The Nebula of Decay lived up to its name.
It was a soup of radioactive green gas, filled with the drifting skeletons of dead planets. There were no stars here to provide light—only the flickering ionizing radiation of cosmic dust.
Vitalis moved slowly through the fog, its massive fins retracted to avoid snagging on debris.
"Radiation levels are critical," The Queen reported, her holographic avatar flickering slightly due to the interference. "This entire sector is a tumour. Nothing should be alive here."
"And yet," Zin adjusted his glasses, looking at the radar. "There is a heartbeat."
In the center of the toxic cloud, they found the Third Patient.
Terminus.
It was a Star-Entity of jagged, terrifying beauty. It wasn't smooth like the Gemini Twins or necrotic like the dead god.
It was Patchwork.
Half of the Star was covered in sleek, metallic cities—giant spikes of chrome piercing the skin.
The other half was a wild, overgrown jungle of massive fungi and writhing flesh-towers.
And right down the middle—the Equator—was a burning line of fire. Explosions rippled constantly along the border.
"It's shooting at... itself?" Gorge asked, squinting at the screen.
On the visual feed, a missile battery from the Metal-North fired a barrage into the Jungle-South.
In response, the Jungle-South released a swarm of acid-wasps that melted a Metal city.
The Star-Entity itself shuddered with every impact. It wasn't moving forward. It was twitching, spinning erratically in the void.
"Scan the neural activity," Zin ordered.
"I can't isolates a single signal," Elara said, clutching her head in pain. "It's too loud. There are two voices screaming."
She projected the audio feed.
Static.
Voice A (Cold, Robotic): "Purge the Biologicals! Logic is absolute! Protect the Cortex!"
Voice B (Wild, Guttural): "Consume the Machines! Return to the Flesh! Feed the Gut!"
The voices overlapped, screaming orders that contradicted each other.
Turn Left. Turn Right. Sleep. Wake. Kill. Heal.
"My diagnosis is confirmed," Zin said, staring at the chaotic world. "Dissociative Identity Disorder. The host has developed two distinct personalities—two civilizations—fighting for control of the body."
"A Civil War," The Queen said. "The North Hemisphere (The Cortex) versus the South Hemisphere (The Viscera)."
"And the Host is stuck in the middle," Zin added. "Driving it insane."
Suddenly, a red alarm blared.
"They saw us!" Gorge yelled.
From the Metal-North, a massive railgun turret swiveled toward Vitalis.
From the Jungle-South, a giant bio-tentacle reached out to grab them.
Both sides saw Vitalis as an enemy ally of the other side.
"Evasive maneuvers!" Zin shouted.
Vitalis rolled. The railgun slug missed by kilometers, but the shockwave rattled the bridge. The bio-tentacle slapped against the void shield, leaving a smear of corrosive slime.
"We can't fight both sides!" Elara cried. "And we can't negotiate! They aren't listening!"
"If we destroy the weapons, we hurt the Host," Zin analyzed rapidly. "We need to treat the root cause."
He looked at the tactical map of Terminus.
"Where is the Third Map Piece located?"
The Queen overlaid the coordinate data.
The pulsing red dot wasn't in the North or the South.
It was deep inside the planet, exactly in the center of the Core.
"Of course," Zin sighed. "The Heart. The only neutral ground left."
"How do we get there?" Gorge asked. "If we land in the North, the machines kill us. If we land in the South, the monsters eat us."
"We land on the front line," Zin pointed to the equator. "The Scar. The war zone."
He turned to the Queen.
"Prepare the drop pod. We are going to perform an intervention."
"Zin," Elara grabbed his arm. "You can't cure a civil war with a scalpel. This is ideology. They hate each other."
Zin loaded a fresh cartridge into his Starlight Scalpel.
"Ideology is just a glitch in the software, Elara. I'm not going down there to debate them."
He walked to the airlock, his coat flapping.
"I'm going down there to remind them that if they keep fighting, the body dies. And if the body dies... nobody wins."
[Location: Terminus Surface - The Scar (Equator)]
The drop pod slammed into the mud, throwing up a cloud of ash and steam.
Zin, Elara, Gorge, and a squad of elite Phage-Guards kicked the door open.
They weren't in a city. They were in no-man's-land.
To their left, a wall of black steel rose into the clouds—The Cortex Fortress.
To their right, a wall of thorny vines and breathing meat stretched to the horizon—The Viscera Jungle.
And in the middle, the ground was a graveyard of broken robots and dead beasts.
"Incoming!" Gorge roared.
From the Steel Wall, a squad of Cyber-Knights marched out. They were humans who had replaced 90% of their bodies with machinery.
From the Jungle Wall, a pack of Beast-Shamans emerged. They were humans who had mutated themselves into hulking monstrosities of claw and fur.
They charged. Not at each other.
At the intruders.
"Hold fire!" Zin ordered his squad.
He stepped forward, unarmed, into the middle of the kill zone.
He activated his amplifier.
"I am Dr. Zin of Vitalis!" his voice boomed over the battlefield. "And I am declaring a medical emergency!"
The Cyber-Knights stopped, their targeting lasers locking on his head.
The Beast-Shamans paused, growling, saliva dripping from their jaws.
A Cyber-General stepped forward. "State your purpose, Alien. Are you Tech or Flesh?"
A Beast-Chieftain roared from the other side. "Do you serve the Metal or the Blood?"
Zin looked at both of them. He looked at the ruined world around them.
He adjusted his glasses.
"I am the man who is going to turn off your life support if you don't shut up and listen."