CHAPTER 61: RUINS OF WRATH

Clayton was dead, but the world didn’t stop because of him.

Life continued. Earth continued.

Life in the Forgotten Atlanta Expanse continued.

The tram hub in the Forgotten Atlanta Expanse was a graveyard of slag and frost, Mycoglyphs flickering like dying stars, the Earthcore Nexus’s hunger a ravenous pulse.

The battle between the Verdant Lord, Apostates, and the Ironblood Remnants was brutal, but the Ironblood Remnants were the biggest winners so far.

The Verdant Lord was dead. All the Apostates were dead except Echoes of Ruin, who was severely injured. They were 99% close to completing their mission successfully.

Well, it was only a given considering the elite Shrike unit that was deployed, and the high-tech weapons that they were given.

Not to Echoes of Ruin though. To her, her whole life was falling apart.

She had fought against the Verdant Lord so she knew just how capable he was. She’d seen him fight. She’d seen him survive impossible encounters, even taming a Luminous Seed Behemorph.

For him to die just like that... she could not believe it.

’He’s dead’.

She was shaken.

The death of her comrades didn’t hit her as much as the death of the Verdant Lord. It filled her heart with whispers of doom and despair, and the fear of death hit her like a Python’s suffocating grip round her neck.

She staggered through the ruins, her Protocol Bearer rank Aspect flickering, spectral tendrils fraying under the Null Shrikes’ Genesis Disruptors.

’No! No! NO!’

’I can’t die!’

’I can’t die. NOT YET!’

’Not with so many things I’m yet to achieve!’

’Not when I’m yet to gain freedom!’

’NOOOO!’

Blood dripped from her slashed cloak, Embers bleeding starlight, her final psychic scream a fading vow of vengeance.

Captain Vex, visor cracked, leg charred, arm scorched, gripped her Null Blade with a triumphant gleam in her gaze, gray eyes locked on the Apostate’s retreating form, 100 meters out.

The Verdant Warden rank Behemorph stirred beneath the hub, still awakening, its malevolent aura growing thicker with each passing second.

Its fungal tendrils kept probing, ancient spores whispering ruin, but Vex’s zeal to see her enemy dead burned hotter than fear.

"No traitor escapes," she hissed, vox crackling, exosuit hissing.

Then, she drew back, her Null Blade in hand, balanced with perfect form, and she threw...

BAM!

It cut through the air like a guillotine.

The blade accelerated through the air, anti-Genesis runes flaring to life, slicing the air with lethal precision.

It crossed the distance to its target in an instant, striking Echoes of Ruin from behind, piercing straight through her Heartseed Core, and then...

BZZZ!

Genesis Embers erupted; radiant, a supernova of corrupted Genesis.

Her psychic screams were cut off mid-way, tendrils dissolving, body collapsing in a heap, eyes wide with betrayed malice.

The last Apostate was dead.

Silence, for a moment, then...

The hub quaked, a bone-rattling tremor splitting stone.

The Verdant Warden Behemorph’s awakening surged, reaching conclusion as its fungal colossus; 50 meters tall, tendrils thick as spires, spores warping reality erupted from the ruins like divine judgement.

Its Crown Type pulsed, a fungal nexus radiating annihilation, its will alien, hell-bent on erasing non-Behemorph life.

Vex finally reacted, freezing.

Her three surviving Shrikes with battered exosuits and flickering Disruptors flanked her, blood and Embers staining their Null Blades, their eyes desperate but calm and waiting for instructions.

She finally moved.

"Fall back!" She roared, vox blaring. "To Bastion-7!"

The Shrikes bolted, exosuits blurring, abandoning the hub as spores flooded the air, tendrils lashing stone to dust.

In the shadows, unseen, the Spore Plague Lord stirred, its Luminous Seed fungal core pulsing faintly, Toxic Spore Shroud cloaking its retreat.

Clayton’s 19 Initiate Ember minions; 8 Thorn Hounds, 6 Howl Shriekers, 4 Ash Sprites, 1 Spore Drifter followed, instincts guiding them into the Expanse’s ruins, their Aphid Network severed but survival intact.

The Plague Lord’s tendrils twitched, a fleeting hint of loyalty to a fallen king, vanishing into the ash-choked wastes.

...

The Verdant Warden Behemorph roared; a wet, cosmic bellow that shattered ruins, spores corroding metal, tendrils uprooting tram spires.

Its fungal mass pulsed with bioluminescent veins, reality warping around it, flora mutating into grotesque blooms, stone melting into fungal sludge.

Mycoglyphs dimmed, Earthcore Nexus’s hunger recoiling, cosmic horror alive in the Behemorph’s wrath.

It surged, tendrils sweeping the hub, crushing Clayton’s lifeless body, blood and Embers swallowed by spores.

The Expanse burned, ruins razed, non-Behemorph life; rats, vines, stray drones dissolving in spore clouds.

The Rootsite, some distance away trembled, its Verdant Bastion untouched but pulsing with dread.

...

Bastion-7, Command Center, 20 Kilometers South.

The Null Shrikes staggered into Bastion-7, Ironblood Remnants’ regional fortress, its steel walls humming with Null Scion generators.

Vex collapsed against a console, exosuit sparking, blood pooling, her Disruptor dead. Her three Shrikes; visors cracked, blades bloodied stood silent, drones whirring to patch wounds.

Commander Vrenna, her mechanical arm clicking, stared at the holo-screen, Ironhold-3’s uplink flickering.

Drayce gripped his Null lance, Furnace Core dim, Rhea’s silence heavy, Torv’s drones offline, Sylas’s goggles fogged.

"Report," Vrenna snapped, her voice steel.

Vex’s vox crackled, breath ragged. "Apostates dead. Green dead. Verdant Warden Behemorph awakened. Hub’s gone. It’s... unstoppable".

"A Verdant Warden rank Behemorph?!"

"Those are real?!!!" Vrenna’s eyes narrowed, surprise and a hint of other emotions flashing in them.

Most of all, she was surprised to hear about Green.

Green was dead, just like that?

Maybe she overestimated the Verdant Lord after all.

With eyes narrowed, she stared at the holo-screen flashing spore clouds, showing ruins dissolving.

A Verdant Warden Behemorph, those were stuffs of legend. A Behemorph with ecosystem-shaping and reality-warping powers was beyond Bastion-7’s Null Scions, beyond Ironhold-3’s zeal.

The Earthcore Nexus’s pulse surged, a dirge for the Expanse’s fall.

"Abandon Bastion-7," Vrenna ordered, arm slamming the console. "Full retreat!"

"Evacuate to Ironhold-4. Run for your lives".

No one questioned her decision.

The chamber erupted, klaxons blaring, Ironblood scrambling, drones packing, Null Lances stowed, holo-screens dark.

Vex rose, Shrikes following behind her, their zeal broken despite their completed mission, the Behemorph’s rampage a death sentence to all.

The Expanse’s ruins burned, Mycoglyphs fading, cosmic horror reigning as the Verdant Warden’s wrath consumed all.