The Parasite Queen did not fight like a machine. It fought like a drowning man, flailing wildly with limbs made of rusted mining drills and fungal muscle.
WHIRRR-CRACK.
A massive, spinning drill-arm slammed into the mossy floor where Julian had been standing a split second before. The impact sent a shower of wood chips and green sap flying into the air.
"Split up!" Julian yelled, sliding under the sweeping arm. "Distract the eyes! I need a clear shot at the core!"
Lyra scrambled up a ridge of bark, firing her pistol at the creature's "head"—a cluster of sensory cameras fused with glowing mushrooms.
"Hey, ugly!" Lyra shouted. BANG-BANG. "Look at me!"
The bullets struck the sensors, shattering glass and pulping fungus. The Parasite shrieked—a high-pitched electronic feedback loop mixed with a wet gurgle. It swiveled its torso, firing a spray of grey, caustic sludge from its exhaust ports.
"Acid!" Lyra dove behind a fern as the sludge hissed against the ceramic bark, melting it instantly.
Julian saw his opening.
While the beast was focused on Lyra, he charged his Resonance Gauntlet. The copper coils hummed, rising in pitch until they whined.
Focus: Structural Integrity. Target: Rust.
He didn't aim for the flesh; he aimed for the metal skeleton beneath it.
"Dust to dust," Julian whispered.
He thrust his palm forward.
THWUMP.
The Sonic Lance hit the Parasite's central chassis. The beam didn't burn; it vibrated. It shook the ancient, oxidized iron at a molecular level.
For a second, nothing happened. Then, the metal simply gave up.
The rusted plating covering the Parasite's engine block crumbled into red powder. The chassis buckled. The fungal flesh, suddenly unsupported, sagged and tore open.
Exposed within the rot was the Heart: a glowing, red Aether-battery, pulsing with an erratic, viral rhythm.
"Vara!" Julian shouted. "Now!"
Vara dropped from the canopy above, screaming a war cry in the language of the Root-Kin. She landed on the Parasite's back.
With her prosthetic wooden arm, she plunged her claws into the exposed battery compartment.
"Get... out!" Vara roared.
She ripped the battery free.
ZZZ-POP.
The connection severed. The red light died.
The Parasite Queen convulsed. Its drill-arms stopped spinning. The grey fungus turned black instantly, withering as its power source vanished. The massive machine collapsed into a heap of scrap and dead matter.
Silence returned to the Crown.
The Awakening
"Is it dead?" Lyra asked, stepping out from cover, wiping sludge from her boot.
"It's disconnected," Julian said, walking past the carcass. "But the Titan is still asleep."
He looked at the center of the platform. The Light-Flower—the Titan's brain—was still wrapped in the dead grey web.
"Cut it loose," Julian told Vara.
Vara approached the flower. She sliced through the dead webs with her claws. As the last strand snapped, the petals began to shift.
HUMMMMM.
The sound was felt in the teeth before it was heard. A pure, verdant note—a vibration of life so intense it made the moss around them bloom instantly.
The Flower opened.
A pillar of blinding green light shot straight up into the sky, punching a hole through the cloud layer.
The Verdant Walker was awake.
The entire tree—five miles of it—shuddered. It wasn't an earthquake; it was a stretch.
The Jungle Floor - The Burn Line
Miles below, the Incinerator Corps was advancing.
"Burn rate at 90%," a Pyro-Walker pilot reported, spraying napalm into a grove of ancient ferns. "The path to the Titan is clear. Preparing to lay concrete."
Suddenly, the ground heaved.
The pilot looked up. The massive tree in the distance—the Titan—was glowing. The green light from its crown was pulsing downward, traveling through the trunk, into the roots, and spreading out into the jungle floor like a shockwave.
The Growth Pulse.
"Seismic activity detected!" the pilot screamed. "The roots! They're moving!"
The "dead" roots beneath the grey concrete road burst upward. They weren't just roots anymore; they were tentacles of iron-hard wood.
CRACK.
A root the size of a train smashed through the concrete, wrapping around the leg of the Pyro-Walker.
"Movement compromised! It's got me!"
From the canopy above, something began to fall. Not rain.
Spores.
Clouds of glowing green dust settled over the burning jungle. Wherever a spore touched ash, life erupted instantly.
Vines shot up from the charred ground, wrapping around the Incinerator troopers. Moss grew over the visors of their helmets in seconds, blinding them. The napalm fires didn't just go out; they were eaten by fire-resistant ferns that grew straight through the flames.
"Retreat!" the Imperial Commander screamed over the radio. "The forest is hostile! Repeat, the forest is—"
CRUNCH.
A massive Venus-flytrap, mutated to the size of a tank by the Growth Pulse, snapped its jaws around the command truck.
The Crown
Julian watched from the high perch as the jungle below turned into a weapon. The fires were dying, smothered by a blanket of aggressive green. The Imperial machines were being dragged underground by the roots.
"It's not fighting with guns," Julian whispered, awestruck. "It's fighting with evolution."
Vara knelt before the open Flower, her hand touching the light. She was communing with the Titan.
After a moment, she stood up. She looked at Julian.
"The Walker thanks you, Iron-Kin," Vara said. "It says the itch is gone."
"Ask it about the others," Julian said urgently. "The Sovereign told me to find the 'Iron Lung' in the Volcano. Where is it?"
Vara closed her eyes, listening to the silent voice of the tree.
"To the West," Vara translated. "Across the Great Salt Flats. In the Cinder-Peaks. There lies Titan 03: The Magma Strider."
She paused, her expression darkening.
"But the Walker warns you. The Strider is not asleep. It is... chained. And it is screaming."
"Chained?" Julian frowned.
"The Empire uses it," Vara said. "They use its heat to forge their steel. It is a slave in a factory of fire."
Julian clenched his fist. The Resonance Gauntlet hummed.
"Then we're going to break the chains," Julian said.
The Descent
The Titan lowered a massive branch, forming a ramp that led all the way down to the mid-canopy where the White Raven was waiting, hovering near the trunk.
They slid down the branch, landing on the ship's hull.
Isolde opened the airlock, grinning.
"Did you see that?" she yelled over the engine roar. "The Empire's army just got turned into compost! That was beautiful!"
"We're done here," Julian said, climbing inside. "Set a course West. The Cinder-Peaks."
"Volcanoes?" Isolde groaned. "First ice, then jungle, now lava? Can't we ever go to a beach?"
"Maybe after we save the world," Skid said, handing Julian a towel. "Nice work, boss. The mask is going crazy, by the way. The Empire is in full panic mode."
Julian walked to the cockpit. He looked back at the Verdant Walker one last time. The giant tree stood tall, its green light acting as a beacon of life in a dying world.
"Three down," Julian whispered. "Four to go."