‘Lily, Zoe, quickly, jump across, now,’ Jack ordered. ‘Onto the half-bridge. We’ll follow behind you.’

The two women leapt out from the open mouth of the entry tunnel, flying briefly across the gap above the abyss, before landing on the metal bridge in identical crouches.

Jack checked on the sliding stone. It kept rumbling down the entry tunnel.

Easton went next, with his palemen.

Then it was Jack’s turn.

The oncoming sliding stone was only a few feet away when Jack jumped, launching himself from the mouth of the tunnel, out over the void—

—just as the sliding stone came roaring out of the tunnel behind him, flew off the edge and dropped away into the abyss.

Jack landed on his stomach on the half-bridge. Lily and Zoe hauled him up.

‘There’s no going back now,’ Lily said.

‘No,’ Jack agreed.

From his position at the end of the half-bridge, he looked out over the cavern.

And spotted what he was looking for.

The exit.

Far below them, level with the bottom tip of the upside-down skyscraper, was a striking ultra-long bridge decorated with an avenue of obelisks.

This obelisk bridge led to the only apparent exit from the cavern: a high decorative arch framing a tunnel that burrowed into the wall down there. But there was a problem with that bridge.

It was broken in the middle.

Someone—probably Sphinx—had blasted away a segment in its centre, presumably to prevent later arrivals from crossing it.

But the strategy hadn’t completely worked.

For Jack could see something on the obelisk bridge, spanning the exploded-open gap.

A military bridging unit: a long plank of telescoping carbon fibre that had been laid over the gap.

Then, abruptly, Jack saw a group of eight tiny figures emerge at a sprint from the bottom tip of the skyscraper and run out across the bridge and the bridging unit.

He recognised their leader instantly. It was hard not to, he was such a huge man.

It was General Garthon Rastor.

Rastor.

The insane yet brilliant royal general. The man who had murdered Jack’s mother at the Falling Temple in Jerusalem. The man who wanted to see the Omega Event happen and watch the universe end.

Rastor and his forces had arrived at the Supreme Labyrinth shortly before Jack’s team had.

As Jack had been charging through the ranks of bronzemen outside, Rastor had been entering the Labyrinth through another gate and he was now about ten minutes ahead of Jack and already at the exit.

As if sensing Jack’s presence, Rastor turned and looked up at him.

He gave Jack a mock salute and then, with the help of his men, kicked the bridging unit off the broken bridge and into the abyss.

The obelisk bridge now had a fifteen-foot gaping void in it.

‘Son of a bitch, as if this wasn’t hard enough,’ Jack whispered.

‘I think it’s about to get harder,’ Zoe said.