The access panel slid open silently, revealing only darkness beyond. Then a hand emerged—fingers elongated unnaturally, nails hardened to dagger-like points. Alexandra's blade moved with lethal precision, severing the appendage at the wrist before its owner could fully emerge.
No scream followed. No blood sprayed from the severed limb. Only a faint hissing sound as amber fluid seeped from the wound, crystallizing upon contact with the air.
Alexandra had no time to process this oddity. A figure lunged through the opening with inhuman speed—a hooded cultist whose face bore ritual scarification in the pattern of Icarus's mark. Where a normal human would have been disoriented emerging into light from darkness, this one moved with perfect awareness, twin daggers already seeking Alexandra's vitals.
