The world inside the mask was a private, rhythmic hell. Every inhalation was a struggle against the charcoal filters, a forced labor that filled Midarion's lungs with the dry, recycled taste of processed air. Beneath the heavy leather of the combination suit, his skin was slick with sweat, yet the outside temperature had begun to plummet as the carriage ascended into the higher elevations of Hydros.
Midarion closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the vibrating lead-lined wall of the carriage. He didn't need sight. His five senses, heightened by the experiments of his past and the hum of his Kosmo, were currently screaming.
Through the thick floorboards, he could feel the road change. The crunch of gravel had given way to a soft, unnerving silence—as if they were driving over a bed of fine sand. But it wasn't sand. It was the dust of the north.
Then, the sound hit him.
It wasn't a loud noise, but a frequency—a high-pitched, crystalline shriek that vibrated through the marrow of his bones. It was the sound of molecular friction, the screeching energy he had felt from the grass in Viktor's lab, but amplified ten-thousand-fold. It was the sound of a landscape petrifying in real-time.
"We're here," Rondo's voice crackled through the short-range communication runes embedded in their collars. It was cold, devoid of the fear that was beginning to radiate from the other recruits.
The carriage groaned to a halt. The latch was thrown, and the doors swung open.
Midarion stepped out, and for a moment, his knees nearly buckled. His enhanced vision pierced through the morning mist, and what he saw was a nightmare rendered in the most precious of metals.
Oakhaven had once been a village of timber and thatch. Now, it was a museum of golden horrors. The trees lining the path were frozen, their leaves turned into razor-sharp flakes of gold that chimed like a million tiny bells in the wind. The mud of the road had solidified into a shimmering, uneven crust.
"Form up," Rondo commanded, stepping onto the golden soil. He clutched the metal sample case to his chest. "Stay in the center of the path. Do not brush against the foliage. If you tear your suit on a golden leaf, you are as good as dead."
Reikika stepped out behind Midarion. He could feel the cold radiating from her—not just the chill of the morning, but the icy withdrawal of her spirit. She was staring at a figure by the village well.
It was a woman. She was mid-stride, her body twisted as if she had been trying to run. Her skin was a polished, mirror-like gold, her features frozen in a mask of absolute terror. In her arms, she held a bundle—a child, also turned to metal, the fine details of its swaddling clothes preserved in perfect, terrifying detail.
"Don't look at them," Midarion whispered through the comms, his voice steadying Reikika's shaking breath. "Focus on the ground. Focus on me."
"I can... I can hear them," Reikika murmured. Her violet eyes were wide behind the glass of her mask. "The air... it sounds like it's breaking."
She wasn't wrong. To Midarion, the sound was deafening. The air wasn't just air anymore; it was thick with the "Midas" particles, a microscopic gold dust that hummed with a malevolent energy.
The team of ten moved deeper into the village. Lior was walking point with a long spear, using the butt of the weapon to test the stability of the golden crust beneath their feet. Kaelen was directly behind him, his breathing so loud in the comms that it was distracting.
"Check the houses," Rondo ordered. "I need indoor atmospheric readings. Midarion, Reikika, Lior—you're with me. The rest of you, establish a perimeter at the square. Do not, under any circumstances, engage with any 'survivors' if you find them. Call it out immediately."
They approached the largest structure—the village tavern. The door was hanging off its hinges, turned into a heavy, gilded slab that had cracked the stone floor when it fell.
Midarion sniffed. The charcoal filters were supposed to block everything, but his nose caught a scent that defied the lead and silver mesh. It was a cloying, heavy sweetness—like honey mixed with the smell of a hot forge.
"Wait," Midarion said, holding up a hand.
Rondo stopped instantly. "What is it?"
"Something is moving," Midarion whispered. He tilted his head, his ears filtering out the wind and the chime of the golden trees.
Deep inside the tavern, there was a sound. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
It was the sound of metal dragging on stone.
"There are no survivors in Oakhaven, Midarion," Rondo said, though he gripped his case tighter. "The level of concentration here is too high. The transition would have been instantaneous for anyone caught outside."
"I didn't say it was a survivor," Midarion replied.
He reached into his Kosmo. The silver threads didn't emerge from his skin—he didn't want to risk a puncture in his suit—but he let the energy coil around his fingers like a second set of nerves. He felt the vibration of the tavern floor. It wasn't one mover. It was three.
Lior stepped forward, his spear leveled at the dark doorway. "Should we go in?"
"We have to," Rondo said. "The core samples I need are in the cellar. It's the lowest point in the village; the particles settle there."
They entered the tavern. The interior was a tomb of wealth. Tables were overturned, the wood turned to gold, the spilled ale on the floor frozen into amber-colored metal. Behind the bar, the barkeep sat on a stool, his head resting on his chest, a golden statue of a man who had simply given up.
Scritch.
The sound came from the shadows of the kitchen.
A figure emerged, and the recruits let out a collective, choked gasp.
It was a man, or it had been. His skin was a dull, unpolished bronze color, indicating he hadn't fully turned to gold yet. But he wasn't human. His jaw had been torn wide, the skin stretching like molten wax, and his fingers had elongated into jagged, metallic talons. He moved with a jerky, spasmodic twitch, his joints making a sickening click-clack sound with every step.
"The Frenzy," Rondo whispered, his voice losing its clinical edge for the first time. "He's still in the transition. The pain... it burns out the mind before the body solidifies."
The creature's golden eyes—void of pupils—fixed on them. It let out a sound that wasn't a scream, but a rasping, metallic shriek that tore through the team's comms.
"Get back!" Midarion roared.
The creature lunged. It didn't run; it launched itself with the force of a spring-loaded trap. Lior thrust his spear, but the creature swiped it aside with a claw that left deep gouges in the iron wood.
"Reikika, now!" Midarion shouted.
Reikika moved. Despite her emotional turmoil, her combat instincts were a part of her soul. She didn't draw her blade—the risk of a golden blood-splatter was too high. Instead, she channeled her power through the air. A wave of frost erupted from her palms, slamming into the creature.
The cold reacted violently with the creature's heated, metallic skin. The gold cracked. The creature shrieked again as its arm shattered like glass, shards of bronze-flesh flying across the room.
"Do not let the shards touch you!" Rondo screamed, ducking behind a gilded table.
Midarion saw a shard flying directly toward Kaelen, who had frozen in terror near the door.
With a thought, Midarion's silver threads lashed out. They didn't come from his hands, but from the Kosmo energy he had infused into his boots. He kicked the air, a whip of silver energy catching the shard mid-flight and pulverizing it into harmless dust.
"Out! Get out now!" Midarion commanded.
They scrambled back into the village square, but the shriek had triggered a chain reaction. All around Oakhaven, the "statues" were beginning to twitch.
Midarion's ears were ringing. He could hear hundreds of them—the sound of metal joints grinding against one another as the infected rose from their golden slumber. The "Gilded Rasp" was no longer just a cough; it was the sound of a hundred monsters drawing breath.
"The perimeter is collapsing!" one of the recruits, Tilda, screamed over the comms.
From the golden houses, the infected began to pour out. Some were fully turned, moving like heavy, indestructible golems. Others were like the man in the tavern—half-flesh, half-metal, driven by a mindless, agonizing hunger to spread the gold.
"The carriage!" Rondo shouted, pointing toward the path. "We have the air samples, we have the soil! We don't need the cellar! Abandon the mission, retreat!"
But the way back was already blocked.
A massive figure stood between them and the carriage. It was the village blacksmith, a man who had been huge in life and was now a colossus of solid gold. He held a golden hammer that looked like it weighed five hundred pounds, and his eyes glowed with a dull, internal heat.
Midarion stepped to the front, his threads beginning to glow with a fierce, silver light. He could feel the particles in the air trying to coat his suit, trying to find a way in. He could hear the blacksmith's heart—a heavy, metallic thump-thump that sounded like a drum in a cathedral.
"Stay behind me," Midarion said, his voice dropping into a register of absolute authority. "Reikika, Lior—protect Rondo. I'll open the path."
"Midarion, your suit!" Reikika cried out.
He didn't listen. He couldn't. His senses were entirely focused on the golden giant in front of him. He could see the stress points in the blacksmith's golden skin—the microscopic fractures where the transition hadn't been perfect.
As the golden army closed in from the shadows of the gilded trees, Midarion realized that Aelyss was right. This was where they would learn what it meant to lose.
But as he looked at the terrified faces of the recruits behind him, his jaw tightened.
He wasn't going to lose anyone today. Not if he had to tear the very gold from the earth to stop them.