CHAPTER 26: THE VERDANT THRESHOLD

  [LOCATION: THE DEEP GREEN]

  [OBJECTIVE: REACH THE EMERALD TEMPLE]

  [PERSONNEL: LILO (WHITE HAIR), AMI, 20 INFANTRY]

  The jungle was a wall of noise that didn't want us there. I sat in my office, watching the high-resolution feed from the scouting drones. Below the canopy, the light was a sickly, filtered green that made everything look like it was underwater. Lilo led the column, his white hair a stark, jarring ghost-light in the shadows. He didn't move with his old grace; he moved with a measured, economical stiffness.

  "Gray, the drone signal is degrading," Ami’s voice whispered. She was twenty feet up in the air, jumping from branch to branch. "The mana-density here is so high it’s creating a literal fog. I can't see the ground, and I can't see my own feet."

  "I didn't ask for a weather report, Ami," I said. I was tracking the mana-spikes on my second monitor. "I asked for a path. The temple should be three hundred meters to your north-northwest. It’s the source of the resonance that’s trying to hack the Core."

  "We have a problem," Lilo’s rasping voice cut in. He stopped the column. "The trees aren't just trees anymore. Look at the bark."

  I adjusted the drone’s camera. The trees surrounding the party they had scales. Iridescent, green-and-black scales that pulsed in time with a heartbeat.

  "I didn't authorize any biological observation of the flora," I muttered to myself. "Lilo, keep the men in a tight 'V' formation. If the trees move, use the incendiary rounds."

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "They're already moving," Lilo said.

  I didn't see the attack; I saw the result. A vine—thick as a human torso and covered in jagged, obsidian thorns—whipped out from the canopy. It didn't grab a soldier; it punched through the lead man’s chest plate.

  I watched the man’s vitals flatline on my display.

  "I didn't authorize a halt!" I barked into the comms. "Sammy, suppressive fire! Ami, get a visual on the trunk of that thing!"

  The jungle erupted. The soldiers opened up with their mana-rifles, the beams of blue light sizzling against the damp green wood. The smell was horrific—burnt sugar and rotting meat. The scaled trees began to bleed a thick, glowing ichor that sizzled when it touched the ground.

  "It’s not a tree!" Ami screamed. She was clinging to a branch as the entire forest floor began to heave. "Gray, the whole sector is one organism! We’re standing on its ribs!"

  "I didn't bring you here to study anatomy," I said. I saw the heat signature of the temple's entrance just ahead. It was glowing a fierce, radioactive green. "The temple is the brain. If you reach the threshold, the nervous system will reset. Move, or be digested."

  Lilo didn't shout. He didn't give a heroic speech. He simply stepped forward and swung his sword. The blade, still humming with the remnant of the Sun-God’s power, carved a path through the lashing vines. He was slower, yes, but he was more precise. He wasn't fighting for glory; he was fighting to finish the shift.

  "Don't stop!" Lilo roared at the men, his white hair whipping in the wind of the mana-flares. "Follow the light! If you fall, you stay in the belly! Move!"

  They ran. They ran through a corridor of snapping jaws and constricting roots. I watched the 'Loss' column. Two more men were dragged into the green. One more was crushed by a falling branch that had too many eyes.

  [PERSONNEL LOSS: 4]

  [OBJECTIVE: REACHED]

  They burst out of the tree-line and into a clearing of ancient, moss-covered basalt. The temple loomed above them—a jagged pyramid of black stone, held together by glowing green veins of mana. The jungle stopped at the edge of the stone as if it were afraid of the building.

  Lilo collapsed against the base of a pillar, his breathing a rattling sound in the sudden silence.

  "We're... here," he wheezed.

  "I didn't expect you to be early," I said, checking the clock. "Secure the perimeter. I’m sending the excavation golems to force the door. We have a temple to audit."

  I looked at the black box on my desk. It was vibrating so hard now that the pens were sliding off the wood.

  I didn't feel the excitement of a treasure hunter. I felt the focus of a man about to open a safe that hadn't been touched in a thousand years.