The surface was dying.

  Tharnells did not wage war with anger; they waged it with industry. For two weeks, the artillery had fallen in a rhythmic, grinding cadence. Thump. Whistle. Crunch. The Garden was churned into a plane of cratered mud and splintered ash.

  Amon waited in the dark.

  Buried thirty feet below the ruin, encased in a hardened shell of Preserverant, he felt the shudder of the earth like a heavy heartbeat. The Caregivers—mounds of dormant tar, bone, and Souls—slept around him in the silence of the loam.

  Survive.

  The command from Belugmah was not urgent. It was a statement of fact.

  The surface pool remained untouched, a singularity of absolute black that swallowed the shells before they could detonate. The Fearless Maws hated it. They hated the stillness, the defiance of a thing that refused to burn. So they poured fire onto the land around it, trying to starve the Garden of Preservation.

  It worked, in a way. The deer were gone, so too wolves and other animal life. Only insects remained, beetles, worms, and grubs that burrowed into the soil. The mist drank them greedily, their tiny Souls sparks barely visible, but they fed the pool nonetheless.

  For his own part, waiting in the dark, with nothing else to do. Amon cycled his Mana, a slow meditative rhythm. In. Spin. Out.? His embryonic Core consuming half of what it produced—fueling its own growth—while the rest was used as offering to the Garden, feeding it, and empowering its spread.

  Above, the shelling stopped. The silence was louder than the guns, and Amon extended his senses. He rode the mist, drifting up through the soil, emerging into the gray daylight.

  A wall.

  It was the first thing he saw. A barrier of smooth, gray stone, three arms thick, encircling the entire domain. It was precise, and seamless. The Tharnells had not just bombed the forest; they had quarantined it.?

  Impressive.

  Belugmah’s thought was cool, devoid of fear.

  Send eyes.

  Amon focused. In the center of the devastation, near the pool, a dozen mounds of tar shifted. They elongated, sprouting wings of bone and feathers of oil. Tar-ravens took flight, their silent strokes carrying them up into the smoke-choked sky.

  The world below was a scar.

  Leagues of forest had been erased. In their place were roads of crushed rock, perfectly straight, converging on a distant point. Amon looked closer, using the birds' telescopic vision.

  A tear in the sky.

  It was jagged, and bleeding violet light. A portal, and one that wasn't closing. Metal pylons, etched with glowing Glyphoses--—written magic—anchored the rift, forcing it open like a wound held apart by retractors.?

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  Tharnells poured through it, along with tanks, trucks, Harvesters, and a myriad of equipment.

  And then there was the walls. They were building a second ring. Massive cranes lifted interlocking blocks of concrete, dropping them into place with a heavy thud that vibrated through the mist.

  "They aren't attacking," Amon realized. "They're sealing us in."

  From a watchtower, a sniper spotted the birds.

  Crack.

  A tar-raven exploded in mid-air, dissolving into a spray of black rain.

  Down.

  The remaining birds folded their wings and dove, hitting the soft earth like darts. They didn't stop at the surface, they burrowed, melting into the soil, seeking the safety of the deep.

  Amon followed them.

  The surface was a dead end. But the tar roots… the roots went deep.

  The Garden shifted its hunger downward. Tar tendrils pushed through rock, seeking cracks, seeking warmth, seeking life.

  They found it.

  Beneath the crust, the earth was alive. Amon’s consciousness expanded into the subterranean dark. He sensed heat—geothermal vents pulsating with ancient rhythm—he sensed water with blind fish swimming in sunless lakes.

  And he sensed hunger.

  Goblins.?

  They were wretched things. Small, spindly, with eyes like milk-glass and teeth like needles. They scurried through the tunnels in packs, their voices a chittering mockery of speech.

  Harvest.

  The mist flooded into tunnels. It didn't roll in like weather though; it seeped from the stone itself. The Goblins didn't stand a chance. The fog thickened, heavy and sweet. They slowed, their frantic movements turning sluggish. One by one, they curled up on the cold stone, surrendering to the dream.

  Amon felt their Souls flicker into the pool's embrace, small but numerous.

  They pushed deeper.

  Days passed in the timeless dark. Amon explored the labyrinth, his mind drifting through a hundred rat-constructs. He found fungi forests glowing with bioluminescence. He found thermal vents where tube-worms danced in the boiling water.?

  Then, he heard it.

  Clink. Clink. Hiss.

  The sound of metal on stone.

  Amon poured his awareness into a large rat-caregiver. He crept down a winding tunnel, the air growing warmer, the smell of sulfur and unwashed bodies thick in his nose.

  He rounded a corner.

  Four shapes.?

  They were small, reptilian, covered in rust-colored scales. Kobolds, servants of the Dragons. They worked with a manic, joyous energy, their claws, and pickaxes flashing in the gloom. They hummed as they struck the rock, a hissing, rhythmic tune that echoed off the walls.

  Scales.

  Amon felt a pang of familiarity, almost as if he was back home. These were the lowest servants of the hierarchy he had worshipped in life. The bottom of the pyramid that held the Dragons at the top. He’d often seen, and interacted with these energetic beings, helping them pack tribute onto wagons to be taken to Lavia the Demanding.

  The Kobolds stopped. All four of them froze in unison, their heads snapped up, nostrils flaring. They smelled him. Or rather, they smelled the wrongness of him.

  One of them turned, its slit-pupiled eyes locking onto the shadow where Amon’s rat crouched.

  "Eldritch!"?

  The scream was piercing, filled with a primal, genetic terror.

  "Eldritch! Eldritch!"

  They scrambled back, dropping their tools, as their tails lashed about in panic. Amon watched them run, as the Mist rippled. It wasn't fear he felt from Belugmah, but anticipation.

  Dragons, including their kin—Scales—were the guardians of realms. To Scales, they represented an invasion, and one that had to be dealt with. However, the lack of far-reaching weaponry, such as rifles, meant they had to draw near. Tar bubbled in the dark, eagerly awaiting the impending confrontation, and the swell of Souls it promised.