# Chapter 117: Jungle of Bones
The humidity in the Amazon didn't just make you sweat; it tried to digest you.
Kael wiped a glove across his face, smearing a mixture of grime and condensation. The air tasted like copper and rotten orchids. It was thick, heavy stuff that coated the back of the throat and refused to go down.
"Check in," Kael whispered.
The comms in his helmet were dead. The ion interference from the Spore Tower scrambled anything radio-based. But the SoulNet didn't run on radio waves.
"Left flank clear," Miller's voice echoed in his head, sharp and immediate. Miller was seventy meters west, invisible in the undergrowth.
"Right flank holding. Movement at three o'clock. Small. Scavengers," Lena reported.
Kael looked up. The canopy above wasn't green. It was a bruised, necrotic violet. The Kril'Thar terraforming pods had hit the rainforest hard. The trees were still standing, but they had changed. The bark was white and calcified, hard as bone. The leaves were fleshy, pulsating membranes that dripped a clear, viscous fluid.
This wasn't Earth anymore. It was a stomach.
"Eyes on the target," Kael projected.
Through the gaps in the bone-trees, he saw it. The Spore Tower.
It looked like a smokestack made of wet meat. It rose two hundred meters into the grey sky, a throbbing, organic spire anchored to the ground by thick red cables that plunged into the soil like roots. Or veins. Near the top, sphincters opened and closed rhythmically, puffing out clouds of yellow toxin.
The clouds drifted south. Toward Sao Paulo. Toward the evacuation zones.
"Admin," Kael thought, directing the concept upward, into the white noise of the network. "We have visual. It's pumping hard."
Su Yuan's presence washed over him. It wasn't a voice. It was a sensation of cold pressure at the base of his skull, a camera lens focusing.
Burn it, the command came. The toxin concentration in the southern atmosphere is nearing 400 PPM. If that tower stands for another hour, everyone south of the equator starts coughing up their lungs.
"Understood." Kael unslung his rifle. It was a heavy, modified rail-driver, the coils humming with a high-pitched whine. "Squad. Kinetic rounds. Aim for the base supports. Let's topple this weed."
He stepped forward.
The mud beneath his boot squelched.
It wasn't mud.
Kael looked down. The ground was moving. The soil was composed of millions of tiny, writhing beetles, black carapace against grey sludge. They were eating the fallen leaves, eating the dirt, eating each other.
"Contact!" Lena screamed over the link.
The jungle exploded.
It didn't come from the front. It came from above.
The canopy tore open as heavy shapes dropped from the bone-branches. They hit the ground with wet thuds, shaking the earth.
War-Beasts. But these weren't the scavengers they'd seen on the feeds. These were tailored for the jungle. Low centers of gravity, massive forearms ending in scythe-like claws, and skin that shifted colors to match the grey-violet gloom.
One landed five meters from Kael. It hissed, mandibles clicking. It had no eyes, just a sensory strip running along its snout.
"Open fire!"
Kael didn't wait. He triggered [Thunder-Step].
The world slowed down. The air around his legs ionized, snapping with blue static. He kicked off the ground, the force of the movement shattering the calcified root he'd been standing on.
He was a blur. A streak of ozone in the rotting dark.
He closed the distance before the beast could fully inhale. He jammed the barrel of the rail-driver under the creature's chin and pulled the trigger.
CRACK.
The back of the beast's head vanished in a spray of black fluid.
Kael didn't stop. Momentum was life. He pivoted, the lightning arcing from his heels, and slid under the swing of a second monster. The claw missed him by inches, shearing through a bone-tree as thick as a man's torso.
"Miller! Suppression!"
"I can't!" Miller yelled. "They're swarming! There's too many!"
The jungle was alive with them. Dozens. Hundreds. They poured out of the undergrowth, a tide of clicking chitin and muscle.
Kael rolled to his feet, bringing the rifle up. He fired three rounds, three kills. But for every one that dropped, two more skittered over the corpses.
Warning: Heart Rate 180.
SoulNet Reserve: 88%.
"Admin!" Kael gritted his teeth, ducking another claw. "We're pinned! We need orbital support!"
Negative, Su Yuan's thought was ice cold. The interference cloud is too thick. Targeting scanners can't lock. If the Dawn fires, they risk hitting the squad. You have to clear it manually.
"Manually? There's an army down here!"
Then be an army, Kael.
Kael snarled. He dropped the rifle—it was empty anyway—and drew the vibro-blade from his hip.
"Form up on me!" he roared, his voice amplifying through the external speakers of his suit. "Wedge formation! Drive for the tower!"
He channeled energy into his legs. [Thunder-Step] wasn't just for movement.
He stomped.
A shockwave of electricity rippled out through the wet ground. The swarm of beetles vaporized. The nearest three War-Beasts convulsed as thousand-volt currents rode up their legs and fried their nervous systems.
"Move!"
The squad crashed through the line. They were killing machines, enhanced by the system, fueled by the borrowed will of humanity. But they were small. So small against the endless green-grey dark.
***
The Observation Deck. UNS Dawn.
Su Yuan stood motionless. His eyes were open, but he wasn't seeing the bridge. He was seeing the jungle.
He saw the heat signatures of Kael's team—five burning embers in a sea of cold blue.
"They're surrounded," Victoria said. Her avatar flickered on the console. "Probability of survival drops to 14% if they engage the Matriarch."
"I know," Su Yuan said.
"We have drop pods loaded," Kael's second-in-command, a woman named Sarah who had stayed on the ship due to a broken leg, pleaded. "We can send reinforcements. I can drop a mechanized unit right on top of the tower."
"The AA batteries on the tower are active," Su Yuan said, his voice flat. "Bone-spines capable of Mach 3 interception. A drop pod would be shredded before it cleared the cloud layer. We lose the pod, we lose the soldiers, and the tower stays up."
"So we just watch them die?"
Su Yuan turned to look at her. His face was a mask. The dark circles under his eyes were the only sign that he hadn't slept in three days.
"We watch them fight," Su Yuan said.
Inside the SoulNet, he felt Kael's panic. He felt the exhaustion in the squad's muscles. He could fix it. He could pour energy into them, overload their circuits, turn them into gods for thirty seconds.
But the Genesis Protocol whispered in the back of his mind.
Dependency is weakness. If you carry them, their legs will atrophy. To kill a god, you must first learn to kill a monster alone.
Su Yuan kept the valve closed. He trickled just enough power to keep their hearts from bursting, but no more.
"Push, Kael," Su Yuan whispered to the empty air. "Break."
***
The Amazon Floor.
They reached the clearing at the base of the tower.
The air here was yellow. The toxin lay in low drifts like fog. It burned where it touched exposed skin. Lena was coughing, a wet, hacking sound over the comms. Her filtration unit was failing.
"Charges!" Kael ordered. "Plant them on the veins! Blow the supports!"
Miller and the heavy gunner, Jaxon, ran toward the thick red cables pulsing in the mud.
The ground shook.
It wasn't an explosion. It was a footstep.
From behind the tower, something massive detached itself from the shadows.
It was the Matriarch.
It stood six meters tall at the shoulder. It was built like a Tyrannosaur, but wrong. Its skin was translucent, showing the shifting, pumping organs beneath. Massive sacs of green bioluminescence hung from its throat. Its arms were long, dragging on the ground, ending in bone-clubs that looked like they could smash a tank.
It roared.
The sound wasn't audible. It was a pressure wave. It hit Kael in the chest like a physical hammer, knocking the wind out of him.
"Scatter!" Kael screamed.
The Matriarch charged. For something that size, it moved with terrifying silence.
Jaxon didn't move fast enough. He was fumbling with a satchel charge. He looked up.
The bone-club slammed down.
There was no scream. Just a wet crunch and the sound of metal flattening. Jaxon was gone. Smears of red and metal were driven deep into the mud.
"Jaxon!" Lena shrieked, raising her rifle. She poured fire into the beast's flank.
The rounds sparked off the wet hide. The Matriarch ignored her. It turned its massive head toward Miller.
"No," Kael gasped.
He pushed the system. [Thunder-Step].
He crossed the thirty meters in a heartbeat. The air screamed as he displaced it. He didn't attack. He tackled Miller, shoving the demolitionist out of the way just as the Matriarch's jaws snapped shut on the space where Miller had been standing.
The teeth—serrated obsidian blades—clamped down.
They missed Miller.
They caught Kael.
The pain was white. Absolute.
The jaws didn't bite him in half. They caught his left arm, just below the shoulder.
Kael stared, time freezing. He saw the teeth sink into the armor plating. He heard the ceramic crack. He felt the bone give way.
Then the beast jerked its head back.
Kael was lifted off the ground. He flew.
But his arm didn't.
He hit the mud hard, rolling, mud blinding him. He tried to push himself up. He tried to plant his left hand.
There was nothing there.
He looked.
His left shoulder ended in a ragged stump of meat and wire. Blood pumped out in arterial spurts, bright red against the grey filth.
The Matriarch swallowed the arm. It turned back toward him, blood dripping from its chin.
Kael couldn't breathe. The shock was setting in. His vision tunneled. The sounds of the battle—Miller screaming, Lena firing—sounded like they were coming from underwater.
Arm. My arm.
He tried to stand. His legs were water.
I'm dying.
The blood loss was catastrophic. The suit's medical torniquets were trying to deploy, but the damage was too messy.
"Su..." Kael whimpered. "Help."
***
The UNS Dawn.
"Vital signs critical!" the medic shouted. "He's bleeding out! BP is 60 over 40. He's going into shock."
Sarah grabbed Su Yuan's arm. "Do something! Pull him out! Use the Avatar!"
Su Yuan stared at the screen. He saw Kael in the mud. He saw the beast looming over him, raising a foot to crush him like a roach.
Su Yuan's hand twitched. He wanted to. He wanted to reach down with the hand of God and crush that lizard. It would be easy. It would cost 10% of the reserves, but it would save his friend.
If you save him, he stays a soldier, the Protocol murmured. Soldiers die. Warriors ascend. He needs to break the ceiling.
Su Yuan pulled his arm away from Sarah.
"No," Su Yuan said.
"He's going to die!"
"Then he dies." Su Yuan's voice was terrible. "Or he figures it out."
He projected his voice into Kael's head. He didn't offer comfort. He didn't offer pity.
Kael.
The voice was loud. It cut through the shock.
You are leaking. You are dying. Is this where it ends? In the mud?
***
The Jungle.
Kael heard the voice. It made him angry.
He was dying, and the Administrator was giving him a lecture?
The Matriarch raised its foot. The shadow fell over him.
I gave you the fire, Su Yuan's voice continued. Stop trying to run. You aren't lightning anymore. You're the storm.
The anger flared. It burned hotter than the pain.
Kael looked at his stump. The blood was life. It was leaving him.
He didn't want to die.
He grabbed the SoulNet connection. He didn't ask for permission. He didn't request a download. He took it.
He grabbed the raw energy flowing through the invisible cables of the world. He pulled it into his body.
The system screamed warnings.
[ALERT: ENERGY SURGE DETECTED]
[PATHWAYS OVERLOADING]
[TIER 2 LIMIT EXCEEDED]
"Shut up," Kael hissed.
He didn't channel the energy into his legs. He channeled it into the wound.
He channeled it into the blood itself.
Heat. Pressure. Plasma.
"Burn," Kael screamed.
A blinding white light erupted from his left shoulder.
The stump didn't just cauterize. It ignited. The blood boiling out of him turned into superheated plasma. The agony was beyond comprehension—it felt like dipping his soul into a star—but the bleeding stopped.
The wound sealed instantly, capped by a roaring flare of white fire.
The Matriarch stomped down.
Kael rolled right.
He stood up. He was swaying, pale as death, but he was standing. And from his missing arm, a jet of white plasma sputtered and hissed, shaped like a blade. A phantom limb made of pure ruin.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: PLASMA OVERLOAD (TIER 3)]
[EFFECT: CONVERTS BIOLOGICAL MASS TO PURE ENERGY.]
The Matriarch roared, confused. The prey should be dead.
Kael didn't scream. He didn't have the breath.
He walked forward.
The beast lunged, leading with its head, jaws wide to finish the job.
Kael didn't dodge.
He stepped into the bite.
He ducked under the snout and thrust his left side upward. He drove the stump—the roaring jet of plasma—straight up into the soft tissue under the creature's jaw.
The sound was like a welder striking an arc inside a wet cave.
FSSSSSHHHHT.
The plasma jet punched through the throat, through the palate, through the brainpan.
The Matriarch stiffened. Its eyes boiled in their sockets. Smoke poured out of its ears.
Kael pushed harder. The energy arc extended, slicing upward, cleaving the top of the beast's skull in two.
The massive creature went limp. It toppled sideways, hitting the mud with the weight of a falling building.
Kael stood there. The plasma jet sputtered and died, leaving only the smell of cooked meat and ozone.
He turned to the tower.
Miller was staring at him, charge in hand, mouth open.
"Plant it," Kael rasped. His voice was a wreck. "Plant the damn bomb."
Miller scrambled. He slapped the charges on the red veins. "Fire in the hole!"
They dove behind the carcass of the Matriarch.
The explosion broke the spine of the tower. The organic supports snapped. The massive structure groaned—a sound like a dying whale—and tilted. It fell slowly at first, then crashed through the bone-trees, tearing a hole in the canopy.
The yellow smoke began to dissipate, carried away by the wind.
Kael sat in the mud, leaning against the dead monster. He looked at his left shoulder. It was a blackened, fused mess of scar tissue and melted armor.
He laughed. It was a weak, wheezing sound.
"Hey, Admin," he whispered.
***
The UNS Dawn.
Su Yuan slumped back in the command chair. The tension cut from his strings. His hands were shaking.
"Target destroyed," Victoria reported. "Atmospheric toxicity dropping. Sector secured."
Sarah was staring at the screen. "He did it. He actually did it."
She looked at Su Yuan. There was fear in her eyes now. "You knew. You knew he could do that."
"I hoped," Su Yuan said.
He opened a channel.
"Kael."
"Yeah, boss?" Kael's voice was faint.
"Medivac is inbound. ETA three minutes."
"Took you long enough."
"Cost," Su Yuan said. He looked at the readout of Kael's soul signature. It was scarred, jagged, but burning brighter than before. "What did it cost?"
"An arm," Kael muttered. "And... something else."
"What else?"
"I don't feel scared anymore," Kael said. "I just feel... hot."
Su Yuan closed the channel.
He stood up and walked to the viewport. The Earth hung below them, blue and white and terrified.
"One tower down," Su Yuan said to the reflection in the glass. "Three thousand to go."
The Genesis Protocol chuckled in the dark corners of his mind.
He is sharp now. You have forged a blade.
"At the cost of the man," Su Yuan thought back.
War eats men, Administrator. It spits out weapons. You should know. You are the biggest weapon of them all.
Su Yuan touched the cold glass.
"Get me the next target."
..........................
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