The jungle didn't smell like ozone anymore. It smelled like burnt hard drives and wet dog.
Rin lay in the rubbery grass, watching the sky above the crater where the Bio-Server used to be. The smoke wasn't rising; it was falling, heavy particles of black data settling on the trees like radioactive snow.
"Is it over?" Joy asked, crawling over to him. Her tactical gear was shredded, her pink hair matted with blue slime from a dissolved drone.
"The server is gone," Rin said, pushing himself up. His gray-scarred arm was humming, a low vibration that traveled up to his neck. "But the data... it had to go somewhere."
"It went everywhere," Nyx said, standing near the riverbank.
She pointed. The river, which had been liquid white mana moments ago, was now a churning slurry of black sludge and... things. Shapes were forming in the muck, struggling to pull themselves onto the bank.
