Loccy halted at the mountain pass when copper roots began pulling a petrified guardian deeper into black soil.
Loccy called for the roadway to be cleared before she placed either hand beneath the guardian's trapped frame.
Across the center of the roadbed, an ancient guardian colossus lay half-submerged in a morass of churning black soil and coiling copper roots.
The subterranean highway was attempting to pull the petrified colossus downward, feeding upon the dead warrior's dormant structural frame.
Six corrupted energetic organs were buried in the surrounding strata, generating an intense gravitational siphon that dragged at the earth.
Aria's tactical suite flashed warning red across Hajin's wrist console, analyzing the parasitic extraction cycle with clinical urgency.
[Buried route organs detected, corpse anchor active, extraction cycle beginning]
