There was no art to it. No control.
Ryu simply let go. He opened the floodgates of his mind and allowed the raw, untamed power of the ChainForce to pour out of him.
It was not a river this time; it was a tidal wave. It was not a spark; it was a supernova.
A wave of pure, kinetic force erupted from his body.
It was not light or sound, but a visible distortion of the air itself, a shockwave of pure power. The walls of the maintenance hub groaned.
The metal pipes lining the tunnel buckled and warped. The concrete ceiling, already ancient and unstable, cracked under the immense, sudden pressure.
The Vanguard soldiers, caught in the tunnel, had no chance.
They were not hit by a projectile. They were hit by reality itself being bent out of shape.
The shockwave slammed into them, throwing them against the walls like dolls, their advanced armor crumpling like tinfoil.
Then, the ceiling gave way. Tons of concrete and twisted metal rained down, burying the soldiers and sealing the tunnel completely on both sides.
In the maintenance hub, the three of them were thrown to the ground by the backlash.
Dust and debris filled the air, choking them. The immediate threat was gone.
They were safe. And they were buried alive.
Ryu lay on the floor, his body a nexus of agony.
The power had not just flowed out of him; it had torn its way out. The backlash was a thousand times worse than before.
It felt as if every cell in his body was on fire. He was vaguely aware of Kiera and Joric shouting his name, of the rumble of collapsing debris, and then, the world dissolved into a blissful, welcoming darkness.
He awoke sometime later.
He didn't know if it had been minutes or hours.
He was lying on a makeshift bed, and the air was stale and tasted of dust. A single, battery-powered lantern cast a weak, flickering light.
Kiera and Joric were there, their faces covered in grime. They had survived, trapped in their small pocket of air.
Kiera was looking at him, her expression a mixture of awe and terror.
"You did it," she whispered. "You saved us."
Ryu tried to sit up, but a wave of pain so intense it stole his breath forced him back down.
He looked at his hands. They were trembling violently, and the skin was covered in a network of fine, red lines, like a shattered web.
It was the mark of the energy, a roadmap of his body's internal destruction.
"Don't move," Joric commanded, his medic's voice cutting through the haze.
"Your stunt... it bought us our lives, but it cost you dearly. The Chain-Link transfusion gave you a foundation, but you just tried to build a skyscraper on it in five seconds. Your internal systems are in catastrophic failure."
Joric held up a scanner.
The screen was a blinking, angry red.
"The link you share with Kiera is the only thing keeping you alive," he said, his voice grim.
"Her stable energy is acting as a lifeboat, keeping your own from dissolving completely. But it's a temporary fix. A very temporary fix. We are trapped, running out of air, and you are dying, faster than ever before."
They were alive, but their situation was more hopeless than ever.
Buried deep beneath the streets, with no way to call for help, and with their only weapon now their greatest liability, expiring before their very eyes.
The victory against the Vanguard had led them to a slow, quiet tomb.