Darkness wasn't silent anymore.
Moyan swam through a soup of fractured impressions—the metallic tang of blood in his sinuses, the Rootheart's panicked buzzing along his nervous system, the aftertaste of the Oracle's data storm like burnt copper on his tongue. His eyelids fluttered open to a world rendered in static.
Jian Luo's face resolved first, his usual sneer replaced by something uncomfortably close to concern. "Welcome back to the land of the living, abyss-rat." His sonic dagger hovered near Moyan's temple, its resonance grooves emitting a low-frequency pulse that kept the visual snow at bay. "Try not to piss yourself. Your mother's already mad enough."
Haiyu stood silhouetted against the wreckage of Sky's Grave, her posture rigid. Behind her, the surviving rebels argued in sharp gestures—half pointing toward the jungle, half toward Moyan. Yanmei's spine-bow was drawn, though whether aimed at threats outside or within, Moyan couldn't tell.
The Rootheart's voice slithered through his pain:
"They want to abandon you. Smart mice."
---
Moyan's first attempt to stand sent him crashing back onto the moss. His gravity knife lay three feet away, its edge still warping the air with residual energy. The transponder's blast had etched fractal patterns into the metal—serpentine circuits that hadn't been there before.
Jian Luo followed his gaze. "Yeah, that's new." He flipped the dagger, offering its hilt to Moyan. "Temporary trade. Your little light show scrambled my resonance grooves anyway."
The exchange shouldn't have mattered. But as Moyan's fingers closed around the sonic dagger, he felt the faintest vibration from its core—a frequency that made his teeth ache in a way the weapon never had before.
"Oh," the Rootheart murmured. "He's been compromised too."
Jian Luo either didn't notice or chose to ignore Moyan's sharp look. "Oracle's friends left presents." He jerked his chin toward the tree line. "Whole damn jungle's singing now."
It was true. The usual cacophony of insects and rustling leaves had taken on a rhythmic quality—pulses spaced exactly 3.7 seconds apart. A pattern. A signal.
Haiyu's hands moved in quick signs: "Sect coming. With harvesters."
---
The argument ended when Little Lian started screaming.
She'd been quiet since the data storm, curled in on herself near the gravity well. Now she thrashed against the roots binding her wounds, her remaining human eye rolling wildly. The vines growing from her arms had sprouted new nodules—tiny, blinking sensors identical to the Oracle's.
"Cut them off!" Yanmei nocked an arrow.
Moyan moved first. The sonic dagger's altered frequency sliced through the corrupted vines with surprising ease, their severed ends writhing like beheaded snakes. But the damage was done. Lian's skin had begun translucencing, revealing pulsing data streams beneath.
Her mouth opened on a burst of static:
"Initializing retrieval protocol. Coordinates locked."
Then her body collapsed inward, bones and flesh dissolving into a swarm of glowing particles that streaked eastward—toward the Celestial Vine Sect's heartland.
Jian Luo wiped his face. "Well. That's horrifying."
Haiyu's signs were grim: "They're mapping us."
---
The decision made itself.
Rebel supplies vanished into packs. Gravity well components were hastily disassembled. Through it all, the jungle's artificial pulse grew louder, more insistent.
Yanmei cornered Moyan as he retrieved his knife. "Your father knew this would happen." She pressed a bone charm into his palm—an intricate carving of a serpent eating its own tail. "He left these scattered across the abyss. We never understood why."
The Rootheart hissed as Moyan touched the charm. "A key. For the prison's back door."
Jian Luo shouldered his pack. "If we're running, we need—"
A new sound cut him off. Not the jungle's artificial pulse, not the rebels' movements. This was deeper. Older.
The earth itself trembling.
Haiyu's hands shaped the word first: "Behemoth."
Somewhere east, between them and the Celestial Vine Sect, one of Verdant Abyss's primordial guardians had awakened.