The jungle didn't sleep. It just changed the frequency of its screaming.
Ren trudged through mud that reached his shins, slapping a mosquito the size of a sparrow off his neck. The air was a physical weight, a humid blanket that smelled of rotting orchids and wet fur.
Ahead of him, Titus was clearing a path with the subtlety of a runaway siege engine. The massive Hippo didn't duck under branches; he walked through them. Vines snapped like sewing thread against his chest. Saplings were trampled into kindling under his massive, flat feet. He moved with the unstoppable momentum of a landslide, munching on a melon he had plucked from the canopy, completely ignoring the two teenagers jogging to keep up with him.
"Hey! Big Guy!" Kaira yelled, vaulting over a fallen log with acrobatic grace. "Slow down! You're leaving a wake!"
Titus didn't turn around. "No talking. Talking is noise. Noise scares the fruit."
"You're a hippo!" Kaira argued, landing in the mud with a squelch. "You don't hunt fruit! It grows on trees! It's not going to run away!"
Titus stopped.
The sudden halt was so abrupt that Ren, who had been watching his footing, almost walked face-first into the giant's gray, scarred back. It was like walking into a wall of wet tire rubber.
Titus turned slowly, the movement displacing the air around him. He looked down at Kaira with eyes that were weary, ancient, and incredibly dangerous.
"I eat," Titus rumbled, his voice vibrating in Ren's sternum like a bass drum, "whatever annoys me. And right now, you look very… nutritious."
Ren skid to a halt, panting. He held up his hands, mud dripping from his sleeves. "We don't want to annoy you, sir. We just… we need to keep moving. The Sanctum is still miles away."
Titus snorted, a spray of mist erupting from his nostrils. "The Sanctum. Suicide. The Lions hold the central plaza. The Gorillas hold the East Gate. You two? You are snacks wrapped in cloth. Go home."
He turned back around and pushed through a wall of ten-foot-tall ferns, stepping into a clearing dominated by a colossal Banyan tree. Its aerial roots formed a natural cage, creating a shelter from the canopy above. Moonlight filtered through the leaves, illuminating a patch of soft, vibrant moss.
"We stop here," Titus announced. He sat down heavily, the ground shuddering under his two-ton weight. "I'm hungry. Again."
Ren collapsed onto a root, his legs burning. The regeneration from the Rhino fight had drained him more than he admitted. "We can't stop, Titus. Every hour we waste, the Wilding gets worse. The Prism—"
Titus reached into a satchel made of woven vines and pulled out a massive bundle of bananas. "The Sanctum isn't going anywhere, Little Scribe. And neither am I."
Ren sat up straight, wiping sweat from his forehead. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Titus said, peeling a banana with surprising delicacy for a creature with fingers the size of sausages, "this is the border. North of here is the Lion's Court. That is Leopold's territory. I don't go there. He doesn't come here. It's a… professional courtesy."
Kaira jumped down from her perch on a root. She looked offended. "You're scared of a cat?"
Titus narrowed his eyes. The air in the clearing grew heavy.
"I am not scared," Titus said, his voice dropping an octave. "I am practical. Leopold is fast. He is arrogant. And he has an army of Lionesses who hunt in a pack. Fighting him is a headache I do not need. I like my naps uninterrupted."
He pointed a thick finger at the dark, silent treeline to the North.
"You two go ahead. I'll wait here. If you survive, wave from the tower. If you don't… well, I won't have to share my breakfast."
Ren felt a cold knot in his stomach. Without Titus, they wouldn't last five minutes against a Pride of Lions. The Raptors had nearly killed them. The Lions were apex predators before the magic twisted them.
"Titus, please," Ren pleaded, stepping forward. "We can't do this without a Tank. You saw the Raptors. The jungle is evolving. Everything is faster, stronger. We need a shield."
"Everything evolves," Titus grunted, raising the banana to his mouth. "That is the law. The weak die. The strong eat fruit. You are weak, Scribe. You break easily."
"I heal," Ren countered.
"Healing is just dying slowly," Titus muttered.
Ren opened his mouth to argue, but the words died in his throat.
His Axolotl senses flared.
It wasn't a sound. It was a smell. A sharp, chemical scent that cut through the humidity. Acrid. Metallic. Like bleach mixed with burning sugar.
It was coming from directly above them.
Ren's black eyes darted up. The blue bioluminescence of the jungle cast strange shadows, but Ren saw the color that didn't belong.
Hanging upside down from a vine, camouflaged perfectly against the emerald leaves, was a small creature. It was no bigger than a kitten, but its skin was a brilliant, warning-sign yellow with black stripes.
A Golden Poison Frog.
But like everything else in Veridia, it wasn't just an animal. It was a sniper.
Its cheeks were puffed out, huge vocal sacs expanding with air. It wasn't croaking. It was aiming. Its mouth formed a perfect "O", pointed directly at the back of Titus's thick, exposed neck.
Titus was busy peeling another banana, completely unaware. His thick hide could stop spears. It could stop claws. But a neurotoxin delivered directly to the spinal column? Even a giant would fall.
The Frog's throat twitched.
Spit.
A dart—a calcified spine coated in glistening, viscous slime—shot from the Frog's mouth. It moved faster than an arrow.
Ren didn't think. He didn't calculate.
He lunged.
He threw himself across the moss, diving through the air in front of Titus. He didn't try to catch the dart; he just put his mass in the trajectory.
THWACK.
The sound was wet and dull.
The dart hit Ren in the left shoulder, burying itself deep in the deltoid muscle.
It didn't feel like a cut. It felt like liquid fire.
Ren gasped, the air seized from his lungs. He hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop at Titus's feet.
Titus froze. He looked down at the boy writhing in the moss. He looked at the yellow spine sticking out of Ren's shoulder. Then he looked up.
The Poison Frog, realizing it missed the main target, let out a frustrated, clicking croak. Its cheeks puffed up again. Reloading.
Titus roared.
It wasn't a word. It was a shockwave.
He moved with terrifying speed. He didn't reach for the frog; he reached for the tree.
He grabbed the hanging vine the frog was attached to—a vine as thick as a man's arm—and yanked.
SNAP.
The vine tore loose from the canopy seventy feet above. Titus whipped it down like a lash. The frog was dislodged, tumbling through the air.
Before it could hit the ground, Titus swatted it mid-air.
SPLAT.
The threat was gone. Reduced to a yellow smear on the bark of the Banyan tree.
Titus turned back to Ren.
Ren was on his back, convulsing. Foam was bubbling at the corners of his mouth. His skin, usually pale, was turning a sickly, necrotic shade of gray. His veins were black spiderwebs spreading from the wound.
"Ren!" Kaira slid to her knees beside him, her hands hovering, terrified to touch him. She looked at the dart. "Don't touch it! That's Batrachotoxin! It stops the heart in seconds!"
Titus knelt down, his massive shadow covering them both. His face, usually bored, was grim.
"Why?" Titus rumbled. "Why did you jump, Scribe? I have thick skin. It might not have killed me."
Ren's teeth were chattering so hard they sounded like dice in a cup. The blue Aether light under his skin was flickering violently, a strobe light fighting the darkness of the poison.
"M-might…" Ren stuttered, his voice slurred, his eyes rolling back. "Couldn't… take… the risk. Need… the Tank."
He coughed, spitting up black bile onto his chest.
"Stupid," Titus whispered. But the word lacked its usual edge. It sounded like respect.
"He's not healing!" Kaira yelled, panic rising in her voice. She grabbed Ren's hand; it was freezing cold. "Why isn't he healing? He healed from the fall! He healed from the Rhino!"
"Poison isn't a wound," Titus said, his voice heavy. "It's chemistry. His cells don't know what to fix. The Aether is confused."
Ren's back arched off the ground. The pain was excruciating. It felt like his blood was boiling and freezing at the same time. The Aether inside him was screaming, trying to purge the intruder.
Purge, the voice inside him whispered. Change. Grow.
Ren let out a guttural scream that tore his throat.
"GET BACK!" Ren shrieked.
Kaira scrambled back.
Ren's skin—the gray, sickly layer—split down the center of his chest with a sound like tearing canvas.
It was grotesque.
Ren's body convulsed one last time, and he tore himself out of his own skin. He sloughed off the top layer of epidermis like a snake shedding its winter coat. The dead, gray skin peeled away wetly, sliding off his arms, his chest, his face.
Underneath, his new skin was pink, raw, and glistening with slime, but the gray color was gone. The black veins were gone.
The dart lay embedded in the discarded, empty husk of skin on the moss.
Ren collapsed, gasping for air, his chest heaving. He was alive. Naked from the waist up, shivering, and exhausted, but alive.
Skill Unlocked: [Molting] - Status Purge.
Silence filled the clearing. The jungle seemed to hold its breath.
Titus reached out with two massive fingers. He picked up the discarded skin, looking at the deadly dart still stuck in the dead flesh. He looked at the small, shivering boy who had just thrown himself in front of a bullet for a monster who had threatened to eat him an hour ago.
Titus crushed the skin and the dart in his fist.
He stood up. He walked over to his satchel of fruit.
He picked up the finest, ripest melon in the bag—a Sugar-Melon the size of a bowling ball. He cracked it open with his thumb, revealing the sweet red flesh inside.
He walked back to Ren and dropped the fruit gently in the boy's lap.
"Eat," Titus commanded. "Sugar helps the shakes."
Ren looked up, his eyes weary, ringed with dark circles. He grabbed a chunk of the melon with trembling fingers and shoved it into his mouth.
"Titus…" Ren rasped, juice running down his chin. "The border?"
Titus turned toward the North—toward the Lion's Court. He cracked his knuckles. The sound was like gunshots echoing through the trees.
"There is no border," Titus rumbled. "Not anymore."
He looked at Kaira, who was staring at Ren's discarded skin with a mixture of disgust and awe.
"Wake him up in ten minutes," Titus ordered. "Then we walk."
"To where?" Kaira asked, surprised.
Titus bared his ivory tusks in a grin that was terrifying to behold.
"To the Lion's house. If Leopold wants to stop us, he can try."
He looked back at Ren, who was devouring the melon like a starving animal.
"You protected my lunch, Little Scribe. Now I protect you. That is the pact."
Ren smiled weakly, sinking his teeth into the fruit. The sweetness hit his tongue, and for the first time in hours, he stopped shaking.
The Unmovable Object had finally moved. And God help whatever stood in his way.