The chamber shuddered as the Hive's neural core pulsed with renewed energy. Julius gritted his teeth, Echelon flaring across his body with crackling arcs of light. "Everyone, defensive positions! Something's coming!"
Vara narrowed her eyes at the ceiling. "That… isn't Vorr," she murmured.
A seismic groan echoed through the chamber as the fleshy walls began to split. Out slithered a massive serpentine creature—its body plated in bone-like armor, its multiple eyes glowing a sickly green. It looked like a fusion of Vorr's twisted biomass and the Hive's root intelligence.
"A second apex?" Selene gasped. "That's not possible. Vorr was the alpha signal!"
"No," Vara said slowly, "this isn't a commander… it's the Hive's will given flesh."
The creature let out a warbling shriek that shattered chunks of stone from the ceiling.
Julius raised his voice over the sound. "Selene, we still planting those charges?"
"Already done," she replied. "But if we leave now, the Hive's main brain will survive. It'll regrow. We need a hard detonation—one at the Nexus' exact core. Someone has to do it manually."
Julius didn't hesitate. "I'll do it."
"Hell no," Brinley barked. "We do this together."
But the monster surged forward, cutting off the argument. It crashed into the group like a biological freight train. Julius rolled aside just in time, narrowly avoiding a swipe of serrated limbs. Vara deflected an appendage with Seraphel's shield, sparks raining off the clash.
Brinley hurled a plasma grenade into the thing's midsection—it exploded with a wet, splattering burst, but the creature roared and reformed like liquid armor.
"Normal weapons aren't cutting it!" Selene shouted.
Julius grunted as he landed a blow with Echelon, the blade tearing into the creature's flank—but instead of pain, the beast seemed to absorb the hit, studying him.
Then Julius felt it.
A pulse.
A link.
The Hive was trying to access Echelon.
"They're trying to overwrite the suit!" he yelled.
Echelon pushed back with an angry surge of heat, its failsafes activating. For a moment, the two intelligences clashed in Julius' mind like titans, and then the Hive recoiled.
Julius panted. "Okay. Echelon can hurt it. We just need to hit it in the brain."
"Then let's carve a path," Vara said grimly.
The team went to work, using synchronized strikes—Vara drawing fire with Seraphel's shield, Selene creating energy traps to slow its movement, Brinley launching pinpoint shots at the tendons, and Julius aiming for the pulsating mass at its center.
Then Julius saw it—deep in the creature's chest, beneath overlapping bone and muscle—a glowing heart-like organ pulsing with rhythm.
"I see the core!" he shouted.
Vara nodded. "Get me there."
The team forced an opening. Julius darted forward, Echelon shifting into a long spear. He drove it straight into the heart, and this time the Hive screamed—a sound like metal being torn apart and stars dying.
The beast convulsed violently. Selene triggered the charges. "Everyone out, NOW!"
They fled the chamber, the world behind them collapsing in on itself. The Hive Nexus exploded in a cascade of violet fire and chemical rot. Flesh turned to ash. Stone melted.
Outside, they collapsed in the fungal forest, panting, bruised, alive.
Julius looked up at the red sky, still glowing from the explosion's aftershock. "We did it."
Selene stared back toward the wreckage. "We hurt it. But it's not over."
Vara was quiet, her eyes distant.
"What is it?" Julius asked.
She met his gaze. "That voice we heard inside… it wasn't Vorr's. There's something else guiding the Hive now. Something… older."
And far away, in the cold dark void, that something opened its eyes.