military-grade nylon flare caused the giant shadow hand to jerk back into the cosmic darkness, tearing its grasp away from Zulfa’s body with a rough wrench.

Zulfa staggered backward, crashing hard against the violently vibrating metal deck of the platform. He coughed violently, vomiting fresh blood while his chest burned with excruciating tightness.

"Zulfa! Are you okay?! Wake up, Zul!" Naya bolted forward, scooping up Zulfa’s limp body and helping the youth haul himself up to lean against the primary control console.

Zulfa opened his eyes sluggishly, his breath coming in shallow gasps. "Naya... the flare... thank you..." he wheezed hoarsely, clutching his battered chest.

"Don't talk too much! We have to get out of here right now!" Naya panicked, tears streaming down her soot-stained cheeks.

Yet, before they could move, a roar of pure rage echoed from across the platform.

"NO! YOU BASTARDS!"

Vian Pratama, the Aethel Corp director of operations, stumbled near the primary axle. His once calm and calculated face was now bleached white, consumed by absolute despair. The holographic display on his master console blinked wildly, flashing a massive red warning text repeatedly: CRITICAL ERROR - MANUAL OVERRIDE ENGAGED - SYSTEM SHUTDOWN IN PROGRESS.

"You... you ruined everything!" Vian snarled hysterically. He stared at his console screen, which rejected all input commands. "My control system is completely fried! Energy harvesting cut off! All my years of hard work destroyed in an instant because of the two of you!"

Vian snapped his head up, his gaze morphing into pure murderous intent. He reached into his suit jacket, drawing a short-barreled semi-automatic pistol, and leveled it straight at Zulfa and Naya’s heads.

"If I can't have that energy, then the two of you are going to die right here as my final sacrifice!" Vian screamed with a shrill voice over the roar of the dying machinery.

Zulfa, with his remaining shreds of consciousness, glanced at the secondary emergency locking lever resting right beside his shoe—the final manual lever left unthrown to permanently lock the giant gear's movement.

"Naya... hold my hand tight," Zulfa whispered swiftly in a voice barely above a breath.

Naya looked at Zulfa with wide, terrified eyes. "Zul, what are you going to do—?"

Before Vian could squeeze his trigger, Zulfa summoned every last ounce of strength left in his battered body. With a desperate shove, he slammed his foot and hand down against the final emergency locking lever on the platform floor.

CLARIC—BOOM!

The steel lever locked firmly into place with a deafening mechanical snap.

Instantly, a massive chain reaction rippled through the Main Valve’s hydraulic system. The building-wide gear wheel, which had been spinning wildly, locked dead to a halt. The thrust of cosmic energy from within the abyss was held back by an overwhelmingly massive hydraulic counter-pressure, triggering a colossal steam pressure explosion from the cooling pipes ringing the chamber.

"Argh... what is this?!" Vian yelled, staggering and dropping his pistol as a wave of hot air backpressure swept the main platform.

Pssssshhhhh—!

A high-pressure jet of white steam burst upward from the floor, severing cable connections and shattering glass panels across the control room. The sheer mass of the hydraulic counter-pressure acted like a rocket booster, obliterating the remaining deck structure where Vian stood while generating a violent lateral shove.

"Zulfa! Hold on!" Naya shrieked.

Before Vian could scramble to recover his weapon, the massive blast of hydraulic backpressure hurled Zulfa and Naya’s bodies forward at breakneck speed, blasting them away from the main control room down through an underground emergency evacuation chute—a sloped runaway tunnel that rocketed them straight down into the pitch-black earth's belly, leaving Vian screaming in frustration amid the ruins of his headquarters.