Earth's atmosphere has layers. Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere.

  I crossed all of them in ten seconds.

  I wasn't flying. I was pushed upward by the constant nuclear repulsion exploding from my feet. The jungle below me became a green blur. Clouds evaporated before touching me.

  Up there, hovering in the exosphere like an oil stain on the fabric of the universe, was the Devourer King.

  Seen up close, he had no face. He was a geometry of hunger. Kilometer-long tentacles of antimatter hung from him, caressing the curvature of the Earth, sucking the blue color from the planet.

  "Arthur..." Luna's voice crackled in my earpiece. The sound was clean, filtered by her magic. She was singing a low, steady melody, a psychic anchor preventing the Boitatá's consciousness from incinerating my "Self." "...keep your heart rate steady. Don't let the Fire consume the Parasite."

  "The Parasite is the thermal insulator, Luna," I replied, my voice sounding like the roar of a turbine. "I am just the fuse."

  The King noticed me.

  To a creature that eats stars, I must have looked like an annoying spark.

  One of the vacuum tentacles whipped in my direction.

  "Evasive maneuvers!" shouted Jurema over the radio.

  Below me, the Riverfolk's fleet of flying barges opened fire. Enchanted harpoons, scrap cannons, and shaman spells hit the King's body. They were mosquito bites, useless for wounding, but great for annoying.

  I took advantage of the distraction.

  I accelerated.

  I became a golden streak in the sky.

  The tentacle scraped past me. The cold of the vacuum grazed the heat of my shield. The thermal shock created a thunderclap that shattered windows in Manaus, miles away.

  I reached his "face." A vastness of swirling darkness.

  "Biopsy time," I snarled.

  I extended my right hand. The Boitatá's energy condensed into the shape of a thirty-meter-long scalpel made of solar plasma.

  CUT.

  I brought my arm down.

  The scalpel of light tore through the King's shadow skin.

  Blood didn't come out. Silence came out. A sucking sound. The wound tried to close instantly, eating the energy of my cut.

  "He regenerates too fast!" warned Valéria, monitoring from the ground. "His absorption rate is infinite!"

  "Nobody eats with their mouth closed," I retorted. "I need him to open the core."

  Arthur (the Parasite), in absolute panic, gave me an idea.

  [TACTICAL SUGGESTION: ENEMY IS ATTRACTED TO MANA DENSITY. IF YOU SHINE BRIGHTER, HE WILL TRY TO SWALLOW YOU WHOLE.]

  "It's a stupid plan," I said to myself. "I like it."

  I stopped in mid-air, right in front of the monster's central mass.

  I closed my eyes. I stopped fighting the Fire.

  "Luna... turn up the volume.

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  "Boitatá... WAKE UP."

  I opened my arms.

  I released containment.

  My human form disappeared. For a second, I became a second star in Earth's sky. The brightness was so intense it cast sharp shadows at noon.

  The Devourer King felt it. That wasn't an enemy. It was a banquet. It was the greatest source of mana he had ever seen in this solar system.

  The mass of darkness opened.

  A colossal maw, larger than a city, formed. Event horizon teeth. Singularity throat.

  He lunged to bite me.

  "ARTHUR, NO!" screamed Luna.

  I didn't dodge.

  I dove.

  I went straight into the wolf's mouth.

  Inside the King, there was no light. There was no sound. There was no time.

  There was only Cold and Pressure.

  The Boitatá roared in fury, its flames being compressed by the crushing gravity of the monster's stomach.

  My chitin armor began to crack. My skin began to disintegrate.

  [STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY ALERT: 5%.]

  [IMMINENT DEATH.]

  "Not yet..." I thought, my consciousness flickering. "I have to reach the center... the stomach..."

  I swam through the viscous vacuum.

  There it was. The Core of Hunger. A perfect sphere of purple antimatter, pulsing in the center of the beast.

  It was what kept the King alive. It was what digested reality.

  "Diagnosis: Terminal Gastritis," I murmured, lip-less.

  I grabbed the Core with my hands of fire.

  The contact was supreme pain. Infinite Cold met Infinite Heat.

  "Boitatá..." I projected mentally. "You wanted to burn? The stage is all yours."

  I released the Entity.

  I separated my symbiosis.

  I expelled the Fire Snake from my body, pushing it directly into the Antimatter Core.

  The reaction was instantaneous.

  Matter and Antimatter annihilate each other.

  Divine Fire and Cosmic Hunger do not mix. They war.

  The Core began to vibrate.

  Fissures of golden light appeared on the purple sphere.

  [DETONATE.]

  The Parasite used its last reserve of energy to create a stasis cocoon around me and propel me outward, using the recoil of the initial explosion.

  I was spat out of the monster's mouth like an olive pit.

  Seconds later, behind me, the universe blinked.

  There was no noise in space.

  But there was light.

  The Devourer King's body swelled. From black, it turned gray, then white, then translucent.

  Beams of golden light tore his form from the inside out.

  The Surgical Supernova happened.

  The King didn't explode into pieces. He was consumed. The Boitatá, furious and free, burned the concept of hunger. The monster dissolved into harmless stardust.

  The shockwave hit me.

  I lost consciousness as I fell toward Earth.

  I woke up to the sound of water. And the smell of fish.

  I coughed, expelling water from my lungs.

  "He's alive!" Gristle's voice. "I said bad weeds don't break!"

  I opened my eyes. The late afternoon sun hit my face.

  I was lying on the deck of one of Captain Jurema's barges.

  Valéria was leaning over me, holding an improvised defibrillator.

  Luna was by my side, holding my hand, crying softly. Her tears fell on my chest, which was bandaged.

  I tried to move. Everything hurt.

  I looked at my chest. The bandages covered a spiral-shaped burn. The Boitatá was gone.

  But the Parasite...

  I felt a faint vibration in my liver.

  [STATUS: REBOOTING... OPERATING SYSTEM: 2%.]

  [HUNGER: EXTREME.]

  "We're alive," I whispered, voice hoarse.

  "Barely," Valéria smiled, wiping sweat away. "You fell from the sky like a meteor. Jurema had to maneuver the barge to catch you with a giant fishing net."

  "And the King?" I asked, trying to sit up.

  Luna pointed to the sky.

  There were no more purple clouds. No rift. No monster.

  The sky was blue. A deep, clean blue I hadn't seen since I was a child.

  And, falling slowly like golden snow, particles of light covered the forest.

  "He turned into fertilizer," said Gristle, satisfied. "The biggest composting in history."

  Jurema approached, smoking her pipe.

  "The forest is quiet, Doctor. The Gardener sent word that the debt is paid. But she suggested you don't come back anytime soon. You burned the canopy of about a thousand trees on the way up."

  I laughed, and my ribs hurt.

  "What do we do now?" asked Luna. "Sovereignty fell. The King died. Is it over?"

  I looked at the northern horizon.

  The Parasite projected one last message on my retina before passing out to sleep.

  [ENEMY CORE DATA ANALYZED.]

  [THE "KING" WAS A SCOUT UNIT. CLASS: LIGHT INFANTRY.]

  [THE ROYAL HIVE IS APPROACHING SATURN.]

  The world was saved... for now.

  Human society was in collapse. Brazil was a no-man's-land full of monsters, magic, and ruins.

  But it was our chaos.

  "It's not over, Luna," I replied, accepting a bottle of water Valéria offered. "We just changed phases.

  "Now, we have to rebuild. We have to prepare this planet. Because next time... they won't send a scout."

  I stood up with difficulty, supported by my friends' shoulders.

  The sun set over the Amazon, reflecting in the endless river.

  I wasn't a fugitive anymore. I wasn't just a doctor anymore.

  I was the first line of defense of an Earth that finally stopped lying to itself.

  "Valéria, does the truck still run?"

  "The chassis is bent, but the engine purrs."

  "Good. Let's go to the coast. I heard that in Rio de Janeiro the oceans rose and the sharks learned to walk.

  "Sounds like an interesting case to dissect."

  The truck set off south, kicking up golden dust on the road.

  The adventure continued.