Sol landed beside the hunters and immediately blessed them with as much divinity as he could safely spare.

  He had felt something chasing him.

  Yet when he glanced back, all he saw was miasma rolling down the mountain like a living storm. He chose to reach the hunters before that corruption closed the distance to something unbearable.

  As his power poured into them, the hunters shouted in exhilaration. Strength flooded their limbs, their senses sharpened beyond mortal limits.

  Sol urged them forward.

  Behind them, the corruption continued its slow pursuit.

  Inside his gem, Tezcalotl worked tirelessly, drawing in ambient faith and siphoning strength from the village’s devotion. Sol felt it like molten iron pouring into his veins—the stubborn passion of his people hardening his resolve.

  Within the radiant sphere of the gem, Tezcalotl flared brightly.

  Then merged with him.

  Sol’s divinity flashed outward, shaping itself into turquoise armor that wrapped around his body. His helmet opened into the roaring visage of Tezcalotl. The jaguar’s cry ignited the hunters’ blessings in ghostly blue fire.

  Once cloaked in the spectral flames, the hunters moved as if unbound by earth itself. Their strides blurred. What had been a brisk march became something closer to flight.

  They sped through the forest, outrunning the creeping wave of corruption.

  Even so, Sol doubted they could face whatever lurked within that miasma.

  The massive insect he had glimpsed still haunted his thoughts.

  Once they returned, he would ask his grandfather to contact Bahia Oscura, using the method Elder Chía had once taught him. Sol could not afford to leave the village undefended with such horror so near.

  When they arrived, he ordered the hunters to alert everyone immediately.

  No one would wander far.

  Not until the corruption was understood.

  The village of Chantico’s defenses were thin. The thought unsettled him. A wall of mud would mean little against divine monstrosities.

  His urgency to contact Bahia Oscura grew by the moment.

  And with it came frustration.

  He had prepared only himself.

  That mistake burned.

  He clenched his jaw, ready to drown in self-reproach, if not for Tezcalotl—and Huehueteotl.

  Tezcalotl could only vocalize soft meows, but meaning flowed freely through their bond. Emotions, sensations, reassurance—all reached Sol without effort. At first, he had resisted the connection.

  Now he embraced it.

  His grandfather had taught him to care for himself, to tend his inner fire as carefully as any hearth. Tezcalotl felt like that same warmth—like the flame that once filled his childhood home. Huehueteotl felt like the steady presence who had guided him all along.

  Sol exhaled slowly.

  He forced himself to think instead of panic.

  He stood at the village’s edge, watching the forest he had fled from. He expected the miasma to crest the treetops at any moment, to spill into Huehueteotl’s domain.

  His own influence extended only around the immediate surroundings of the village. Huehueteotl’s reach stretched somewhat farther—but not by much.

  Still, when Sol offered his excess divinity in tribute, the ancient god had laughed in genuine delight. The steady stream of faith from the village he had inhabited for so long pleased him deeply.

  Sol steadied himself.

  He had made a mistake.

  He had prepared alone.

  Now he would correct it.

  If the miasma came—

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  It would find more than a single firefly waiting.

  -

  Mort stood at the edge of the thorn wall, watching as the swarm dismantled the endless tide of writhing worms flooding the forest floor.

  Soldier ants tore through segmented bodies with ruthless precision. Bees and worker ants hauled the remains away from the front line in steady, organized streams. Numerous paths had already formed, leading toward wide burrow entrances that eased the relentless traffic of war.

  He doubted anything besides the swarm could survive such a grotesque infestation.

  Nothing else could endure their attention—unless it, too, were endless.

  Even so, the worms were far from easy prey.

  The bucks within the swarm’s beasts-of-war division struggled to penetrate more than a few meters into the mass. They would charge, gore, and trample—only to retreat back over the thorn wall moments later. Worker ants waited on the inner side, swiftly removing worms that had latched onto their bleeding flanks.

  The badgers fared no better.

  Though vicious, even they were pressed hard defending the burrows beneath the thorn barrier. Worms hurled themselves forward in manic waves—spitting acid, snapping with serrated mandibles, clinging with desperate persistence. Yet furious swipes and crushing bites from the badgers reduced anything that came too close into twitching halves.

  Mort’s gaze sharpened.

  The worms seemed larger.

  He could not be certain beneath the shifting carpet of bodies, but he sensed a change. Some were no longer the same deep black. Grey variants slithered among them—rarer and weaker.

  And others…

  A sickly green.

  Those spat acid from farther away than the rest.

  He had not observed anything unusual about the grey worms beyond their fragility. But the darker strain remained relentless—leaping, biting, spitting with tireless aggression. Even after Mort bisected rows of them with lashes of his whip, their numbers endured.

  If he did not intervene personally, many more soldier ants would have fallen.

  Mort cracked his whip through the air, carving through clusters too dense for the swarm to overwhelm alone. The worms grew stronger when gathered. Their strange rhythmic undulations seemed to help them deflect fatal strikes, their hardened carapaces flexing at precise moments.

  The battlefield itself had evolved.

  The swarm had erected a low earthen wall from excavated soil, preventing worms from creeping beneath the thorn fence. Any creature attempting to leap over the barrier found itself entangled in the wide sprawl of thorn branches—impaled upon cruel, interlocking spikes.

  Mort had ordered all villagers to remain inside.

  This nightmare was not for them.

  They had no warriors. Their hunters rarely ventured deep into the forest, living more as fishermen than fighters. Now, neither hunting nor fishing was possible.

  Mort continued experimenting with his divinity—but more cautiously.

  Instead of forcing life from nothing, he ordered the swarm to gather seeds.

  To his surprise, they had already amassed a stockpile.

  He planted them in the village center. Most sprouted into simple grasses that shifted into a deep red the more divinity he infused into them. They did little else.

  He had been fortunate the thorn bush proved exceptional.

  It had become his greatest asset.

  Though some sections of the barrier remained thin, Mort continuously expanded its width outward, using it to push the edge of his fragile domain farther into the forest.

  And something remarkable had happened.

  The thorn bushes absorbed corruption from worms slain near them. From that stolen energy, tiny new sprouts emerged—buds Mort suspected would become more flowers.

  More flowers meant more berries.

  More berries meant more sustenance.

  The more worms they killed—

  The stronger the fence would grow.

  When this discovery spread through the swarm, a visible tremor passed through the engorged queens.

  Fervor ignited.

  An overwhelming hunger for battle rippled outward, synchronizing the entire host. Bees buzzed in resonant unity. Ant columns straightened into immaculate formation along the length of the fence.

  Their thirst for war startled even Mort.

  Renata.

  Xochiquetzal.

  They had lived alongside these tiny warriors for so long, yet this unified hunger felt different.

  Purposeful.

  Exultant.

  The swarm did not merely defend.

  They were beginning to enjoy the war.

  And Mort—

  Watching the thorn wall thicken with every fallen worm—

  Could not deny that he did too.

  -

  Sol trembled as he felt the tremors—proof that the creature he had glimpsed was drawing near. Only such a monster could churn the earth with that dreadful rhythm. The warning had already been sent. Bahia Oscura would be prepared. Sol could only hope he would endure what was surely about to become a battle balanced between life and death.

  If he allowed the creature to trample him underfoot, the village would be next.

  Sol burst forward with astonishing speed, determined to intercept the abomination well beyond the village’s fragile borders. He did not know how difficult this battle would be. He did not know if he could win. But he knew one thing with absolute certainty—none of his people would be harmed while he still drew breath. His heart could not bear it. Not after ascending. Not after being entrusted with divine power.

  He climbed higher into the sky, carefully measuring the steady drain of divinity as he watched the misma approach, the towering abomination leading it like a grotesque herald. Its silhouette blotted the treetops, mandibles flexing with anticipatory hunger.

  His heart pounded.

  Sol surged forward in a streak of turquoise light. He would not hesitate as he had before. He would seize his fear and thrust it into the forge of battle—hammering it again and again until only courage remained.

  With a cry that tore from his chest, Sol summoned his armor. Plates of radiant turquoise formed around him, each piece shimmering with divine heat. He called upon , letting the ancient fire steady his trembling spirit and fuel his divine might.

  “Burn away my doubt,” he whispered.

  Then he struck.

  The creature’s massive mandibles snapped shut against the blade he conjured—a sword of blessed iron he had painstakingly refined through trial and prayer. The clash rang like a bell across the forest canopy. Shockwaves rippled outward, scattering birds and shaking leaves from their branches.

  Sparks erupted where steel met chitin.

  Sol gritted his teeth as he felt the resistance. The monster’s carapace was thicker than he had feared, layered and ridged like living armor. The impact numbed his arms, but he refused to recoil. Instead, he pressed forward, divine fire surging down his blade in a searing torrent.

  The smell of scorched resin filled the air. Trees sliced apart, crashed loudly to the ground due to the missed strike.

  If the iron could not pierce it, he would melt it. If he could not melt it, he would break it.

  Because failure was not merely defeat.

  It would be a death he would never have the chance to correct.