The sky of the Crucible was a bruised purple, churning with clouds that looked like spilled ink. Lightning that made no sound tore through the air, illuminating the nightmare landscape.
In the center of the distorted valley stood the Hybrid.
It was a towering monstrosity, twenty feet tall. Its body was a grotesque fusion of Devourer metal and human flesh. The face Vorn's face was stretched over a skull of black chrome. Wires pulsed like veins under translucent skin. One arm was a massive resonance cannon, grafted directly into the shoulder. The other was a claw of weeping flesh.
It roared. A sound of pure, mechanized agony.
"It's Vorn," Jian said, racking the slide of his plasma rifle. "Or what's left of him."
"It's not Vorn," Arden corrected, her resonance blade humming in her hand. "It's a memory. A manifestation of our failure to save him from his own hate."
"Whatever it is," Kael said, aiming his rifle, "it's ugly. And it's blocking the way."
