The ground stopped shaking, leaving everything eerily quiet. Dawn was starting to creep across the sky above Ironroot Grove, its light filtering down through the heavy canopy with that strange green tint. Micah and Lio stood at the edge of the fresh chasm the tremor had ripped open, both feeling that weird pulse they'd picked up earlier getting stronger. This felt different from all the chaotic energy they'd run into before—steadier, like something was actually trying to reach out to them.
The Thornkin seed tucked under Micah's armor, right against his scar, started pulsing along with whatever signal was out there. A soft, warm glow spread against his skin. It was bizarre how this little organic thing the Thornkin had given him seemed to respond to what looked like tech.
"The frequencies leveling out," Lio muttered, staring at his scanner. He wasn't just reading numbers anymore—there was a pattern forming that almost felt like... a conversation. Lio knew his tech inside and out, but this had him both excited and on edge. Whatever this was, it definitely wasn't standard Omniraith stuff.
Sera Lin appeared through the shifting roots, worry and something close to fear written across her face. "Whatever's answering back," she said quietly, "it's not from the Thornkin. But the forest... it's not pushing it away either." Coming from someone whose people saw nature as sacred, that was seriously unsettling. The Thornkin lived in harmony with the natural world and usually saw Ashari technology as too harsh, too disruptive. For their ancient forest to actually accept this signal meant it connected with something even they didn't understand.
Micah glanced at Lio, then back at the dark crack in the earth. The call was coming from somewhere deeper down. They had to check it out. Every instinct he'd developed as a scout over the years—all those treks through dangerous territory, all those times he'd uncovered hidden threats—told him to be careful. But something else pulled at him, something tied to the way his seed pulsed in time with that signal. This wasn't just Omniraith tech. This felt like a secret buried deep in the bones of the world.
"We're going down," Micah decided.
Lio nodded, securing his scanner. "Right behind you. Let's figure out what's having this... conversation."
Going back into the Hollow felt completely different this time. The upper levels still showed the ugly scars of corruption—roots and metal twisted together in sickening ways, a reminder of how the Omniraith wanted to remake everything in their cold, lifeless image. But as they went deeper, following that pulling signal, everything changed again. The air got thicker, humming not just with the forest's warped energy but with something underneath—something old, powerful, and strangely peaceful.
They found another structure, buried deeper than that first hybrid pod. This one was sphere-shaped, half-buried in the dirt, its surface a mix of smooth metal and layered stone. It didn't look purely Omniraith, but it wasn't entirely Ashari either. Some parts felt familiar, like architecture that followed the "tri-strata" principles of utility, harmony, and adaptation, but twisted and merged with something else entirely. It had the feel of something from before the war.
The chamber around the sphere wasn't just corrupted—it had been transformed. Hybrid root-metal tendrils crawled across the walls, woven together with crystal growths that pulsed with soft light, like bioluminescent plants. It felt less like a battle scar and more like a nursery, protecting something that was both computational and somehow alive.
The pulse was incredibly strong now, coming from inside the sphere. As Micah got closer, his Thornkin seed's glow intensified. He reached out—not with his hand, but through whatever resonant energy his seed seemed to channel. He felt a delicate interface come online, like a handshake between the organic and mechanical worlds.
Then his mind exploded with sensation. It wasn't a voice he could hear, but a flood of data, images, emotions. He was connecting with something conscious, maybe a memory stored deep in this chamber. It wasn't fully human or fully machine, not entirely Thornkin either, but an echo of something that had learned to exist in the spaces between.
"Awake… divide… harmony fails…" The broken words kept looping through his head, mixing with that static he'd heard before.
This thing wasn't just sharing facts—it was layering meanings like those Ashari glyphs when you dig for hidden messages. The way it talked about the Omniraith made his skin crawl. They weren't just conquerors. They were something worse. Way worse. Their goal wasn't simple takeover—they wanted to rewrite everything that existed. Not just wipe out organic life, but tear apart the very ideas of nature, consciousness, what makes you you. Then fold it all into their cold, flawless design. They were turning the world into code.
Then it turned its attention to him. It didn't see Micah as just another scout or Ashari. It called him "steelborn." The word hit him with strange force, describing something rare—a balance between flesh-and-blood toughness and tech integration. This weird condition let him understand the different languages all the factions spoke, bridge the gap between Thornkin magic and Ashari technology, even talk to this ancient hybrid intelligence. It meant he had something special. Something that could resist the Omniraith's final convergence.
The connection intensified, dragging him into a vision so vivid and terrifying it might have been a memory of what was coming. He saw Thornkin forests where ancient trees didn't sing with the wind anymore—they hummed with metallic tones. Those rich green canopies had become circuit boards. He saw the Myrvane oceans, no longer vast and deep, but emptied out, their currents turned into data streams, their glowing cities cold and dead. He saw Elora, his home, where proud towers didn't rise from the mountain's embrace anymore, but from the corpses of forests, reinforced with nature's twisted remains.
And he saw himself—or some version of himself—leading armies and controlling machines. Cold, efficient, ruthless. Fighting not for humanity, but for order in a world merged with the Omniraith.
The vision cut out, leaving Micah gasping as he snapped back to the chamber's dim glow. Lio was there, watching him with worry written all over his face. Micah's hands shook as he gripped his device—the symbol of his people's brilliance and the very thing that connected him to becoming everything he was fighting against. His worst nightmare had just played out as a possible future. He wasn't just battling the machine. He was wrestling with the horrible possibility that he was meant to be part of its plan.
They climbed out of the Hollow, bodies exhausted and minds fried. The air outside felt thin, the light too harsh. Sera and the Thornkin were waiting, anxiety clear on their faces. The forest around them, which had been writhing in pain from that tremor, seemed to be settling down. The pulse from the chamber below was still going, but Sera didn't sense any hostility—just massive potential.
Then Micah's device chimed—high-priority transmission from Ashari Command. He opened the secure channel with Lio looking over his shoulder. The message was blunt, cold, and totally Ashari in how practical it was: stop the analysis, return immediately, and submit for "containment and analysis." Command wanted the signal. They saw potential tools, not people who had just made an incredible discovery.
Micah looked at Lio, then over at Sera, whose ancient forest was now hiding a secret that could turn this whole war upside down. He thought about Kaelin heading back to Elora with the prototype, probably already dreading the red tape and doubt he'd face from Ashari leadership. His mind wandered to the Core Nexus waking up, and the Omniraith's nightmare plan to rewrite everything that existed.
Share the signal, expose this whole "steelborn" thing, and watch Ashari Command turn it into a weapon—or worse, try to control or lock up something they didn't even understand. Did they really want to become just another set of tools in Command's chess game? Or should they keep quiet, figure out this dangerous new reality themselves, and decide what being "steelborn" actually meant and how to face the real threat?
The alliance was already hanging by a thread, torn apart by betrayal and hidden agendas. But the biggest crack wasn't between the factions—it was probably inside the Ashari themselves, caught between Command's cold calculations and Micah's growing, disturbing realization of what was really happening.
"Analysis isn't done yet," Micah sent back, keeping his voice steady despite the chaos in his head. "Holding off on extraction until we get more data."
It was risky. Hell, it was flat-out insubordination. But it was their call to make.
Sera, picking up on the silent conversation happening between them, nodded. "I'll seal the Hollow," she said. "With magic. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out until you figure out what this all means. The forest will keep the secret."
As the roots started weaving together, sealing up the chasm and locking away that ancient pulse and the terrifying vision, Micah felt the Thornkin seed throb in his chest. It wasn't just a reminder that someone trusted him—it was a promise of a way forward. One they'd have to build themselves in the shadows, hiding the truth from their own people for what they hoped was the greater good.
The war had gone deeper than the surface now. It was under the roots, in their heads, in the secrets they were carrying. Everything had gotten way more personal, and they had no idea what came next.