Krax dropped into the second layer of the containment crater. He drove his boots onto a perfectly flat expanse of black asphalt. Parallel yellow lines painted on the ground guided the path forward between towering structures of glass and steel. Flickering streetlights cast a pale orange glow across the bizarre geometric terrain.

Torix landed a second later. His bladed legs clicked against the smooth street.

"This terrain defies elemental logic." Torix tapped a steel pole supporting a streetlamp. "The foundational structure lacks any natural fault lines."

Krax gripped his greataxe and approached a metal vehicle parked along the curb. He drove the broadside of his weapon directly into the hood to test the material density.

The car instantly detonated.

A violent fireball threw Krax backward across the asphalt. He crashed into a streetlamp and bent the steel post in half.

Torix scrambled up the side of a nearby glass skyscraper to evade the explosion. His monomolecular silk sprayed across the sheer windows. The webbing completely failed to anchor against the frictionless surface.

Torix plummeted back down to the street and landed awkwardly on his lower limbs.

Up in the sanctuary, Rubedo leaned over his console. The visual feed from the Vanguard commanders illuminated the dark room. He stared at the glowing street signs bolted to the intersections.

Brickell Avenue. SE 10th Street.

"The system scraped my memories." Rubedo tapped his fingers against the armrest. "The game engine repurposed my suppressed background data to construct the dungeon layout after we locked the first layer."

Glitch perked up from the floor tiles and chirped at the monitor. The anomaly tilted its fluffy head to watch the burning vehicle down in the physical realm.

Rubedo observed the structural layout of the simulated city. It was the exact financial district of Miami where he had attended his final job interview. The system had weaponized his past to build a localized nightmare for his army.

Down on the asphalt, Krax pushed himself up from the debris and brushed burning embers from his armor.

"These metal boxes explode." Krax hoisted his greataxe over his shoulder and scanned the quiet street.

A dozen figures stepped out from the narrow alleyways between the glass buildings. They wore tailored black suits and carried identical leather briefcases. Their faces consisted entirely of blank flesh without eyes or mouths.

They advanced on the Vanguard commanders in a perfectly synchronized grid formation.

"New targets." Torix readied his barbed spears.

The faceless entities snapped their briefcases open in unison. The leather cases unfolded into long steel blades.

They marched forward using coordinated pack tactics that perfectly mimicked a rigid corporate hierarchy. The front line raised their blades to box Krax into the center of the street. The flanking units moved to sever Torix's escape routes.

Krax channeled his violet Ley-Crystal to invert his gravity. He launched himself over the front line of suits and brought his axe down toward the center of their formation. The faceless entities seamlessly stepped backward to avoid the strike.

They immediately thrust their briefcase-blades forward to impale Krax the moment his boots hit the asphalt.

Torix deployed a monomolecular net across the crosswalk to trip the advancing horde. The sheer volume of briefcase-wielding attackers pressed the Vanguard commanders toward the revolving glass doors of the towering structure behind them.

Krax drove his boot through the glass to shatter the pane into thousands of cubes. They stepped into a sprawling lobby lined with pristine white tiles and potted plants. The horde immediately surged through the broken entrance.

The commanders retreated into a narrow hallway flanked by beige partitions. Krax swung his weapon in a wide arc to cleave the first three suits. The broad iron blade bit deep into the drywall and lodged firmly in the metallic studs framing the corridor.

A faceless entity lunged forward, snapping its briefcase open into a rigid steel blade.

Iron-Scale dropped from a collapsed ventilation shaft above. He landed on the entity's shoulders and drove both daggers through its collarbone.

Syra materialized from the fluorescent shadows near the water cooler. She manifested a condensed spike of darkness to impale two advancing suits against a cubicle desk.

"The walls restrict the axe." Iron-Scale pulled his blades free. "Switch to close quarters."

Krax abandoned the embedded weapon. He channeled his gravity core into his gauntlets to crush the skull of the next suit with a brutal right hook.

Up in the sanctuary, Rubedo leaned over his console. The visual feed tracked the commanders moving through the second floor. He recognized the beige carpets and the motivational posters plastered on the drywall.

The game engine had reconstructed the exact corporate firm that evicted him years ago.

Iron-Scale paused before a bank of sliding metal doors. He pried them open, revealing an empty elevator shaft. The commander possessed absolutely zero context for the mechanical pulley system.

Rubedo watched the tactical map as Syra bypassed the elevator entirely and found the emergency stairwell. He kept his hands resting on his lap. The Vanguard needed to comprehend the bizarre geometry of the Earth-based architecture on their own.

They scaled the concrete steps, leaving a trail of dismembered suits across every landing.

The squad kicked open the double mahogany doors at the apex of the stairwell. The penthouse boardroom stretched outward, dominated by a massive laminate table.

A colossal entity occupied the far end of the room.

An amalgamation of five different interviewers fused into a towering mass of grey suits stitched together by glowing red code. Five blank faces rotated around a central, bloated neck. The creature slammed a massive rubber stamp onto the laminate table.

A glowing red glyph appeared directly on Torix's carapace. The Arachne collapsed to the carpet. The system debuff instantly drained his stamina and locked his joints in place.

"Break the table." Syra darted into the shadows beneath the chairs.

The amalgamation raised a fleshy, multi-jointed finger and pointed directly at Krax. The Orc general vanished in a flash of red pixels. He physically reappeared outside the building, plummeting toward the asphalt thirty stories below.

"Eviction."