Maintenance Duct B was less of a corridor and more of a metal throat.
The walls were lined with rusted insulation that hung like strips of flayed skin, dripping with a thick, syrupy condensation. The floor was submerged under six inches of stagnant water, black and still, reflecting nothing. Kael moved at a crouch, his rusted pipe held low, his right hand clenched so tight that the obsidian thorns bit into his own palm.
The signal from the Orchard was no longer a hum. It was a frantic, high-pitched ringing that seemed to vibrate his very teeth.
[PROXIMITY ALERT: DORMANT SEED WITHIN 5 METERS]
[Signal Purity: 88%.]
[Detection: Bio-Electric Camouflage active in vicinity.]
Kael stopped. He raised his left hand, the faint emerald light from his chest-veins casting long, distorted shadows across the pipes. At first glance, the duct looked empty. The metal was pitted, covered in the same grey-brown rust as the rest of the Sector 4 Archive.
Then, the rust blinked.
Kael's blood went cold. A patch of wall, roughly the size of a dinner plate, shifted. It wasn't metal; it was chitin. The texture of the rusted iron, the pitted rivets, the streaks of mineral stains—it was a perfect, living mimicry.
A Camouflage Beetle.
And it wasn't alone.
The entire ceiling of the duct began to ripple. Hundreds of them, each no larger than a coin, detached themselves from the "rust" and began to skitter toward the light. Their legs made a dry, clicking sound that was instantly drowned out by a low-frequency hiss.
Click-click-click.
Kael swung the pipe, the heavy metal smashing into a cluster of the beetles. They didn't crunch; they popped, spraying a thick, iridescent fluid that smelled like bitter almonds.
[WARNING: ATMOSPHERIC NEUROTOXIN DETECTED]
[Effect: Sensory Disorientation.]
[System Lag: +15% per minute of exposure.]
"Dammit," Kael hissed, his vision beginning to grain. He couldn't fight a swarm of hundreds with a pipe. He needed the source.
He lunged deeper into the duct, ignoring the small, stinging pricks on his ankles as the beetles swarmed over his boots. At the very end of the corridor, where the pipes converged into a massive, scale-covered bypass valve, sat the Queen.
She was the size of a hound, her carapace a shimmering, shifting kaleidoscope of textures—one moment she looked like rusted iron, the next like wet concrete, then like the emerald glow of Kael's own chest. In the center of her thorax, visible through a translucent patch of chitin, sat the seed. It was a pale, flickering jewel of light, pulsing in time with the ringing in Kael's head.
The Queen didn't skitter. She launched.
Kael threw himself to the side, his 'Needle-Threader' traits firing to catch his balance on the slick, chitin-covered pipes. He struck out with his right hand, the obsidian 'Thorn Knuckles' driving deep into the soft joint of the Queen's wing-cover.
The insect shrieked—a high-pitched, ultrasonic sound that made Kael's ears bleed.
He didn't pull back. He drove his fist in deeper, twisting his wrist to let the obsidian spurs tear through the internal organs. The Queen thrashed, her long, serrated mandibles snapping centimeters from Kael's throat.
Thwip.
A needle-thin stinger, hidden beneath the Queen's abdomen, whipped forward with the speed of a spring. It bypassed Kael's guard, piercing the meat of his side just above the hip.
The pain wasn't sharp. It was a cold, numbing void that spread instantly through his nervous system.
Kael let out a choked roar and brought his weight down, snapping the Queen's neck with the heavy pipe. She collapsed, her bioluminescent eyes fading to a dull grey, the swarm of smaller beetles instantly going still as their hive-mind shattered.
[THREAT NEUTRALIZED]
[Host Condition: Envenomed.]
[Toxin Type: Grade D Neuro-Degradant.]
[Estimated Time to Full Paralysis: 120 Seconds.]
Kael tumbled off the dead creature, his legs giving way. The world was spinning, the grey fog of the Orchard rushing in to fill his vision. He reached out with a trembling hand, his fingers brushing the cool, flickering seed as it detached itself from the Queen's carcass.
[HARVEST SUCCESSFUL]
[Acquired Trait Seed: 'Visual Static'. Grade: D.]
"Elara..." Kael tried to shout, but his tongue felt like a piece of lead in his mouth.
The seed rolled toward him, its light the last thing he saw before the graininess in his vision became absolute. The Sector 4 Archive went dark, and Kael fell into the cold, black water of the maintenance duct.