The "tree" was so large that climbing it didn't feel like ascending an organism; it felt like scaling a continent that had been turned sideways.
The bark of Titan 06 was a landscape of white ceramic ridges, each one the size of a house, covered in carpets of bioluminescent moss. The "sap" that flowed in the canyons between these ridges was a glowing, viscous neon-green plasma—Bio-Aether—humming with enough energy to power a city.
Julian, Lyra, and Vara climbed using the natural handholds of the bark and magnetic grapples. They were already a mile up. The ground was a distant memory, hidden beneath layers of mist and foliage.
"Don't touch the sap," Vara warned, leaping effortlessly from one ridge to another with her wooden prosthetic arm. "It is pure life-force. Unfiltered. It will cause your cells to replicate until you become a tumor."
"Noted," Lyra grunted, hauling herself up a ledge. She looked down. "If we fall, do we hit the ground, or do we starve to death before we land?"
"You would be eaten by the aerial jellies long before you hit the roots," Vara said matter-of-factly.
Julian paused to catch his breath. The air here was thin but incredibly rich in oxygen. It made his head spin. His crystal hand was pulsing in sync with the tree—a slow, deep, rhythmic thrum that vibrated through his chest.
Thump... Thump...
"It's sick," Julian whispered.
Vara stopped. She looked back at him, her black eyes unreadable.
"You feel it?"
"The rhythm," Julian said, pressing his hand against the warm ceramic bark. "It's skipping beats. It's struggling to pump."
"The Parasites," Vara spat the word. "They nest in the Upper Crown. They bite into the neural pathways and drink the memories. They make the Titan forget who it is. That is why it sleeps. It is hiding in a coma."
The Mid-Canopy - Two Miles Up
The environment changed. The moss gave way to massive, shelf-like fungi the size of helipads protruding from the trunk.
"We rest here," Vara signaled, landing on a purple mushroom-shelf.
Julian checked his Resonance Gauntlet. The charge was holding, but the humidity was corroding the copper coils. He wiped the moisture away.
"Skid," Julian tapped his comms. "Status on the fire?"
Skid's voice came through, static-filled but urgent.
"Bad news, boss. The Incinerator Corps picked up speed. They aren't just burning; they're bombing. The Pyro-Walkers are shelling the tree line. They'll be at the crater edge in less than an hour."
"We have to move faster," Julian said, looking up at the canopy that still loomed miles above.
"Shh," Vara suddenly hissed. She crouched low, her wooden claws extending.
"What is it?" Lyra whispered, drawing her pistol.
"The wind stopped," Vara said.
The leaves around them—massive solar panels shaped like ferns—ceased their rustling. The air went dead still.
Then, a sound.
Click-click-chitter.
It came from above. From below. From the bark itself.
"Ambush!" Vara screamed.
The "bark" exploded.
Sections of the tree trunk peeled away. They weren't wood; they were Camouflaged Husks.
Creatures emerged. They looked like giant ticks, the size of wolves, but their bodies were made of rusted gears and pulsating fungal sacks. Their legs were hypodermic needles.
The Rust-Mites.
"They were waiting for us!" Lyra yelled, firing into the swarm.
Her bullets hit the fungal sacks, exploding them in showers of yellow spores. But the Mites kept coming, scuttling down the vertical face of the tree with terrifying speed.
One lunged at Julian.
Julian raised his gauntlet.
Focus: Cone. Power: High.
THWUMP.
The sonic blast caught the Mite in mid-air. The creature didn't just fly back; its internal carapace shattered. It turned into a bag of jelly and fell into the abyss.
"Don't let them latch on!" Vara shouted, slicing a Mite in half with her wooden claws. "If they bite, they inject a paralytic toxin!"
There were dozens of them. They swarmed over the mushroom shelf.
"Julian! Behind you!" Lyra screamed.
A massive Mite, larger than the others—a Brood-Mother—dropped from the branch above. It landed on Julian's back, pinning him to the fungal floor.
Its needle-legs dug into his coat. Its mandibles—two spinning saw-blades—opened wide, aiming for his neck.
Julian couldn't turn his gauntlet. He was pinned.
He felt the weight of the machine. He felt the hunger of the fungus inside it.
Hungry... Feed...
Julian didn't try to push it off. He reached back with his Right Hand—the crystal one. He grabbed the creature's head.
He didn't use the Sonic Lance. He used the Direct Interface.
He poured his own corruption into the beast.
OVERLOAD.
He forced a feedback loop of pure, chaotic energy into the Mite's tiny brain.
SCREEEEE!
The Brood-Mother shrieked. Its eyes burst. Its legs spasmed and released their grip.
Julian rolled over, gasping. The creature was twitching on its back, its systems fried.
He stood up and aimed his gauntlet.
THWUMP.
He blasted it off the ledge.
"We can't fight them all!" Julian yelled, seeing more swarms emerging from the cracks in the bark. "There's too many!"
"The Jet-Stream!" Vara pointed to a massive, hollow branch jutting out from the trunk nearby. Steam was venting from it violently. "The Titan vents excess heat through the hollows! We can ride the updraft!"
"Ride it?" Lyra looked at the venting steam. "Like a elevator?"
"Like a cannonball!" Vara yelled. "Jump!"
She leaped into the steam stream. The force of the updraft caught her beetle-wing armor, shooting her upward at incredible speed.
"I hate this planet!" Lyra holstered her gun and jumped. She flared her coat, catching the wind.
Julian looked at the swarm of ticks closing in. He activated the cooling vents on his gauntlet to stabilize his flight.
He jumped.
The Crown - Five Miles Up
The updraft carried them thousands of feet in seconds. They shot out of the steam vent and tumbled onto a bed of soft, mossy leaves at the very top of the world.
They were in the Crown.
The view was dizzying. They were above the clouds. The sun was blindingly bright here.
And in the center of the Crown, nestled like a pearl in a setting of leaves, was the Titan's Brain-Stem.
It wasn't a crystal prism like the Sovereign's. It was a Flower.
A massive, lotus-like structure made of white light and fiber-optics. But the flower was closed.
Wrapped around it, strangling it, was a monstrosity.
It was a Web. A thick, grey, fungal web that pulsed with a dark, sickly light. And in the center of the web sat the source of the infestation.
It wasn't a bug. It was a Machine.
An ancient, Imperial drilling rig that had crashed here decades ago. The fungus had overgrown it, fused with it, and turned it into a sentient tumor.
The Parasite Queen.
It had wires dug deep into the Titan's flower, pumping grey sludge into the light.
"That's it," Julian whispered, standing up in the high winds. "That's the sickness."
"It's Imperial tech," Vara said, her voice filled with hate. "An old atmospheric processor. It went rogue."
"It's not just rogue," Julian said, looking at the blinking lights on the rusted console buried in the fungus. "It's transmitting."
He tapped his mask.
"It's broadcasting the Titan's location. That's how Elias knew where to send the Incinerators."
Julian stepped forward, charging his gauntlet.
"We have to cut it out."
Suddenly, the fungal web vibrated. The rusted drilling rig groaned. It rose up on legs made of twisted pipe and grey flesh.
The Parasite Queen shrieked—a sound of tearing metal and static.
It blocked the path to the Flower.
"Final boss," Lyra racked her slide. "You take the machine. I'll handle the weeds."
"Vara," Julian said. "Get to the flower. When I break the web... you have to open the petals."
"I will," Vara extended her wooden claws.
Julian aimed his Sonic Lance at the monstrosity.
"Time to do some gardening."