Aria POV
The humidity of the Southern Jungle wasn't just air; it was a physical weight, thick with the scent of wet moss and the metallic tang of ancient rot. Every breath felt like inhaling a damp wool blanket.
« Too much life, » the White Wolf snarled in the back of my mind. « It smells of decay disguised as growth. Watch the shadows, Aria. The green is hungrier than the black. »
I didn't need the warning. My skin was crawling. Every silver-white scar on my body the roadmap of my ascension pulsed with a low, rhythmic heat. We were deep in the territory of Virens, the Emerald Serpent, and the very trees seemed to be leaning in to listen to our heartbeats.
I looked back at the tether.
Logan was stumbling, his boots catching on the massive, prehistoric roots that coiled across the forest floor like sleeping pythons. His white hair was matted with sweat, his dual-colored eyes—one silver, one a haunting cobalt—fixed on the small of my back.
I gave the Silver Leash a sharp, mental tug.
Logan gasped, his back arching as the invisible wire wrapped around his soul tightened. He lunged forward to close the gap, his body moving with the jerky, unnatural grace of a puppet.
"Keep up, Logan," I said, my voice cutting through the heavy drone of the insects like a blade. "Unless you want to find out if the Serpent's venom can melt living glass."
"I... I can't breathe, Aria," he rasped, his cobalt eye flickering with a spark of the Kraken's chaotic light. "The water... it's filling my lungs again."
"It's not water. It's fear," I countered. "Walk."
The Sentinel of the Vine
Gabriel stopped abruptly, his hand going to the hilt of his abyssal claymore. He didn't shift, but the shadows at his feet began to rise, a jagged mane of black smoke that devoured the emerald light of the canopy.
"We're being watched," he rumbled.
The ferns twenty feet ahead didn't part; they dissolved.
Virens stepped out of the gloom, his bronze skin glowing with a sickly, vibrant vitality. The jade serpent coiled around his neck flicked its tongue, tasting the air.
"The Moon and the Abyss," Virens hissed, his voice a sibilant slide of silk. "You've come far for a girl who was supposed to die in a snowstorm. But the South is not the North. Here, we don't freeze. We consume."
He raised his staff of living vine.
"You seek the Cobalt Kraken's core," Virens smiled, his teeth sharp and translucent. "But to reach the deep, you must first survive the surface. The Earth is hungry today, White Wolf."
The Trial of Roots
The ground beneath us buckled.
Massive, gnarled roots burst from the soil with the speed of striking cobras. Gabriel lunged, his black fire cleaving through a tangle of vines that tried to snare his ankles, but for every one he cut, three more grew in its place.
"Aria, jump!" Gabriel roared.
I didn't jump. I planted my feet and let the Vitrification explode from my palms.
The silver-white light slammed into the encroaching roots. Where the light touched, the organic matter didn't just burn it crystallized. The terrifying sound of shattering glass echoed through the jungle as the emerald roots turned into brittle, translucent shards.
But the jungle didn't stop. It learned.
The roots began to shift their frequency, absorbing the silver light. I felt my power being drained, pulled into the soil like water into sand.
"It's a siphon!" I shouted.
I looked at Logan. He was standing paralyzed, his cobalt eye glowing with a sudden, violent intensity. The Kraken inside him recognized this place. It wanted to join the feast.
"Logan! Anchor the ground!" I commanded, slamming my hand onto the Silver Leash.
Through the bond, I shoved a massive surge of my own energy into him, forcing the Kraken's heavy, oceanic pressure to stabilize the soil. The ground turned to slushy, blue-tinted ice, freezing the roots in place.
The Descent
"Enough games," a new voice boomed.
The canopy above us tore open. Mera, the blue-skinned guardian of the deep, descended on a throne of living serpents. Her eel-like hair lashed the air, and her sapphire eyes were fixed on the Silver Leash connecting me to Logan.
"You use a Primal as a dog?" Mera shrieked, her voice a crashing wave. "Blasphemy!"
She slammed her staff down. The world turned upside down as a massive sinkhole opened beneath us.
I felt the weight of the water before I saw it. Cold, salty, and absolute. As we plummeted into the dark, my last sight was of Gabriel's hand reaching for mine, his black fire snuffed out by the rushing tide.
I didn't panic. I grabbed the Silver Leash and pulled Logan toward me, our auras colliding in a spray of silver and cobalt sparks.
« Don't drown, » the White Wolf whispered. « Become the tide. »
As the surface light vanished, the real war began. We weren't just in the jungle anymore. We were in the throat of the Primal Grave.