Lin Yue guided Squad 5 into the massive chamber, her footsteps silent against the white stone. At the edge of a raised platform, she stopped, bowed deeply, and motioned for the POND operatives to step forward.
The throne sat at the center of the platform. It wasn't just a seat—it was a colossal, petrified root system. Wooden tendrils thicker than dropships descended from the starry clouds above and tore upward through the stone floor, twisting together into a towering cage of pale, ancient timber.
This was the Great Tree.
Fused perfectly into the center of that wooden cage was the Heavenly Emperor.
He didn't look dead; he looked like fertilizer. His immaculately preserved skin had hardened into polished dark wood, and his golden robes were woven directly into the surrounding roots like spun sunlight. His face was a mask of serene, divine beauty—marred only by the dozens of capillary-like roots burrowing in and out of his tear ducts, nostrils, and parted lips.
The squad stopped dead. The unnatural wrongness of the sight hit them like a physical blow.
Boro's bull-like frame tensed, as if he expected the corpse to suddenly lunge. Deja's perpetually lazy smirk vanished entirely, replaced by cold dread. She took an unconscious half-step backward, her eyes locked on the roots threading through the Emperor's face. Even Kael's hydraulic pistons hissed unevenly, his rusted iron faceplate twitching in agitated glitches.
"What is that?" Deja murmured, her voice tight. "Why is he... plugged in?"
A circle of figures draped in ash-gray robes knelt at the base of the throne: the Diviners. One of them stepped slowly forward. She was an impossibly old woman, leaning on a twisted wooden staff that matched the roots of the throne. Her eyes were completely white, yet she stared directly at the POND operatives.
"He listens," the old woman said, her frail voice carrying an oppressive weight through the massive hall. "Every footstep. Every drop of rain. Every shift of the tectonic plates. The Emperor sits in a state of perfect, hyper-aware agony, acting as the sensory anchor for the Great Tree. Its power is entirely beyond your comprehension."
Just as Toben looked at the Emperor, his data-pad began to screech.
The screen flashed dozens of critical biological warnings. The cadet frantically scrambled to mute it, his hands shaking so badly he nearly dropped the device.
"His... his nervous system," Toben whispered in absolute horror, staring at the throne. "It isn't localized. The roots... they go all the way down. He's connected to the atmosphere. The artificial gravity. He's... he's screaming, mathematically."
"Rise," the old woman commanded.
Her voice cut through Toben's panic with absolute authority. The squad slowly straightened. They hadn't even realized the crushing atmospheric pressure had forced several of them to bow their heads.
Jax stepped forward, pushing his dark sunglasses up the bridge of his nose. His heavy cybernetic arms gleamed in the ambient amber light. "Instructor Jax, acting proxy for POND. We appreciate the Expanse granting us entry, but let's skip the theology. Doctor Halvek is highly dangerous. If he's hiding here—"
"He is not hiding," the old woman interrupted. She slammed her staff against the stone with a sickening, wet thud. "He is burrowing. Halvek seeks the deep taproots of the Great Tree. He means to corrupt its medicinal properties, to twist the sap that sustains our world into something catastrophic. He must be disposed of quickly, and without a trace."
"Then point us to the target," Kael's synthesized voice boomed. His heavy iron plating clanked as he stepped up beside Jax. "Give us his coordinates, and POND will terminate him before he can extract a single drop."
The old woman went entirely still. Her blind eyes fixed perfectly on Kael, then shifted to Jax. The other Diviners bowed their heads lower, letting a dreadful, heavy silence fall over the stagnant court. Lin Yue looked away, her serene expression tightening into shame.
"You speak with false bravado, POND," the old woman whispered. Her rasp seemed to vibrate directly from the wooden floorboards.
Stepping to the edge of the platform, she leaned heavily on her staff. She cast a slow, sightless glance toward the great sealed doors behind them, then leaned in. The other Diviners shifted closer together, their robes pulling tight as if to physically block the words from escaping their circle.
"What I tell you now does not leave this hall," the Master Diviner hissed, sweeping her blank gaze over the cadets. "It is a truth that would shatter the Expanse if the outer courts knew. For epochs, we have crushed the Chiyou Dominion because the Great Tree allows us to read the tapestry of time. We foresee their invasions. We know their strategies before their generals are even born. We strike with absolute certainty because we can see every thread of fate."
She paused, her frail hands trembling against her staff.
"But the doctor you seek... When I cast my sight into the Tree to look for him," the Master Diviner confessed, reaching up to touch her stark white eyes, "I see nothing but a thick, suffocating fog."
She leaned forward, her voice cracking into a terrified rasp.
"We cannot kill what we cannot see."