Chapter 15
The air inside the vacuum tasted like copper and impending death.
The localized gravity violently shifted.
The colossal abyssal leviathan hovering directly above the shadow-bubble stopped resting.
It began to actively crush.
The Trench-Sovereign ’s command was absolute. The deep-crust god realized its biological hack had been severed. It recognized the parasites hiding beneath its belly.
It pushed thousands of tons of hyper-dense, translucent grey blubber straight downward.
The liquid black smog of the Abyssal Tide outside the twenty-foot dome turned into a physical, unyielding vice.
Zylia Vex screamed.
The shadow-weaver collapsed onto her knees in the shallow, acidic puddle.
Her arms locked rigidly outward, shaking with violent, agonizing tremors. Thick, dark blood poured in a continuous stream from both of her nostrils. It wept heavily from the corners of her violet eyes.
She was burning the final, desperate fumes of her cellular energy to hold the frictionless weave against an ocean.
The twenty-foot bubble shrank to twelve.
The invisible wall of the dome pressed uncomfortably close to Caelan’s back.
Directly above him, the architecture screamed.
Kragga Iron-Maw took the full, catastrophic kinetic load of the active crush.
The four colossal Deep-Crust Gorger arms locked perfectly straight. The heavy, pale grey fists dug deep into the ceiling of flesh.
The massive Thall torso violently groaned.
The sheer pressure threatened to turn the dead muscle into paste. The glowing blue arachnid-silk ligaments lacing the massive spine began to whine.
It was a high-pitched, terrifying frequency. The indestructible material was stretching to its absolute, molecular limit.
"Hold the line," Caelan Cross rasped.
He did not look up at the failing siege engine. He did not look at the dying shadow-weaver.
He looked entirely at the prize.
Isolde The Unbroken lay pinned in the crushed obsidian bedrock.
The pristine white plate armor of the Vanguard General was completely offline. The massive, dead weight of the Spire engineering was a localized anchor.
Caelan could not haul the entire chassis out of the mud.
It weighed hundreds of pounds. The shadow-bubble was too small. The deep-crust terrain was too treacherous.
He had to isolate the engine.
He dropped to his knees beside the fallen hero.
The acidic brine splashed against his shredded trench coat.
He raised his right arm. He gripped the heavy brass cylinder.
He ignited the Inquisition Plasma-Cutter .
The three-inch, white-hot blade hissed violently in the damp air.
He did not possess the luxury of a delicate, respectful surgery. He treated the legendary Spire loyalist exactly like a salvaged Cartel crawler-tank.
He drove the superheated plasma directly into the center of her heavy steel breastplate.
He dragged the blade in a rapid, brutal, jagged circle.
The pristine white armor melted. The heavy locking mechanisms slagged into glowing, orange drops of liquid metal. The thick black tactical mesh beneath the plate instantly incinerated.
He deactivated the cutter.
He hooked it back onto his belt.
He engaged the heavy hydraulic servos of his [Structural Grafting] .
He drove his silver-etched iron claws into the jagged, melted gap he had just carved.
He ripped the heavy steel breastplate completely off her chest.
He threw the ruined armor aside. It clattered loudly against the stone.
The mythic core was completely exposed.
It rested deep within the organic housing of her ribs. It was not a mechanical spark. It was a biological, hyper-dense node of pure, localized Aether.
It pulsed with a blinding, unadulterated holy Light.
It was a miniature sun burning in the absolute dark.
Caelan reached into the open chest cavity.
He did not use his iron claws. He did not use his venomous scythe. The delicate, god-tier engine required biological extraction.
He reached in with his bare human right hand, bypassing the iron gauntlet.
His fingers touched the glowing node.
The reaction was instantly horrific.
The absolute purity of the Spire Aether violently recognized his necrotic, poisoned flesh. The holy Light identified the Warlord as a creature of corruption.
The core actively burned him.
It was not thermal heat. It was radiant, divine kinetic friction.
His pale skin blistered instantly. The nerve endings in his fingertips shrieked, overwhelmed by the heat of a dying star. The pain shot directly up his arm, slamming into his brain like a golden hammer.
Caelan did not pull his hand away.
His silver eyes widened slightly. His jaw locked tightly.
He completely ignored the excruciating agony. He relied entirely on his cold, unyielding ambition. He forced his mind to perceive the burning as simple, mathematical resistance.
He gripped the golden heart.
He ripped the mythic core cleanly from its biological housing.
The pulsing light flooded the shrinking shadow-bubble, casting stark, hyper-contrasted shadows across the mud.
Caelan pulled his burning hand back.
He immediately reached into his trench coat. He pulled out a thick, heavy square of dark-grey tactical mesh. He had ripped it from the dead Vanguard medic Kaelen Thorne hours ago.
He violently wrapped the glowing core in the thick, insulated fabric.
The heavy mesh instantly dampened the lethal radiation. The blinding light was smothered, reducing it to a dull, manageable golden glow seeping through the fibers.
Caelan swung his heavy iron-wood rucksack around.
He shoved the wrapped core deep into the velvet-lined compartments, placing it securely next to the pristine glass vial of Spire spinal fluid.
He buckled the heavy leather flaps shut.
The Warlord’s ledger was completely full. The prize was secured.
But the environment was collapsing.
A sharp, resonant crack echoed above them.
Caelan looked up.
One of the massive, pale grey Gorger arms of Kragga Iron-Maw had structurally fractured under the impossible weight of the leviathan. The dead bone snapped.
The ceiling of translucent blubber sagged dangerously close to Caelan’s head.
The twelve-foot bubble shrank to eight feet.
Jax scrambled across the mud, dragging Zylia up by her shoulders. The Cartel scout held the bleeding shadow-weaver upright, entirely terrified of the invisible wall of rot pressing against his back.
"We are pinned!" Jax screamed over the groaning earth. "We can't walk out from under it! If it tracks us, it will crush the bubble!"
Jax was mathematically correct.
The massive footprint of the deep-crust god covered the entire epicenter. Walking to the edge would take too many seconds. Zylia’s brain would hemorrhage before they cleared the perimeter.
They could not walk out.
They had to carve a path through the ceiling.
"Vanguard," Caelan commanded.
He turned his silver eyes to Xyrielle.
The Abyssal Spellblade stood perfectly rigid beside the failing siege engine. Her liquid mercury eye tracked the sagging blubber.
"I require an upward vector," Caelan dictated.
He pointed his heavy, silver-etched iron arm straight up at the center of the leviathan’s mass.
"Unleash the core. Execute a vertical kinetic breach."
Xyrielle did not question the suicidal geometry.
She dragged her flash-frozen, rigid right leg backward. She planted the steel-capped boot deep into the crushed obsidian bedrock, locking herself into a perfect, immovable structural anchor.
She raised both arms high above her head.
She crossed her dark-silver Aether-blades.
The Mutated Apex Shadow-Core in her chest flared with blinding, catastrophic intensity. The heavy leather armor surrounding her engine began to smoke from the sheer internal heat.
The crimson fire in her eye socket burned like a dying star.
She drew upon every single ounce of corrupted kinetic energy stored within the alchemical engine.
She detonates the core.
She violently uncrossed her blades, snapping her arms outward in a massive, upward V-strike.
A colossal, concentrated shockwave of pure, dark-silver kinetic force blasted straight upward.
It was a localized, anti-air artillery strike.
The dark-silver blast slammed directly into the translucent grey blubber of the leviathan’s underbelly.
The sheer kinetic force defied the deep-crust gravity.
It sheared cleanly through the thousands of tons of compressed meat. It ripped through the thick layers of fat, severing massive, hidden arteries and localized nerve clusters.
The leviathan shrieked.
It was a tectonic vibration that rattled the fillings in Caelan’s teeth. The sound was so massive it physically vibrated the black water inside the shadow-bubble.
A massive, gaping crater was blown entirely through the beast's center mass.
Thick, boiling black ichor rained down from the bleeding wound. It splashed heavily against the invisible, frictionless roof of Zylia’s shadow-weave, sizzling loudly as it slid down the sides.
The massive kinetic impact disrupted the beast's localized gravity field.
For a single, microscopic fraction of a second, the crushing downward pressure completely broke.
The mountain of flesh violently shuddered, thrown slightly upward by the blast.
"Heave!" Caelan roared.
He projected his absolute, unyielding will into the biological tether.
Kragga Iron-Maw capitalized on the broken gravity.
The four-ton siege engine pushed its remaining three colossal arms straight upward. The Thall torso heaved with hyper-dense, impossible torque.
The construct physically threw the staggering mass of the leviathan backward.
A clear, massive gap opened between the crushed bedrock and the bleeding underbelly of the beast.
The extraction corridor was open.
"Move the weave!" Caelan yelled.
He grabbed Zylia by the collar of her ragged robes with his iron claws. He bodily hauled the dying shadow-weaver forward.
Jax abandoned his crutch. The Cartel scout threw his arms around Zylia’s waist, dragging her through the acidic mud.
The fragile, eight-foot vacuum of clean air moved with them.
They sprinted.
It was a desperate, ragged, agonizing run through the shallow sludge. Caelan’s fractured ribs ground together. His blistered, burned hand throbbed. The caustic apex neurotoxin from his left arm pumped wildly, turning his vision a sickly, blurring green.
He ignored his failing biology.
He dragged his retinue out from beneath the center of the leviathan's crushed mass.
They cleared the massive footprint of the beast just as the localized gravity violently re-engaged.
Behind them, the leviathan crashed back down onto the bedrock.
The impact was apocalyptic.
The empty space where the Valkyrie lay was completely flattened. The crushed obsidian completely shattered into powder.
A massive, localized tidal wave of acidic black sludge erupted outward from the impact zone.
The heavy wave slammed into the back of Kragga Iron-Maw .
The siege engine acted as a rear-guard shield. It absorbed the crushing wave of mud, preventing the sludge from overtaking the fragile shadow-bubble.
They were out from under the mountain.
But they were still completely submerged in the liquid smog of the Deep Corrupted Zones .
Zylia let out a wet, rattling gasp.
Her violet eyes rolled back in her head. Her arms dropped.
The magic finally broke.
The shadow-weave completely collapsed.
The eight-foot dome of darkness instantly vanished.
The hyper-dense, liquid black smog of the Abyssal Tide rushed inward from all sides. The toxic, suffocating atmosphere slammed into Caelan’s face.
The microscopic spores immediately burned his lungs.
"Hold your breath!" Caelan barked.
He did not stop running.
He hauled Zylia over his heavy, silver-etched iron shoulder. He carried the unconscious shadow-weaver like a sack of grain.
He dragged his steel-toed boots through the mud.
He relied entirely on the [Anatomical Insight] flickering through the green static of his vision. He mapped the shortest, most direct geometric vector to the perimeter of the zone.
He saw the jagged, broken edge of the Vanguard watchtower looming in the dark ahead.
It was the boundary line. It was the edge of the liquid rot.
Jax stumbled beside him, his single eye bulging as he clamped his hands over his own mouth, desperately trying not to inhale the acidic smog.
Xyrielle flanked them. The Abyssal Spellblade moved with heavy, rigid purpose, her dark-silver blades cutting the thick air to reduce the drag on Caelan’s path.
The Warlord’s lungs were screaming.
The lack of oxygen forced his human heart to stutter. The heavy iron-wood rucksack bounced against his back, the stolen mythic core and the Spire fluid acting as a massive, heavy weight dragging him down.
His vision began to narrow. A black tunnel closed in around the edges of his sight.
He was suffocating.
He took one final, massive step.
He breached the perimeter.
The heavy, liquid black smog suddenly thinned. The atmospheric density violently dropped.
The hissing, freezing black rain of the outer borderlands hit Caelan’s face.
They had crossed the threshold.
Caelan collapsed onto the jagged, slanted concrete of the ruined Vanguard bunker.
He dropped Zylia onto the stone.
He rolled onto his back.
He opened his mouth and violently sucked in the freezing, toxic air of the Shattered Front .
It was foul. It tasted of diesel and sulfur.
But it was not a liquid. It did not melt his lungs.
He coughed violently, his chest heaving with desperate, jagged gasps.
Jax crashed onto the concrete beside him, weeping and wheezing, clutching his chest.
Xyrielle stepped out of the smog, her liquid mercury eye sweeping the ruined bunker to ensure the perimeter was clear.
Moments later, the heavy, earth-shaking footsteps of Kragga Iron-Maw announced the arrival of the siege engine. The construct was covered in thick black mud and deep-crust ichor, missing one of its massive arms, but the golden core inside its chest remained steady.
Caelan lay on the cold stone.
His left arm throbbed with the heat of the apex venom. His right hand was covered in horrific, blistering burns from the holy Light. His ribs were fractured. His retinue was broken and bleeding.
He had marched into an ocean of rot. He had stood beneath a falling mountain.
He reached around his chest with his iron claws. He grabbed the heavy leather strap of his iron-wood rucksack.
He pulled it tight against his side.
The Warlord looked up at the howling, bruised sky.
He had stolen the crown.
The descent was over. The ascent of the Immortal Sovereign had officially begun.