The blast door of Zero Point was a heavy slab of three-inch iron, scarred by the Exterminator’s fire and cleaned of the Eel sludge. It was the only thing separating my new kingdom from the graveyard of Sector 4.

  I stood before it, looking at the two men I was leaving in charge.

  Vance, the former Guard, stood rigid, his shield scrubbed clean. Kael, the rebel leader, leaned on his iron pipe, still covered in soot, but his eyes were clear.

  I didn’t give a speech. I reached into my inventory and pulled out a heavy, red-painted iron wrench. It wasn’t a weapon; it was the manual override key for the blast door hydraulics.

  I held it out.

  Kael hesitated. Vance looked at him.

  Kael took the wrench.

  “Vance holds the wall,” I said, my voice flat. “Kael holds the water. Don’t open this door unless the knock is code. Three taps. Pause. Two taps.”

  “And if the High Lord knocks?” Kael asked, gripping the tool.

  “Then you make him bleed for every inch of concrete,” I said. “Emily has the logistics. Don’t starve. Don’t freeze. We’ll be back with the cure.”

  I turned away. I didn’t look back to see if they saluted or rolled their eyes. The base was a machine now. It had to run on its own.

  “Let’s move,” I ordered.

  “Wait,” Mara said.

  She stepped into my path. She didn’t raise her staff. She reached out with her wooden hands and grabbed the hem of my [Vanguard-Gilt Mantle].

  “The weave is loose,” she said softly. “The Draugr blade severed the tension line.”

  I tried to pull away. “It holds. It’s fine.”

  “It is sloppy,” she corrected, her voice firm. “You fix the machine, Artisan. Let me fix the cloth.”

  She didn’t use a needle. She used a tiny spark of Flux, fusing the golden bristles back together with a tailor’s precision. She smoothed the heavy pauldron on my shoulder, her touch lingering for a second longer than necessary.

  “You carry the weight of the world, Ren,” she whispered, patting the armor. “Do not let the straps break.”

  I looked at her. For a second, I enjoyed being looked after..

  “Thanks, Mara.”

  My squad—Rook, Mara, and Jax—followed me into the dark northern tunnel leading toward the Hydroponics sector.

  The air grew colder as we moved away from the Core. The smell of cooked fish and sewage faded, replaced by something sweeter, thicker. Pollen.

  I signaled for a halt. We were in a service corridor, illuminated only by the faint bioluminescence of moss growing on the wet pipes.

  [ System Access ]

  I had points to spend. The Titan had pushed me from Level 16 to Level 20. I had been holding the attribute points, waiting to see what the mission required.

  I looked at the path ahead. The tunnels to Sector 9 were collapsed, vertical, and treacherous. Strength wouldn’t get me up there. I needed to move differently.

  [ Current Agility: 22 ] [ Available Points: 8 ]

  I dumped everything into Agility.

  [ Agility: 22 -> 30 ]

  The world seemed to sharpen. My heartbeat slowed. I felt lighter, not in a relieving way, but in a disconcerting, unmoored way. Like gravity had lost interest in me.

  [ System Alert: Agility Threshold (30) Reached ] [ New Trait Unlocked: Variable Density ] [ Description: You may voluntarily lower your physical mass to near-zero. While active, you lose inertia and friction. You become a leaf in the wind. ] [ WARNING: Mass Critical. While in Low Density, Damage taken is increased by 300%. Impact resistance is 0. ]

  I flexed my hand. I felt… hollow.

  “Artisan?” Mara whispered. “You look… blurred.”

  “Calibration,” I said. I looked up.

  Thirty feet above us, a rusted catwalk crossed the tunnel. The ladder was gone, eaten by rust.

  I drew [ Fracture ].

  The Void-Glass blade floated above the hilt, humming with its purple gravity tether.

  “System Override,” I gloated. I threw the blade.

  It soared through the air, trailing purple smoke. It punched through the metal grating of the catwalk, embedding itself in the steel.

  Normally, I would use the tether to pull the blade back to me.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I gripped the bone hilt tight. I triggered the new skill.

  [ Skill: Variable Density (Active) ]

  Instantly, my weight vanished. I didn’t feel the pull of the earth. I was a balloon, a feather, a ghost.

  The gravity tether connecting the hilt to the blade was suddenly stronger than my own mass.

  I was violently reeled in.

  I flew upward, accelerating instantly from zero to sixty. The wind rushed past my ears. I was a ragdoll being dragged by a darker gravity.

  The catwalk rushed up to meet me.

  If I hit the metal grate in Low Density, my bones would shatter like glass. [ Impact Resistance: 0 ].

  I watched the distance close. Ten feet. Five. Two.

  “Now,” I hissed.

  [ Variable Density: Off ]

  My mass crashed back into reality a millisecond before impact.

  I slammed onto the catwalk, my boots denting the metal, my knees absorbing the heavy, familiar shock of landing. I stood up, the vibrations rattling my teeth.

  It worked. But the margin for error was razor-thin. A second too late, and I would have been paste.

  I looked down.

  Jax was staring up, his mouth open. Rook tilted his massive stone head, his optics whirling.

  My mass crashed back into reality a millisecond before impact.

  The landing wasn’t graceful. I slammed onto the catwalk with the force of a falling anvil. The metal grating groaned under the sudden return of gravity, bowing dangerously beneath my boots. The vibration rattled my teeth, traveling up my spine like a shockwave.

  I stumbled, gripping the railing to stay upright.

  Before I could catch my breath, the walkway shook again. A massive white-steel hand clamped onto my shoulder. It wasn’t aggressive; it was a stabilizer.

  Rook hauled himself over the edge. His optic was cycling rapidly between Blue and Red. He didn’t look at the enemy. He reached out and touched my chest plate, then my arm, physically checking for structural failure.

  “MAKER… TOO LIGHT,” he rumbled, the steam venting from his chest sounding like a hiss of worry. “LIGHT… BREAKS. HEAVY… SAFE.”

  He tapped his own massive chest with a dull thud. “ROOK… HEAVY.”

  It was a rebuke. He wasn’t impressed by the flight; he was terrified by the lack of density. To a tank, “light” meant “fragile,” and fragile things died.

  “I’m solid, buddy,” I wheezed, keeping my hand on his arm so he could feel the weight of my return. “I promise, I won't float away while you're holding me.”

  Rook folded his arms and looked away. “OK MAKER… ROOK EXTRA WATCH.”

  I appreciated the sentiment.

  We moved deeper.

  The transition to Sector 9 wasn’t gradual. It was a violent boundary line.

  The industrial concrete of the sewers ended abruptly. Ahead of us, the tunnel was choked by a wall of massive, twisting roots. They had burst through the steel walls like veins bursting through skin.

  “Masks,” I ordered.

  The air was thick with yellow dust. It wasn’t Miasma; it was pollen. It burned the back of my throat, tasting of pepper and rot.

  “This isn’t a forest,” Mara said, touching a vine that was wrapped around a crushed steam pipe. The vine pulsed. It had black veins running through the green. “It’s a cancer.”

  We hacked our way through the root wall.

  Beyond lay the entrance to Hydroponics.

  It looked like a machine that had gone feral.

  Massive agricultural pipes ran along the ceiling, leaking nutrient sludge that glowed neon green. Plants had integrated with the machinery. I saw ferns growing out of circuit breaker boxes, their leaves sparking with stray voltage. I saw flowers with petals made of rust and centers filled with serrated teeth.

  The Miasma here wasn’t a fog. It was the sap.

  “Movement,” Jax hissed, dropping into a crouch.

  Blocking the breach to the main dome was a shape.

  It was huge—easily twelve feet tall. At first glance, it looked like a pile of debris. Then it moved.

  [ Entity Detected: Spore-Goliath ] [ Level: 22 ] [ Constitution: High ]

  It was a nightmare of biology and industry. Its body was a tangle of petrified wood and thick, ropy vines. But its head was the rusted cabin of a pre-war combine harvester. Its arms were bundles of hydraulic hoses wrapped in thorns.

  It saw us. The harvester blades on its chest spun to life with a shrieking grind.

  “Rook!” I shouted. “Anchor!”

  “ROOK… WALL!”

  Rook charged. He slammed his shield into the mud, bracing just as the Goliath brought a massive, vine-wrapped fist down.

  The impact drove Rook’s feet into the concrete. He groaned, the servos in his legs whining, but he held the weight.

  “Jax! Eyes!” I ordered. “Find the weak point!”

  Jax darted to the side, too fast for the Goliath to track. “The chest!” Jax yelled. “There’s an engine block behind the ribs! It’s smoking!”

  I saw it. A rusted V8 engine, beating like a heart in the center of the plant mass, pumping black oil and green sap through the creature.

  I couldn’t get close on foot. The ground was covered in thrashing roots.

  I looked at the ceiling pipes.

  “Rook! Hold him!”

  I sprinted at the wall.

  I threw [ Fracture ].

  The blade phased through the Goliath’s wooden armor. I felt the impact through the tether. It embedded itself in the steel of the engine block.

  I triggered [ Variable Density ].

  I launched myself.

  I became weightless. The tether yanked me through the air, pulling me straight toward the monster’s chest.

  The Goliath reacted. A massive vine, thick as a telephone pole, swiped at me mid-air.

  If it hit me now, while I had the density of a soap bubble, I would die instantly.

  I shifted my center of mass, letting the air pressure of the vine’s swing push me aside.

  I dodged by millimeters. The thorns scraped my cloak, tearing the fabric, but missed my skin.

  I flew past the defense. I was inches from the chest.

  [ Variable Density: Off ]

  My weight returned with a sickening lurch.

  I grabbed the hilt of Fracture with both hands. I planted my boots on the Goliath’s wooden ribs.

  [ Skill: Structural Break ]

  I didn’t cut. I pried.

  I used the leverage of the embedded blade and my sudden return to full mass to rip.

  The wood splintered. The metal groaned.

  With a scream of tearing steel, I ripped the engine block out of the creature’s chest.

  Black oil and green sap sprayed over me. The harvester blades sputtered and died. The Goliath swayed, then collapsed forward, shaking the ground as it died.

  I rolled away, breathing hard. My cloak was torn, and my [ Architect Vision ] was flashing a warning about the near-miss.

  “Glass cannon,” I muttered, wiping oil from my visor. “High risk, high reward.”

  “Clear,” Jax said, stepping out of the shadows. He looked at the disemboweled machine-beast with respect.

  We stepped over the carcass and through the breach.

  We entered Sector 9.

  It was a massive geodesic dome, miles wide. The glass panels above were covered in grime, filtering the light into a sickly, underwater green.

  It was a jungle.

  Bioluminescent trees towered hundreds of feet high, their branches tangled with service walkways. The air was hot, humid, and silent.

  But it wasn’t the silence of peace. It was the silence of a predator.

  “Look up,” Mara whispered.

  I activated [ Architect’s Vision ].

  Hanging from the canopy, suspended by thick vines, were thousands of pods. They glowed faintly.

  I zoomed in.

  Inside the translucent membrane of the nearest pod was a skeleton. It was wearing a tattered blue jumpsuit with the Sector 9 logo. Roots were growing into the ribcage, weaving through the eye sockets.

  The plant wasn’t eating them. It was using the trace bio-electricity of the bones to power its bioluminescence.

  “The workers,” Jax said, his voice trembling. “They never left.”

  Mara looked at the field of hanging dead.

  “They didn’t abandon the farm,” I whispered, gripping my dagger as the green light washed over us. “They became the compost.”