The Savage Garden didn't smell like a park. It smelled like a mouth.
The air inside the gate was a physical weight, thick, hot, and wet, pressing against Ren's skin like a steamed towel wrapped too tight. The humidity was absolute. It carried the cloying scent of orchid perfume mixed with the heavy, copper tang of old blood and rotting vegetation.
Ren stepped over a root as thick as a man's waist, his boots sinking into mud that felt disturbingly like flesh. He looked up. The sky was gone. The familiar blue of the Veridian atmosphere had been choked out by a canopy of leaves so dense they formed a solid ceiling three hundred feet above.
Whatever sunlight filtered through was green and sickly, diffusing into a twilight gloom.
"Don't touch the flowers," Kaira whispered.
She was walking in a low crouch, her center of gravity dropped, her fists glowing faintly with the orange heat of her internal engines. Her eyes scanned the underbrush with the intensity of a radar sweep.
"Why?" Ren asked, eyeing a beautiful, trumpet-shaped blossom the size of a bathtub hanging from a vine to his left. Its petals were a vibrant, pulsing magenta.
"Because that one is a Corpse Lily," Kaira said, pointing a chitin-plated finger. "It dissolves organic matter in about three minutes. And that one over there? That's a Titan Arum. And that pretty red vine? That's a Strangler Fig that has learned how to move fast."
As if on cue, the red vine twitched, sensing the vibration of Ren's boot on the mud. It uncurled slowly, revealing thorns like serrated steak knives along its length. It reached out blindly, searching for heat.
Ren stepped closer to Kaira, his shoulder brushing against her armored arm. "Noted. Do not pet the salad."
They moved deeper. The architecture of the Royal Park was still visible, but it had been consumed. Marble statues of ancient queens were draped in moss, looking like weeping ghosts. Stone benches were crushed under the weight of ferns that grew as fast as bamboo.
The silence here was wrong. In the city, silence meant emptiness. Here, silence meant something was holding its breath.
Ren felt a prickling at the base of his skull. The Aether in his blood was humming, but it wasn't the violent burn of the transformation. It was a sensory input. His Axolotl DNA was reacting to the moisture in the air, picking up vibrations that his human ears couldn't hear.
Thump. Thump. Scratch.
"Stop," Ren hissed.
Kaira froze instantly. "What?"
"Something is moving," Ren whispered. "To the left. High up. And… behind us."
Kaira squinted into the gloom. "I don't see anything. My thermal vision is useless here; the plants are giving off too much heat."
Click.
It was a sharp, rhythmic sound. Like a metronome made of bone.
Click-click.
"There," Ren pointed toward a dense cluster of prehistoric ferns near a ruined gazebo. "The shadows. They're shifting."
Kaira raised her fists. The vents in her elbows hissed, releasing a puff of steam. "Come out! I don't have all day!"
SWISH.
A blur of motion tore through the underbrush. It was fast—impossibly fast. It wasn't running; it was flowing through the obstacles like water through a sieve.
Kaira reacted on instinct. She spun, throwing a jab at the motion.
"Impact!"
A blast of compressed air shredded the ferns, turning them into green confetti. Wood splintered, and leaves evaporated into mist.
But there was nothing there.
"Missed?" Kaira stared at her fist, genuinely confused. "I never miss."
Hiss.
From behind them.
Ren spun around, his hands coming up in a defensive posture.
Perched on a low branch of a banyan tree, staring down at them with intelligent, slit-pupiled reptilian eyes, was a nightmare.
It stood about five feet tall, covered in sleek, iridescent feathers that shifted from emerald green to midnight blue in the low light. Its legs were powerful, bunched with explosive fast-twitch muscle, ending in feet with a terrifying, sickle-shaped claw raised off the bark.
It wore the tattered, stretched remains of a yellow athletic jersey. The number "01" was barely visible on the chest through the feathers.
"Velociraptor," Ren breathed, the biology textbooks in his head flashing open. "No… Wild-Blooded. That's the University Track Team."
The Raptor tilted its head. It didn't roar. It screeched—a high-pitched, piercing sound that sounded exactly like a coach's whistle being blown through a crushed throat.
SCREEE!
Suddenly, the jungle exploded.
Three more Raptors burst from the camouflage of the leaves. They didn't attack directly. They flanked. They moved in a synchronized triangle formation, cutting off every exit route.
"Back to back!" Kaira yelled.
Ren slammed his back against hers. They stood in the small clearing, surrounded by the shifting shadows.
The Raptors moved in a blur. They circled the duo, running so fast they looked like streaks of neon paint. They were creating a vortex of wind that whipped Ren's hair across his face.
"I can't lock on!" Kaira growled. She punched the air to her right, sending a shockwave blasting into the trees, but the Raptor simply hopped over the blast, using the verticality of the jungle to bounce off a tree trunk and change direction.
"They're too fast for heavy artillery," Ren realized. His black eyes darted back and forth, tracking the movement. The Axolotl DNA gave him enhanced motion sensitivity. He could see them, but his human muscles were too slow to react. "They're testing us. Hit-and-run tactics. They want to bleed us out."
One Raptor darted in, slashing at Kaira's leg.
Schluk.
The talons tore through her leather greaves as if they were wet paper, drawing a line of bright red blood. Kaira cursed and swung a backhand, but the Raptor was already gone, vanishing back into the circle.
"Cowards!" Kaira roared. "Stand still and let me hit you!"
"They won't," Ren said, his mind racing. "They know you're dangerous. They're going to whittle us down. We need an AOE. Area of Effect!"
"I'm going to shatter their legs!" Kaira screamed. She slammed her armored fists together, the sparks flying like welding torches. "Mantis Style: SHOTGUN BLAST!"
She punched the ground.
BOOM.
A radial shockwave erupted from her position. The earth buckled. A ring of compressed air and dirt blasted outward in a 360-degree circle, stripping the bark off the trees.
It worked, partially.
The shockwave caught two of the Raptors mid-stride. The physics of the blast overcame their agility. They were blown backward, tumbling through the air and slamming into the thick trunks of the oak trees with a sickening crunch.
"Got 'em!" Kaira grinned, sweat dripping down her nose.
But the other two didn't stop. They used the chaos.
While Kaira was recovering from the recoil, her arms venting massive amounts of steam, the Leader (Number 01) launched itself from a branch directly above Ren.
It was a tactical ambush. They had sacrificed the pawns to get the King.
Ren looked up. He saw the sickle claw descending toward his throat. Time seemed to slow down. He could see the serrations on the claw. He could smell the musk of the beast.
He didn't have time to dodge. He didn't have armor.
He did the only thing he knew how to do. He offered a sacrifice.
Ren raised his left arm.
CHUNCH.
The sickle claw drove through Ren's forearm. It pierced the skin, shattered the radius and ulna, and pinned his arm to his own chest. The tip of the claw buried itself an inch into his sternum.
Ren screamed. It was a raw, white sound.
But he didn't panic. He activated [Bone Lock].
"Not… this… time!" Ren gritted out through blood-stained teeth.
His muscles clamped down on the claw. The shattered bone in his arm didn't just heal; it grew around the Raptor's foot. The calcium calcified instantly, fusing Ren's skeleton to the Raptor's limb.
"Got you!" Ren yelled.
The Raptor screeched, thrashing. It tried to pull back, to use its speed to escape, but it was anchored to the boy who refused to break.
"Kaira! Hit it!" Ren shouted, his knees buckling under the weight of the struggling beast.
Kaira spun around. She saw the nightmare. Ren was grappling the beast, his own arm ruined, blood pouring down his chest.
She cocked her fist. The orange light flared.
But she hesitated.
Ren was holding the Raptor tight against his chest. If she used an Impact Dial, the shockwave would obliterate the Raptor... and it would liquefy Ren's chest cavity. Even he couldn't survive having his heart vaporized.
"I can't!" she yelled, her voice cracking. "You're too close! I'll kill you!"
"I'll heal!" Ren screamed back, staring into the terrifying, avian eyes of the Raptor. "DO IT! DO IT NOW!"
The other surviving Raptor was recovering. It screeched, preparing to pounce on Kaira's exposed back.
"DO IT, KAIRA!"
Kaira gritted her teeth. Tears of frustration pricked her eyes. She stepped forward, aiming her fist, trying to find an angle that wouldn't end her partner.
Suddenly, the bushes to their right exploded.
It wasn't a Raptor. It wasn't the wind.
A massive, gray shape burst into the clearing like a runaway boulder rolling down a mountain.
It moved with a terrifying, deceptive speed that defied its bulk.
CHOMP.
A set of jaws the size of a suitcase clamped down on the Raptor attacking Ren.
The jaws crunched.
It sounded like a tree branch snapping in a storm.
The Raptor didn't even have time to squeak. It was bitten cleanly in half at the waist.
Ren fell backward, the sudden release of weight sending him sprawling into the mud. He was covered in blue reptile blood and feathers, still clutching the severed leg of the Raptor that was fused to his arm.
The upper half of the Raptor fell to the ground, twitching once, then still.
The remaining Raptor—the last survivor of the pack—froze. It looked at its leader, torn in two. Then it looked at the new arrival.
With a unified shriek of terror that sounded almost human, it turned and fled into the canopy, disappearing instantly into the dark.
Ren scrambled backward, crab-walking through the mud, wiping blood from his eyes. He looked up at their savior.
It was immense.
A man—no, a giant—stood there. He was nearly seven feet tall, with a barrel chest that looked like it was made of solid rubber. His skin was a dark, purplish-gray, slick with mud and water, and scarred with old scratches. His neck was non-existent, just a mass of trapezius muscle connecting his head to his shoulders. His lower jaw was massive, protruding with two terrifying, ivory tusks that jutted up from his bottom lip.
He wore a pair of tattered, oversized cargo shorts and nothing else. He was holding a half-eaten melon in one hand.
The Hippo.
The giant chewed slowly, swallowing the Raptor parts he had just bitten off. He looked at Ren. Then he looked at Kaira. He looked incredibly annoyed, like a man who had been woken up by noisy neighbors.
He spat a Raptor feather onto the ground.
"You two," the Hippo rumbled, his voice deep and resonant, vibrating in Ren's chest like a cello string, "are very loud. I was napping."
Ren stared at the severed Raptor leg still fused to his arm. He willed his bones to release, the calcium softening, and the limb clattered to the ground. His arm healed instantly, the skin knitting over the wounds.
"You…" Ren stammered, staring at the monster before him. "You ate it."
The Hippo shrugged, taking a bite of his melon. Juice ran down his chin. "It was crunchy. Needs salt."
Kaira stood up, shaking the dirt off her fists. Her armor retracted, steam hissing one last time. She eyed the newcomer warily. She knew animal facts. She knew that despite their goofy appearance in children's books, Hippos were the most dangerous killers in the river. They were territorial, aggressive, and strong enough to snap a crocodile in half.
"Who are you?" Kaira demanded, stepping in front of Ren.
The Hippo sighed, scratching his massive belly with a hand as big as a shovel.
"I'm Titus," he grunted. "And you are trespassing in my swamp. Get out before I decide you look crunchy too."
He turned his back on them—a massive expanse of gray, scarred skin—and began to walk toward the sound of rushing water nearby.
Ren scrambled to his feet. He looked at the dead Raptor. He looked at the path ahead. They wouldn't survive another mile in here without heavy support.
"Wait!" Ren called out. "You saved us!"
Titus stopped. He glanced over his massive shoulder.
"I silenced you," Titus corrected. "Big difference. Now go away. The Lions are patrolling the north ridge. If you go that way, you die. If you stay here, you die. I suggest you go back to the city and find a hole to hide in."
Ren looked at Kaira. Kaira looked at Ren.
"He took out a Raptor in one bite," Kaira whispered, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and greed. "Ren… that's a Tank. A heavy-class Tank."
Ren nodded. "A Tank that hates us."
"Perfect," Kaira grinned, the fire returning to her eyes. "He's grumpy, he's huge, and he knows the way. Let's go bother him."
"Kaira, he threatened to eat us," Ren hissed.
"He's bluffing. Look at him, he's eating fruit. He's a herbivore. Mostly."
Kaira started jogging after the giant. "Hey! Big Guy! Wait up! We have a proposition for you!"
Ren sighed. He grabbed his satchel, checked his healed arm, and ran after the Smasher and the Titan, disappearing deeper into the Green Hell.