Five Hours Later, Shandong Province, China
Gar, in his off world mission uniform, had his face pressed to the bioship's viewport like a kid on a field trip.
"Man," he groaned. "I'd love to come here on vacation someday. Bring the team or maybe a girlfriend or two."
"You don't even have one, hermano," Jaime let out a tired laugh.
Gar glanced back. "Yet."
"Sure," Jaime said with a faint smile. His eyes flicked to Priya before he could stop himself, then he forced his attention back to the view.
He cleared his throat and leaned closer to the window. "Anyway. Even beyond the Great Wall, the view isn't bad." His voice softened as the landscape rolled past beneath them. "It would be a lot easier to appreciate if we weren't flying into… all this."
The words trailed off, swallowed by what waited ahead.
A bruised, dark gray circle nearly sixty four kilometers wide surrounded Mount Tai. Low waves of dense violet mist clung to the valleys and foothills, pulsing outward in slow, deliberate surges. Even from altitude, the bioship's sensors read the phenomenon below as contamination similar to that caused by the Great Tide.
"No kidding," M'gann murmured in her off-world uniform, her expression tightening as the main screen zoomed in. "That… looks horrible."
Priya's jaw set. "Unbelievable. This is worse than I thought… I finally get why they were desperate."
Kiran did not speak. Her hands curled into fists as she stared down at the mountain.
Already in her Batsuit, Barbara patched her terminal directly into the bioship's sensor feed. Holographic readouts blossomed around her, equations and topographical overlays stacking in the air. For a moment, she looked genuinely impressed.
"They contained it well," she said. "They built a non Euclidean spatial loop using a fusion of Daoist principles and hard geometry. I don't fully grasp the Daoist side, but the math holds. In theory, the loop forces the corruption to fold back on itself until it collides with its own spread pattern, cutting off access to the deeper ley lines. It's elegant… at least on paper."
The sensors reached for the mist, then stuttered. Errors stacked in rapid succession on the display.
Barbara's expression tightened. "But this violet mist wasn't in Red Eye's files. Either it's new, or their scans couldn't see it."
She looked to M'gann. "I need a closer read."
M'gann nodded, fingers tightening around the living console. "Bringing us down."
Barbara turned her voice up so everyone heard it. "Everyone listen up. We're entering an unknown, potentially hostile zone. Protocol is in effect. Strap in."
Jaime and Gar moved immediately, buckling in as the bioship's restraints wrapped around them. The trio from India exchanged a quick look, then followed suit.
M'gann began a slow controlled descent.
Halfway down, M'gann's expression twitched. Her hands stilled on the interface.
Though the reaction was subtle, Barbara caught it and she tapped a coded prompt into her terminal.
M'gann's console blinked once. She closed her eyes for a brief beat.
"Link established."
"What's wrong?" Barbara asked at once.
M'gann kept her face neutral for the others, but her thoughts hesitated before replying. "…I felt a tremor through the interface. Like… the ship's wary of whatever's down there."
Barbara's eyes narrowed. "Like it's spooked?"
"Yeah," M'gann confirmed. "What worries me is that it's happening at this range."
"It pretty much confirms it." Barbara's eyes narrowed at the sensor readouts. "The Great Ten were right. This looks like the same family of corruption just maybe a more potent and concentrated branch. Meaning, anything organic is vulnerable. If the bioship is reacting from here, that corruption and this mist is either more aggressive than the Tide's strain… or more invasive."
M'gann's frustration rose. "Deeper than extracting souls? What's left to strip away?"
Barbara hesitated, choosing her words carefully.
"If the reports are accurate, it isn't only absorbing souls. It's infecting living tissue, driving animals into frenzied, predatory behavior. Some are showing early mutation patterns."
M'gann blinked. "Hold on. Tell me this isn't turning into a horror movie."
Barbara exhaled. "Because that's what it reads like."
M'gann's fingers tightened on the console. "So how close do we go?"
Barbara marked a landing site. "Set us down three klicks from the quarantine perimeter. We walk from there."
M'gann didn't argue. "Understood."
The bioship shifted, bleeding altitude in a shallow arc. It settled onto the ground nearly three kilometers from the perimeter.
The hatch hissed open, and a bitter metallic wind rushed over them as they disembarked.
The moment Arjun's boots touched soil, his face changed.
For one heartbeat, all color drained from him, as if the ground itself had reached up and pulled the strength out of his body.
"Kala Dhara!" Priya and Kiran snapped in unison. They caught him, each grabbing an arm as he dropped hard to one knee.
Barbara, M'gann, Gar, and Jaime closed in at once.
Jaime's helmet flowed into place as the scarab swept him. "Heart rate's elevated, but he's stable. I don't see any physical trauma."
Gar crouched beside him, eyes wide. "Dude. Did the flight mess you up? Please don't tell me you get airsick."
Arjun clenched his jaw. "It's not the flight."
"Then what?" Barbara asked, her gaze flicking from Arjun to Priya. "How is he?"
Priya caught Arjun's wrist, checked his pulse, then gave him a quick medical once over. Her frown deepened.
"He's stable. Beetle's right. I don't see anything physically wrong." Her eyes narrowed as she studied Arjun's unsteady posture. "This is likely his power reacting to whatever's out there."
Arjun took a deep breath. "I'm fine. Just… help me up."
Priya and Kiran hauled him to his feet. Even then, he looked like he had to force his legs to remember how to hold him.
"I'm stable," he said through clenched teeth. "You can let go."
Kiran hesitated before releasing him, looking first to Priya. Priya nodded, and only then did both let go.
Barbara asked, "Good. Now talk. What happened?"
Arjun's gaze stayed on the distant quarantine zone, jaw tight, like he was bracing against something only he could feel.
"You know I'm connected to the earth," he said. "Part of my blessing comes from Bhumi, the Earth Goddess. I can listen to the ground, feel what's shifting under our feet, ask it for help when I need it, and shape it when I have to."
He drew a slow breath.
"For days, I've felt something building here. After yesterday, I told myself I was ready. I told myself I understood what the Tide's corruption felt like."
His voice dropped, eyes still fixed on the haze.
"But this is worse. From a distance it looks similar. Up close, it isn't. It's darker. Denser. Stronger. Hungrier." His hands trembled once, then he forced them still. "We aren't even inside the isolation ring yet, and the second my boots hit the soil, I felt it. The land is panicking. The earth ahead isn't just damaged. It's afraid. That means the corruption isn't only on the surface. It's already in the roots, where the ley lines run."
He exhaled through his nose.
"Even if the Great Ten's barrier folds the spread back on itself, that doesn't cleanse it. It delays it. If the corruption has touched the ley lines, even a little, it will keep growing and adapting."
His eyes narrowed.
"And I think it already got a head start. Before the spatial grid went up, there was a window where it could bite into those lines and drink. If what I'm feeling is right, it has already fed on raw ley energy."
He looked at Barbara, his voice rough but steady.
"So yes. They were right to ask for help. This isn't something they can contain forever. They're just holding it back until it learns enough to break the cage."
He paused, then finished quietly.
"And when it finally breaks free, it won't seep out slowly. It'll come out like a starving beast slipping its chain."
Barbara let the silence sit for a beat, then turned to the three new Titans with hard, measured calm. "Alright. Last chance… and I'm only asking once. Are you sure you want to stay? You're all new. You still need training. And you don't owe anyone here a damn thing. We can pull out right now and get you home. The League has been notified. Reinforcements will eventually come. If you want an out, take it now."
Arjun did not hesitate. "I'm staying."
Kiran's eyes flared gold. "I'm in."
Priya hesitated for half a heartbeat, then steadied, meeting Barbara's eyes.
"Yeah. It's dangerous. But we didn't come this far to watch from the sidelines. We're Titans now, right? Then let's go do the job."
Gar and Jaime traded a look.
M'gann stayed quiet, watching the three newcomers with a mixture of concern and reluctant respect.
"Alright. Titans, move out," Barbara ordered.
As they walked, M'gann opened a private link to Barbara.
"Are you sure this is wise?" she asked. "There are too many unknowns here. Bringing the newcomers into an unclassified strain was already a gamble. And if what Arjun sensed is accurate…"
She let the thought hang.
Barbara did not slow down.
"It was their choice. We respect it."
Then, more quietly, she added, "And if this is a new strain, we can't afford to arrive halfway through its learning curve. Besides, they may be a natural counter to the corruption. That makes them mission relevant, and it gives us a chance to observe the interaction properly."
M'gann weighed that, then sent back a single thought.
"Understood."
As they approached the perimeter, floodlights illuminated the area. Towers emitted low frequency hums, and armed soldiers patrolled beneath the glow. Beyond them, the true isolation line loomed like the edge of another world.
The moment the Titans revealed themselves, a platoon sprang into alert. Rifles rose.
Mandarin commands cut through the air, followed by the sharp clicks of safeties disengaging.
Priya's face darkened immediately. Heat gathered around her hands.
Over the group telepathic link, her voice came tight.
"I have a thing about guns being pointed at me…"
"Agni," M'gann warned over their link. "Control yourself."
"She isn't the only one," Arjun said, voice low and dangerous. "If they don't lower their weapons, I'll show them a darkness they won't crawl back from." His shadow rippled poised to attack.
"You two…" M'gann felt troubled at this.
Barbara did not look back. She kept walking, hands raised in plain sight.
"Both of you… stand down," she said over the link. "You are not starting an international incident on my watch. Stand down. Now."
Priya clicked her tongue. "Fine."
Arjun however remained silent for a second longer, his shadow silently stretching toward the soldiers.
"Kala Dhara?" M'gann pressed.
"…Fine." Arjun finally relented, stopping his shadow.
Barbara addressed the soldiers in fluent Mandarin, her expression calm.
"We are the Titans, here at the Great Ten's invitation. Who is in command? Get me the Great Ten representatives stationed here… now."
While the soldiers exchanged cautious glances, a commander suddenly barked an order from behind the line of soldiers.
The soldiers parted as a stern officer stepped forward with a composed posture.
"I am Commander Xi," he said in English. "Are you Batgirl?"
"Yes," Barbara said evenly. "Are you in charge here?"
Xi ignored the question. His gaze flicked briefly to the three Indian champions behind her, then returned to Barbara.
"Why are you here? You were supposed to land in Beijing. Even with special permissions, there is a proper channel…"
"Commander Xi," Barbara cut in, calm but cold. She gestured toward the containment zone. "Is protocol really the priority right now, or is saving your country from being poisoned?"
Xi's eyes narrowed. "You do not understand…"
"I understand perfectly," Barbara said. "Your people built an isolation ring sophisticated enough to slow a divine biological contaminant, so I know you're not incompetent. Don't pretend you don't understand that bureaucracy is the least important thing here. The Great Ten invited us. So, take us to them."
Xi's expression hardened. "You are on sovereign ground. An invitation does not override sovereign procedure."
For a moment, it looked like she might concede.
"True. That's why I'm not forcing entry."
Xi frowned. "Not forcing entry?"
He lifted a hand. The soldiers raised their rifles again.
Behind Barbara, the Titans tensed. Priya's eyes burned ember orange. Kiran's gaze lit golden. Arjun's shadow rippled. Blue Beetle's armor shaped into twin cannons at his arms. M'gann reached out silently, telekinetic pressure hovering at the edge of every trigger. Beast Boy shifted his weight, ready to transform.
Barbara still did not react and stayed calm.
"Commander," she said, voice level, "I'm giving you a choice. You can keep control of this situation… or you can lose it."
Xi's eyes narrowed. "Explain."
"Gladly. You have two options," Barbara said, lifting one finger. "Option one. Escort us to the Great Ten on site immediately." She raised a second finger. "Option two. Hold us here while containment degrades. Then, when this becomes an international incident and the League arrives in force, you explain on record why reinforcements were delayed for the sake of pride and procedure."
The air went still.
Xi's jaw flexed. "You're threatening me."
"No," Barbara said softly. "I'm telling you what happens if you hesitate, and offering you the cleanest way out."
"The cleanest way out?" Xi scoffed.
"Escort us, and you keep the reins. Block us, and sooner or later something breaks, one of yours, one of mine, or the situation itself. And once you lose control… you won't get it back on your terms. I guarantee you that."
Xi held her gaze.
A decision moved behind his eyes.
Barbara caught it and kept her voice level.
"So," she asked, "are we welcome, or are you in our way?"
Xi exhaled once, signaling for the rifles to be lowered.
"Follow me," he said at last. "But remember this, any aggression, and I will have you removed."
Barbara gave a single nod.
"Reasonable enough."
The platoon escorted them toward the perimeter wall and through the guarded door into the inner passage. As they walked deeper in, a steady reverberant sound threaded through the air, low, rhythmic, almost like chanting.
Priya frowned over the mental link. "Is that… chanting?"
"Close," M'gann said. "According to the data, it's the Diamond Sutra, looped continuously, but in shifting variations. They're modulating the broadcast and layering in excerpts from Shennong's medical texts, trying to force a purification effect through structure and frequency."
She paused, then added, "It's not a cure. But it slows the spread… because the corruption can't fully lock onto a pattern that keeps changing."
Arjun's voice turned thoughtful despite himself.
"A divine attribute delivered through sound, always shifting so the corruption can't adapt."
"Yes," M'gann confirmed.
A thought struck Kiran.
"Then why don't we add our own chants? If the divine aspect is what matters, it shouldn't be limited to one pantheon's scripture."
Priya's eyes narrowed.
"That… might actually work." Priya hesitated, then added more carefully, "If divinity really shares a common base layer, then the carrier matters more than the language."
Barbara exchanged a glance with M'gann.
"Beetle," Barbara said. "Once we're inside and have access to the acoustic node, I want you ready to broadcast more than their current texts. Pull from every viable religious corpus you can access. Coordinate with Agni and Solstice. Track how the corruption reacts and log everything."
"I can do that," Jaime said a little too quickly.
A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Barbara and M'gann both noticed the issue, but neither commented on it, as they prioritized the current mission.
Barbara stepped closer to Xi. "One question, Commander. This violet mist wasn't in Red Eye's data. When did it appear?"
"About ninety minutes ago," Xi said, voice sharp. "One of the nodes flagged a seismic disturbance. The Great Ten deployed teams to investigate and contain it. We haven't heard from them since."
"Minutes after they entered, mist began spilling out of the ravine system. Drones can't get through it, and any signal that goes into the haze cuts out within seconds."
Barbara's eyes narrowed. "What kind of disturbance?"
"The corruption isn't just in the soil. It infects the plants too," Xi began. "Any animal that eats contaminated vegetation turns within minutes, becoming frenzied and violent and attacking anything alive. And anything it bites turns as well. Humans don't change, but we still get sick. We suffer, and then we die. The disturbance started with a stampede at Node Three, as if something down there used the animals like a battering ram and then exhaled the mist as a second wave."
Barbara went contemplative.
"Wait, what the hell did I just hear?" Priya's thoughts slammed through the link and jolted the Titans. "Infected animals turning feral, and it spreads by bites? Tell me this isn't turning into some third rate horror movie."
"Agni," M'gann snapped, tightening the channel. "Get control of yourself."
"Control myself?" Priya shot back, her thoughts spiraling. "Are you kidding me? If I see even one…"
"Agni," Barbara said, her voice cold and even. "Stop. Take a breath. Focus on the objective."
Priya stiffened, but when she caught Barbara's icy look, she forced the heat down before it could flare up.
"I get it," Barbara went on. "Believe me, I do. But panic leads to mistakes, and mistakes get people killed. We are here to learn what this is, how it spreads, and what stops it. That's the job. We're Titans. So do the job."
Priya's thoughts tightened with resentment. "And you're this calm because what? You already knew?"
"Red Eye flagged some reports," Barbara said. "They were incomplete. I wasn't going to dump unverified worst case theories on you until we had confirmation."
Then her tone sharpened. "And Priya, you're a doctor. Don't turn potential patients into monsters in your head. If we're going to beat this, we start by thinking clearly."
Priya dragged in a hard breath. The heat at her fingertips faded. "Fine. You are right. Thanks."
Jaime moved closer to her. "Don't worry too much. We've got your back. Now, about those chants…"
Barbara and M'gann exchanged a quick, knowing look.
Jaime's protectiveness was becoming harder to miss.
Barbara then turned to Gar.
"Gar… once we're inside, be careful. No transformations unless you have to. Not until we know what this mist can do." Her gaze stayed on him, steady and protective. "Stay close to me. Understood?"
Gar stiffened. "Wait… are you saying this thing could infect me?"
"I'm saying we don't know what it can do," Barbara replied. "So I'm not taking chances with you."
Gar swallowed, then set his jaw. "Don't bench me yet. Let me see what we're dealing with first. Besides, that's why we came in our off world uniforms, right? With what they can do, I'll be fine."
Barbara held his eyes for a beat, then nodded once. "Fine. But you follow orders."
"Got it."
A wall of Terracotta Sentinels stood ahead, each figure etched with Taiji pattern wards. They formed a still, silent ring around the inner isolation zone, clay bodies locked together like a second mountain wall.
Xi slowed, his expression grew solemn.
Barbara caught it. "What is it, Commander?"
"Each outpost has a Great Ten member assigned to monitor the sentinels," Xi said. "They are the second layer of the defense. But the monitor stationed here is gone."
Barbara's eyes narrowed. "Meaning they went inside."
Xi hesitated, then nodded. "And without them, I cannot authorize passage."
Barbara noticed the hesitation and approached him.
"You're facing a choice again. Either you let us in so we can link up with them, or we stand here while whatever is happening gets worse. Your call."
For a moment, Xi didn't move, caught between duty and necessity.
Then, with a resolute expression, he stepped to the nearest sentinel and pressed a hidden catch along its seam.
The Taiji lines split by a hair.
The formation shifted just enough to open a narrow passage.
"Go," Xi said. "Do not make me regret it."
The Titans slipped through.
The wall re formed, the Taiji pattern returning as if it had never opened at all.
Inside the Containment Zone
Cold air hit them the moment they crossed the threshold.
The modulating chants throbbed in the distance.
Arjun stepped forward, and flinched.
"This is…" he muttered, jaw tightening. A shudder ran through him as his soles met the soil. "…just wrong." The earth beneath his feet felt drained, spent, lifeless… dead.
Priya moved closer at once, ready to catch him if he went down. Kiran's fingers flexed at her sides, golden warmth stirring beneath her skin.
"I'm good," Arjun said, shaking his head once.
"Tell us if it gets worse," Priya muttered.
"Yeah," Kiran added. "Don't push through it alone."
"I won't," Arjun said.
M'gann's low voice threaded through the link.
"It's not just the land. Look."
A town lay ahead, meant to be a quiet settlement tucked against the mountain. Instead, it felt abandoned halfway through a breath. The windows were dark. The streets were empty. Doors stood open, as if people had fled too fast to think about closing them.
Vines crawled over the buildings like veins, gripping stone and wood with a hungry insistence. Trees stood rigid and ash gray, their leaves bruised violet. All color had been drained from the world inside the zone, leaving only stained foliage and a faint violet haze in the distance, slowly drawing closer.
"Feels like I walked into a black and white movie," Gar muttered. "Except the director picked one color, and it had to be the worst one."
"Stay focused," Barbara said, eyes locked ahead.
Violet mist rolled low through the street, spreading in slow waves like a tide.
"It's still expanding," Barbara said. "Beetle… any luck getting a read?"
Jaime swept the haze again, then shook his head. "Scarab can't lock on. The mist is scattering the scan. We'll have to get closer."
Gar let out a tired breath. "Of course we do. Nothing's ever easy."
"No," Barbara said, already moving. "It isn't."
"Kala Dhara. If you're able, can you feel the corruption? Point us toward the densest pocket."
Arjun nodded. He dropped into a crouch and pressed his bare palm to the soil, closing his eyes.
For a moment there was only his breathing. It slowed until his body went unnaturally still. Shadows pooled at his feet as his awareness sank downward in thin, careful threads.
Seconds passed.
His brow tightened.
Then something snapped through his consciousness, like a sudden impact.
Arjun's eyes flew open with a strangled gasp. His hands shook, and he forced them still as nausea surged up hard and fast. The instant his senses brushed the knot at the center, the moment he tried to understand it, something in the corruption reacted.
A strange pressure clamped down on his mind.
For one heartbeat, something noticed him.
A dense, coherent presence rose from the taint like a predator breaking the surface of deep water. In the dark, a pair of large yellow eyes with vertical slit pupils opened and locked onto him, burning with primeval rage.
Fear washed over him, pinning his awareness in place.
Then he felt it, the impression of a vast maw unfurling in the dark, so immense and inevitable his spirit recoiled on instinct. If it closed, it wouldn't just kill him. It would swallow him whole.
Helplessness flooded him.
But before the jaws could fully close, his second blessing flared.
The primordial darkness of Kali surged through his soul… cold, merciless, absolute. It cut through the encroaching terror like a blade drawn in one perfect arc, severing the connection and tearing him free.
His awareness slammed back into his body.
Priya moved instantly, catching his shoulder before he could pitch forward. Kiran's golden aura rose at the same time, spilling over him in steady warmth. No one spoke.
The worry on their faces said enough as the light steadied his shaking muscles and quieted the panic behind his eyes.
Arjun dragged in one breath.
Then another.
The tremor eased until he could finally rein it in, but his mind kept racing.
"What was that? What did I just see? Was that real?"
If what he just experienced was real, then this corruption was worse than it looked, worse than any of them had imagined. Maybe it was not even the corruption itself. Maybe it was the source, or a fragment of the source. He had to warn the others, now.
He lifted his head, gave Priya and Kiran a brief, silent nod of thanks, and met Barbara's gaze.
"I can feel it," Arjun said, voice rough. His eyes locked on the darkest churn within the rolling mist. "There's a presence in the corruption. The source is dead center, at the base of the mountain. Whatever's driving this is down there."
M'gann's eyes narrowed. "A presence? Describe it."
Arjun began to explain. As he spoke, the group's faces tightened into something grim and focused.
"We should pull back," Gar gulped. "If something like that is responsible for this… we should come back with our heavy hitters."
"No," Barbara cut in. "From what he described, this could answer a lot of questions. It would explain the corruption's hunger, like a shattered presence feeding on ley line energy to pull itself back together." Her eyes narrowed. "Or it's something else entirely. Something new taking shape… maybe Orm's real endgame."
She didn't say more. Her eyes sharpening as her mind landed on a conclusion. "We're running out of time. We can't let it break out and grow any further."
After a beat, Jaime nodded. "Batgirl's right. Either way, we need to know what it is."
M'gann looked into the mist. "Exactly. We have to investigate. We can't leave this unresolved… every answer we bring back makes the League better prepared when they come in."
Barbara dipped her chin.
"Good. Kala Dhara, when you're steady, we move into the mist and get eyes on the source. Then we decide how to proceed."
Arjun straightened, drew a slow breath, and gave Priya and Kiran a quick nod.
"I'm good. Let's go."
M'gann's brow furrowed. "You're sure?"
"Yeah."
Barbara studied him for one moment longer. "Alright. Let's move."
Shuttered storefronts and empty doorways slipped by on either side. The chill did not deepen, it closed in, crawling up the spine like something invisible searching for a seam.
"Does anyone else think it's weird we haven't seen any of those frenzied animals?" Gar muttered.
Priya shot him a look. "Don't even…"
Gar lifted both hands in surrender. "Okay. Okay. Sorry, my bad."
Jaime swept his visor left, then right. "He's not wrong to ask. Other than the strange vegetation, I'm not picking up any movement. No heartbeats. No heat signatures. Nothing."
"It's eerie," Kiran murmured.
The damp air felt like it wanted to crawl under her skin. She drew on her power anyway, just enough to settle warmth through her chest and shoulders to keep the chill at bay.
Barbara's voice cut through. "Stay the course. Keep a tight formation. Nobody touches anything. If something moves, call it."
"Got it," came the unified reply.
The mist was close now, rolling in slow sheets between buildings, curling around lamp posts and broken stone steps. Somewhere ahead, the chanting modulated again, faster and sharper.
"Beetle," Barbara said. "You're up."
"You got it, boss."
Jaime stepped forward, eyes fixed on the fog. "Scarab. Run a Full scan."
"Acknowledged. Initiating multispectrum sweep."
A thin line of blue light lanced from his armor, widened, and skimmed across the mist's surface. The others held their formation behind him.
Jaime inhaled once and waited.
"Foreign energy signature confirmed."
"Break it down."
"Running composition analysis…"
A fractional pause sharpened its cadence.
"Analysis failed. Signature unreadable. Retrying… Analysis failed. Retrying… Analysis failed."
Jaime's jaw tightened. "Drop to the basics. What can you tell me for sure?"
"Reducing to molecular fundamentals. Base scan complete. Hydro based compound detected. High density isotopic match consistent with prior Great Tide events. Additional sub signatures present."
"Sub signatures?" Jaime asked. "Classify them."
"Attempting trace classification… error. Retrying… error. Retrying… error."
The scarab's voice tightened.
"Trace classification failed. The medium contains unclassified divine fragments. Corrosive properties detected. Acoustic dampening active. Running survivability projection. Estimated field survivability for this team configuration… 60%."
Jaime let out a short, disbelieving breath. "60? That's the good news?"
"It indicates the environment is tolerable under current shielding. Exposure remains survivable."
A beat later, it added in a colder tone.
"Recommendation. Proceed inside. External scans cannot penetrate the interference. Proximity to the source is required for higher fidelity analysis. Group survival probability remains acceptable."
Jaime stared into the fog. "Great… just great."
He looked back at Barbara. "We're not getting answers out here. If we want anything real, we have to go in."
"Copy that. Everyone, deploy your precautions now," Barbara commanded, tapping her terminal. A thin, translucent shield erupted outward, enveloping her like a protective second skin.
Jaime's armor shifted with a hushed mechanical whisper, the seams sealing as power surged through it.
Priya drew a slow, controlled breath. The air around her warmed into a tight convection layer, a gentle pressure that pushed softly against the mist's edge.
Kiran's golden aura rose, forming a subtle, steady veil around her.
Arjun's skin darkened as shadow threaded over him, clinging close, Kali's blessing settling into a tight protective film. Ever since he felt that presence in the ground, Kali's power had been restless, quicker to answer here, as if the corruption had tugged something ancient into resonance.
"Okay, so… who wants to flip a coin for who goes first?" Gar asked.
"Enough," Barbara cut in.
"We go together."
The violet mist swallowed them in a single breath.
Inside the mist
The modulating chants drew closer, and the air turned cold and damp.
M'gann's gaze unfocused as she pushed her telepathy outward.
"There's something here," she whispered, frowning. "But that's as far as I can reach. Every time I try to lock on, my senses split and it slips away. The mist is scrambling telepathy."
Gar turned toward her, suddenly serious. "So our link could drop in here."
"Or at least get unreliable," Jaime said. "We should bring suit comms online as backup."
M'gann nodded once. "Agreed. If we stay close, I can probably hold the link. But the deeper we go, the worse the interference will get. If we get separated, we'll need comms."
Barbara tapped her terminal. A soft encrypted tone chimed in everyone's earpieces.
"Comms are live," she said. "We keep M'gann's link up as long as it holds. If it degrades, we switch to comms. We don't know what this mist can interfere with yet, so assume both can fail and stay within sight of each other. Understood?"
A chorus of acknowledgments came back.
Barbara tracked the thickening mist around them.
"Beetle, can your scarab map terrain in here, or is the interference too heavy?"
Jaime hesitated, listening to the scarab.
"The window's small… I can get outer edges, maybe. But the deeper we go, the worse the return."
He raised an arm. A broad pulse snapped outward into the mist, a brute force scan hurled into a hostile medium.
When his arm lowered, Barbara asked, "So?"
"As expected," Jaime muttered. "I can't map the depths. But I can give you a perimeter."
"That's a start. Overlay your perimeter scan with our topographical maps. If visibility drops to zero, we still need a bearing."
Barbara's expression tightened.
"At this rate, we have less than an hour before it blankets this sector."
Beside them, Priya's flames flickered along her fingertips, then dimmed sharply, as if the mist had drunk the heat before it could catch.
"Kiran," Priya said, frowning. "Tell me you feel that."
"I do." Kiran lifted her hand and watched her golden aura waver, the light thinning under invisible pressure. "It's pressing on my light."
The next instant, an evolved instinct answered inside her. The golden aura steadied with a subtle surge, regaining coherence as if it refused to be bullied.
"I'm good now," Kiran said. "You?"
Priya closed her eyes for one breath.
When she opened them, ember orange light burned steadily in her irises. Heat gathered into a tight coil around her, shimmering relentlessly as it pushed the mist back inch by inch. The glow bathed her in calm, almost otherworldly light that brought out her features and made her even more striking.
"Oh, I'm good," she said dryly. "Just have to push harder."
She turned to Arjun. "You good?"
Arjun nodded once. "Itches a little. But I can manage."
His shadow clung tighter. With every second they spent in the mist, it felt less like his blessing was merely reacting and more like it was answering. The fog brushed against something ancient within him and stirred it awake.
"Looks like you won't need the spare uniforms after all." Barbara's gaze swept over the three of them. "I brought backups, just in case, but you're holding the mist off with your own power."
Priya gave a short nod. "Thanks for worrying. You four holding up?"
Barbara checked the readouts. "Our shielding is stable, for now."
M'gann gave her a reassuring look. "Our off world suits were designed for hostile environments. They'll hold."
Gar nodded.
Jaime nodded too, but he seemed momentarily distracted, his attention lingering on Priya a beat too long.
Barbara noticed but said nothing.
"Good. Stay sharp people. We still don't know what the mist is hiding."
They began moving forward.
A step behind the others, Gar leaned in and nudged Jaime with a smirk.
"Bro, maybe we should pick up the pace?"
Jaime blinked and snapped his focus back to the path ahead.
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm moving."
Gar chuckled quietly and fell in behind him.
Inside Jaime's head, the scarab spoke, tone calm.
"Jaime Reyes. Recommendation… eliminate the female. She is causing fluctuations in your dopamine and norepinephrine levels. She is a distraction."
"Shut up," Jaime snapped back in his head. "Just run constant sweeps, alright? Anything even slightly off… tell me."
"Acknowledged. Side note, heart rate remains elevated."
"I said shut up!"
He quickened his pace, grumbling to himself.
But what he did not realize was that the lapse had already been clocked by the people who mattered. M'gann, Barbara, and even Priya.
Priya's eyes flicked to Jaime, then back into the mist. She chose to pretend she had not noticed the way his gaze had lingered, and forced her attention onto the mission.
M'gann opened a private channel to Barbara.
"Jaime's being obvious. They literally just met yesterday."
"Not now," Barbara replied. "We'll deal with it later. But yeah, he's got it bad."
They pushed deeper, guided by Arjun's sense of direction and Jaime's partial mapping, until the mist thickened into the only thing the world seemed to hold.
Jaime took point.
Arjun and Priya flanked him.
M'gann and Kiran brought up the rear, Kiran's golden aura kept deliberately thin, just enough to keep them oriented without provoking the field.
When visibility collapsed to less than two paces, Jaime slowed and raised a clenched fist. The rest of them halted immediately.
"Beetle," Barbara said. "Any change?"
"Still the same," Jaime replied. "The Scarab keeps catching sub signatures, but it can't isolate any of them. All it can confirm is a mild corrosive component. It won't breach our protection, but if this touched bare skin and stayed there, it would get ugly fast."
He tilted his head, listening to the static in his comms.
"And our pings are getting shredded. The deeper we go, the more this mist eats sound. We're not getting answers out here. If someone's inside the fog, we can't reach them, and we won't hear anything they try to broadcast."
Barbara's eyes narrowed. "Then our tactical comms should be failing."
She tapped her terminal and ran a quick diagnostic. The readouts came back clean. Their encrypted channel was still intact, and the localized shield wrapped around her body held steady, showing no signs of degradation.
For a moment she looked almost thrown. Her thoughts raced, then her gaze caught on a deeper layer of the terminal's interface.
"Could it be?… Looks like I still have a lot to discover about you. If only…"
Rachel's face flashed in her mind.
Barbara clenched her jaw, forced the thought down, and lowered her arm. When she spoke again, her voice was controlled.
"Our comms will hold," Barbara said flatly. "My system is compensating for the damping."
Then she looked to M'gann. "Miss Martian. Push again. Carefully."
M'gann tried, slower this time, probing the fog without letting her awareness sink too deep.
"Same result," she said. "Something is still scrambling my reach. But I can keep our psychic link stable, and the mist doesn't seem to be disrupting it."
Barbara stared into the mist, weighing her options. They did not have the luxury of stopping.
After a beat, she pulled a set of sonic pellets from her terminal space. Each one sleek and seamless, hummed with a faint blue light. She was still learning what the terminal could really do, but she needed a path, and she needed it now.
"We need a route," Barbara said. "Beetle, get ready to catch the return."
Jaime synced with his Scarab. "Ready."
"I'm going to make these pellets hop frequency as they ping," Barbara continued. "If the mist is adapting to patterns, we don't give it one."
She flicked the first pellet forward.
It stopped about three feet off the ground and began to click, fast and insectlike. The pitch climbed and dropped in rapid steps, never sitting on one tone long enough to be learned.
A pale blue wireframe snapped across Barbara's display, then over Jaime and Gar's HUDs, then across M'gann's overlay. For a moment the terrain resolved showing warped trees, broken stone, a slanted ridge, and a narrow track cutting through it all. Past a few meters, the scan fell apart into noise.
Barbara's eyes narrowed. "We've got a short lane. That's enough for now."
She stopped mid sentence.
"We've got movement," she said, turning toward the shifting signatures. "Five infected. Fast. Closing in."
M'gann's posture tightened. "On what?"
Barbara listened to the feed for half a heartbeat longer. "Two humanoid signatures. They're close, and they're in trouble."
M'gann's voice dropped. "Great Ten?"
"High probability," Barbara said. "Either way, we move."
They pushed forward, following the coordinates blooming across Barbara's visor.
The Titans broke through the next curtain of mist and stepped into a scene that stopped them cold.
Roughly Two Hours Earlier, Before the Titans Arrived
The Great Ten had carved Mount Tai's quarantine into a ten node lattice, four surface stations holding the perimeter, three subterranean outposts watching the hidden routes beneath, and three automated positions covering the gaps left by the members deployed to New Delhi.
It was a system built for containment.
Great Ten, Internal Communication Channel
"Seismic displacement detected in Sector Four," Shaolin Robot reported. "Multiple infected signatures converging on Node Three."
Yao Fei's monitors flared. "How is that possible? They've never shown coordinated movement."
"All movement vectors are converging on Node Three," Shaolin Robot replied. "Wildlife is entering a rapidly accelerating frenzy."
Across the outposts, confusion sharpened into something colder.
This was not infected wildlife scattering from patrols.
It was a stampede aimed straight at the lattice.
Xu Tao climbed onto Node Three's roof, bow already in hand. Below him, the mass rolled toward his position like a living avalanche.
"This can't be coincidence," he said. "It's an attack. Deploy ground teams to lock down the gate. If I go down, I'll buy you time."
"Tao, don't talk like that," Wu Mei snapped, already pulling up terrain overlays. "We'll support you."
"I don't want to die," Tao said, voice tight. "But if it can coordinate them, if it can drive them with intent, then this isn't just an outbreak. It's a weapon. And whoever is behind it just made their move."
The arrow settled against the string.
"Either way, I'm holding Node Three."
Yao Fei's disbelief curdled into anger. "This makes no sense. Everything we've observed says the mutated animals can't process intent. They hunt on impulse. Nothing else. We dissected them ourselves. This should be impossible."
"Stop spiraling," Wu Mei cut in. "It helps no one. We still don't fully understand the corruption, so we deal with what it's doing, not what it should be doing. Tao is right. This is an attack."
Hu Li Jing's voice came through, cold and controlled. "Whatever's down there just got impatient. If we play this right, we can make it pay for that."
Thundermind followed immediately. "Agreed. Stick to the plan. Keep your heads level."
Fang Zhifu's voice came next, quiet and decisive. "Zou. Tao. Stop them before they hit Node Three's structural anchors. If that substation goes dark, we lose the eastern loop. That cannot happen. Go."
"Understood," Zou said.
"I'm heading out too," Hu Li Jing said.
"No," Zhifu snapped. "We're already short three members. If Node Three is under attack, Node Two and Node Four could be next. You and Wu Mei hold your posts."
"Tch. Fine," Hu Li Jing muttered.
Wu Mei cut back in at once. "Tao, listen. I have the terrain map. I'm raising obstacles to break the stampede and funnel them into lanes. Use the gaps."
"That'll help," Tao said. Then he fired.
The first arrow struck at impossible range and detonated into condensed solar light.
Wu Mei's blessing answered. Terracotta soldiers surged from the ground in staggered ranks, breaking momentum, impaling the front line, carving narrow corridors through the horde.
Tao became a sniper on the perimeter, dropping anything that tried to breach the quarantine geometry. Thundermind reached him minutes later and joined the front, lightning tearing through infected ranks.
For several minutes, the command link streamed clean combat telemetry. Explosive arrows landed true. Lightning sheared through the mass. The perimeter held. Infected signatures dropped in steady numbers.
Then the ravines moved.
Near Node Two, Ghost Fox's sector, the ash gray pines shuddered.
Something beneath the soil pulsed with stolen energy. The corruption fed it back into the flora deep in the cuts. Bark split as calcified pods sprouted in seconds, like deep sea barnacles fused with rotten lotus buds. They swelled, then opened.
Dense violet vapor burst outward under pressure and rolled downhill in thick waves. The wind caught it and carried it.
It spread silently, too low in the ravines to trip high line overwatch, too strange for the sensors to classify.
By the time it reached Node Three, it was already inside the fight.
"Zhifu," Xu Tao said, breath sharp in the channel. "There's something… Air's getting heavy…"
Static crackled.
"… Strange mist... Targets are…"
The signal warped, muffled.
"… losing visibility… I can't… signatures. Something's…"
The line collapsed into white noise.
"Xu Tao?" Hu Li Jing snapped, her chair scraping hard as she stood. "Zou, report. Zou!"
Only silence answered.
"Robot," Zhifu said, voice colder now. "Recalibrate satellite optics. Full spectrum."
"Diagnostic failure," Shaolin Robot replied. "Atmospheric density in Sector Four has increased by four hundred percent. Tracing anomaly. Unclassified mist confirmed. Composition does not match standard gaseous models. The medium is insulating our signals. Tracing source. Near Node Two."
"What?" Hu Li Jing hissed. She pulled up her sector feed and swept the ravines. Violet haze was rolling out of the deepest cuts, spreading through the air. "How did we miss this?"
"We have a blind spot," Wu Mei said, already pulling up overlays. "It started deep in the ravines and it's spreading fast. At this rate, visibility collapses across every exposed sector."
As she spoke, the Node Three feed degraded in real time. Drones jittered, then fell out of the sky the moment the mist touched them. Shapes smeared and the range markers stuttered. Targets blinked in and out of existence. Within minutes, the communications array began to cascade into failure.
Xu Tao's channel dissolved into static.
Zou Kang's feed flatlined.
Silence fell over the channel.
"They're cut off," Yao Fei said, rising. "Zhifu, I'm going in. If they're bleeding inside that mist, I'm the only one who can keep them alive."
Zhifu hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. "Fine. Go."
"I am accompanying the Physician," Shaolin Robot said.
"Robot, hold," Zhifu snapped. "The perimeter can't lose you."
"Negative," Shaolin Robot replied. "Further data is required. Barrier degradation trends upward in all simulations. Current tactics will fail. I will protect the Physician while collecting data. With my protections, I estimate minimal risk."
Zhifu wanted to refuse. Losing Robot from command was dangerous, but staying blind was worse. He exhaled once, then nodded.
"Fine. Go."
Yao Fei and Shaolin Robot entered the violet mist.
Minutes passed.
Zhifu stared at the spreading stain on his holographic map. Probability lines frayed the moment it appeared. Calculations that should have converged into clean options splintered into chaos, every projection ending in failure, every path collapsing into static.
"I don't like this," he muttered.
"Zhifu," Hu Li Jing said, low and grim. "Let me go in. I don't like that this mist spread under my nose."
Wu Mei added, "I agree. We should enter Jing'er's sector and locate the source."
"Wu Mei, you must maintain the outer terracotta perimeter," Zhifu said. "If the core breaches, your soldiers are the last line preventing a provincial disaster. You have to stay."
Then, after a beat, his voice hardened.
"And we have guests inbound. They may be our best chance of devising a countermeasure. At least one of us must remain here to receive them. That has to be you."
"I second that," Hu Li Jing said, before Wu Mei could argue. "I'll scout the source and shut it down."
"Sister Wu… honestly, I don't want to send anyone in," Zhifu admitted. "But we can't operate blind. The mist is worse than the stampede, and I can't stabilize a single probability line inside the affected region."
He drew a steady breath.
"And if Robot is cut off… I'm the only one left who can adjust the lattice in real time. I have to see it myself."
He met her eyes.
"You asked me to lead, Sister Wu. Let me."
Wu Mei opened her mouth, then forced it shut. Her expression tightened as she bowed her head.
"Then take the latest prototype armor," she said. "It has our latest atmospheric filtration system. We still don't know what that mist is made of."
"Fine," Hu Li Jing replied. "Let's go."
Wu Mei's voice softened, just a little. "May the ancient spirits guide your path, Brother Zhifu. Sister Jing'er."
"Wu Mei," Zhifu said quietly, "we're leaving this to you." Then, to Hu Li Jing. "Meet me at the edge of your territory. We go straight for the ravines."
"Fine."
Zhifu and Hu Li Jing deployed toward Node Two.
Their signals died soon after they entered the mist.
Comms went silent. Screens flickered as violet fog swallowed the mountain's base, turning the streets and checkpoints into a dead, empty maze.
Wu Mei sat staring at the last surviving feed, fists tight.
The containment lattice was elegant, but it was not self sustaining. Without Zhifu recalibrating the geometry, it would decay within hours. And if the corruption reached the aquifers, if it found the ley lines, this would not stay local. It would spread across the continent.
Wu Mei was the only one left with the power and judgment to act.
She had kept her terminal cancer suppressed for months through discipline and Nüwa's blessing. But the mist was unknown, and she knew what the corruption did. It found weakness, then pried until something broke.
Still, if she moved now, while she still could, there was a chance.
Wu Mei rose. She reinforced the terracotta perimeter until her arms shook, then returned to her console and opened a secure channel to the three Great Ten members racing back.
"Chen. Yao'er. Yang'er. Mount Tai has suffered a systemic failure. An unknown atmospheric disturbance has severed communications and blinded telemetry. All field operatives have gone dark.
"By the time you arrive, if we cannot hold the barriers, I am authorizing Protocol Scorched Earth. Before that, evacuate the outer perimeter and withdraw all personnel beyond the provincial line. Live to fight another day.
"Regarding the three champions from India, they are not to be endangered under any circumstances. Cooperate with them fully. Prioritize understanding the corruption's nature over direct assault. This mist indicates adaptive intelligence. Attempt rescue only if survival is assured.
"Finally, live well, and end this nightmare, my friends."
She sent the transmission.
Later, at the terracotta wall, Wu Mei drew on the full depth of her blessing.
Nüwa's clay gold divinity rose through her veins like molten earth.
Her veins glowed.
Down in the foothills, thousands of buried terracotta sentinels groaned awake. They rose in waves, first a ring, then a second, then a third, interlocking shields and overlapping wards to form a desperate final cage around Mount Tai.
"That should buy them time."
After a few steadying breaths, she stepped forward without looking back, opened a seam in the barrier, and entered the quarantine.
The wall sealed behind her.
Wu Mei moved through the deserted town, past abandoned checkpoints and silent streets, and into the violet mist alone.
At first, it only softened the edges of the world. Then it thickened, pressing against her visor until distance became a guess. The air felt wet and heavy, as if she were wading through something that wanted to hold her in place.
"I can't keep going like this."
A ring of terracotta soldiers rose shin-high around her boots. They surfaced, sank, and surfaced again in a slow rotation, circling like sentries on patrol.
Wu Mei fed her awareness into them, listening through their clay bodies as they relayed minute tremors, pressure shifts, and movement.
"Good," she murmured. "Now I'll know before anything gets close."
Step by step, she rebuilt the sector in her head, retracing where the feeds had cut out, where the comms had died, and how the mist had drifted across the nodes.
Node Three was a dead zone. Walking in blind would not save anyone.
If Zhifu and Hu Li Jing were still alive, they would be near Node Two, close to the source, trying to choke the mist off before it swallowed the lattice completely.
She pushed the thought down and kept moving.
The deeper she went, the quieter the world became. Even her breathing sounded distant, swallowed before it reached her own ears. She toggled channels again and again, but static answered every frequency.
Wu Mei's expression tightened thinking about the strange mist. "Just what are you?"
A faint shift ran through the terracotta ring. Not sound. Not sight. Pressure.
She turned toward the ravine lip.
The moment she stepped closer, the ring tensed harder.
Wu Mei dropped on instinct, pivoting low as her sidearm came up.
Something massive pushed out of the fog.
A mutated boar lumbered into view, its hide plated with calcified armor. Jagged violet growths speared through flesh like broken coral. Thick purple sap leaked from its eyes and trailed down its snout in ropes.
It lowered its tusks and charged, far too fast for something that heavy.
Wu Mei swore under her breath. "Not good. I can't get a clear shot."
She rolled hard to the side.
The boar thundered past, hooves ripping gouges through the corrupted soil. Wu Mei came up on one knee, and her terracotta ring tightened again, not around the boar, but around her.
The mist pressed at her back.
Her stomach sank.
"Is it… pushing me?"
The boar swung wide to circle back. Wu Mei shoved the thought aside and snapped her hands down.
The earth ruptured.
Heavy terracotta sentinels surged up beneath the boar's tusks and caught it mid-charge, clay arms locking like a vise. Momentum died in a brutal grind of stone on bone.
Wu Mei stepped into the opening, pressed the barrel under its jaw, and fired once.
The boar collapsed, convulsed, and then began to dissolve into foul brine. The sludge hissed as it seeped into cracks and stone.
Wu Mei did not wait to see how long it took to finish melting.
She was already moving again, more alert now, tracking the pressure shifts in the air and the tremors through her terracotta ring.
She descended into the ravine, using her constructs as footholds. Platforms rose under her boots and sank behind her, carrying her down one careful step at a time.
Warnings crawled across her HUD.
Particulate density rising.
Then she saw it.
Calcified lotus pods clung to the rock faces and dead trunks, swollen and split open like diseased mouths. They exhaled violet vapor in rhythmic bursts, as if something underneath the mountain was breathing through them.
Her helmet filters began to hiss. A thin, desperate whine.
The seals were failing.
Wu Mei's jaw clenched as a familiar ache spread through her chest.
Her cancer was flaring.
"Not now," she whispered. "Please… not now."
Her breath hitched, and a wet cough tore up her throat, violent enough to fold her forward. Blood flooded her mouth, metallic and thick. Every breath scraped across raw tissue.
She closed her eyes and drove Nüwa's divinity inward.
Pain lanced through her in a clean, searing line, but she held it. Forced it down. Forced the flare back into its cage.
When she opened her eyes again, the choking pressure had eased.
"That should hold for now," she muttered.
Her gaze flicked to the filtration readout. The numbers were still dropping.
"This mist is corrosive," she said quietly. "If a little exposure caused this much trouble, I'll need to keep channeling regularly just to stay functional. Otherwise, my condition will flare up again.
She forced herself upright and kept going, breathing through the damaged mask.
"Looks like the mist is really like its source. Looking for weakness in the subject. I need to find them fast," she whispered. "And get out of here."
A short distance ahead, a figure resolved through the haze.
Hu Li Jing, the Ghost Fox.
But something was wrong.
Ghost Fox had her blades drawn. Her breathing came in sharp, uneven pulls. Her eyes were glassy, pupils blown wide. She slashed at empty air as if the fog itself had hands, as if enemies were circling her just beyond sight.
Wu Mei didn't rush.
She paused and took the scene in the way she knew best, through the ground's tremors, the pressure shifts in the air, and the subtle tightening of her terracotta ring whenever something moved just beyond what her eyes could confirm.
Then she saw Zhifu.
Fang Zhifu lay unconscious on the ground, armor split open across the chest. Blood pooled beneath him, dark and slick
Wu Mei's mind tried to jump to the ugliest answer.
"Those wounds are too clean. Did Jing'er do that?"
She shut the thought down hard.
Ghost Fox was swinging at empty air, blades slicing through shapes that weren't there.
"Could it be… prolonged exposure to this mist causes hallucinations?"
Wu Mei's expression hardened.
She stepped forward and drew on her blessing.
Terracotta rose in silence around Ghost Fox, low, pale figures that caught Wu Mei's clay-gold radiance like lanterns in fog.
In Ghost Fox's fractured vision, that new light cut through the nightmare. Confusion cracked the panic. For one heartbeat, her blades faltered.
That was all Wu Mei needed.
Wu Mei brought her hands together and drove her power deeper into the earth.
A larger terracotta shell surged up and enclosed Ghost Fox in an instant, sealing her away from the mist. Inside the clay, the fog thinned, giving her a breath of clarity before whatever was already in her system could drag her under again.
"Jing'er," Wu Mei said. "Look at me."
Inside the shell, Ghost Fox snapped toward the voice reverberating through the clay. Her pupils contracted as Wu Mei's aura cut through the haze.
Recognition still didn't return.
Instead, Ghost Fox's expression cycled through anger, fear, and raw suspicion.
"No," she rasped. "Get back."
"Jing'er, the mist is in your mind," Wu Mei said. "Whatever you're seeing isn't real. Wake up. You're standing over Zhifu."
Ghost Fox's breath hitched.
"No," she said again, voice cracking. "You're lying. That wasn't Zhifu. That was a corrupted thing. It tried to devour me. I felt it."
The words rushed out, jagged and panicked.
"It killed him, and then it followed me. It wore his face, but I saw what was underneath. Those eyes. Those yellow eyes."
She swallowed hard, shaking with the memory.
"I saw the hunger. The hunger in it. And in that moment I knew." Her breath came in a ragged pull. "If I don't kill it now, it'll get into me too. It'll eat me alive. It'll corrupt me."
Wu Mei's eyes narrowed.
"Yellow eyes? What is she talking about?"
She shoved the question aside and kept her voice steady. "Then answer me this. If Zhifu is dead, why are you still moving like you're fighting someone?"
Ghost Fox's head jerked. Her gaze tracked shapes that weren't there.
"I… I don't know how," she choked out. "But they're back. Those bastards. Those scum from my past. The ones who hurt me. I killed them. I know I killed them, but they're here…"
Her voice rose, breaking into a sob of fury.
"I swear I can see them. All of them. Coming at me again and again. Why… why won't they die?"
Her blades trembled in her fists.
"No. No. I have to run. I have to get out," she whispered, spiraling. "I have to kill them before they… before they…"
"Jing'er, listen to me," Wu Mei cut in, her tone firm. "The mist is lying to you. What you're seeing isn't real. It's a hallucination."
Ghost Fox's jaw clenched. She didn't believe it. Not yet.
Wu Mei understood.
The mist wasn't just blinding people. It was weaponizing them, dragging trauma up by the throat and giving it teeth.
Wu Mei lowered her voice, making it heavier, harder to ignore.
"Jing'er," she said, voice low and steady. "Listen to me. It's using your pain, your fears, your memories, against you. It's making things that aren't there feel real. But I'm real. Stay with my voice."
Ghost Fox's breath hitched again. "But… how do I know you're real?"
"You already do," Wu Mei said. "You can feel my power, can't you?"
She leaned closer, letting the clay-gold radiance fill the shell.
"If you can't, then answer one thing. Why are you even answering me?"
Ghost Fox froze for half a beat. Confusion and fear warred with anger and old pain.
"Stay with that feeling," Wu Mei said. "Let my light guide you back."
The hallucination fought back pulling Ghost Fox back into the nightmare.
Power flared along Ghost Fox's blades as she struck the terracotta from the inside. Cracks spiderwebbed across the shell.
The moment she broke free, she came out like a cornered animal, fast and vicious, slashing at Wu Mei with panic-driven precision.
Wu Mei absorbed the strikes, turned each one aside, and never hit back. She let Ghost Fox burn herself out, watching her eyes for the first fracture in the nightmare.
Then Wu Mei stepped inside her guard, seized her by the shoulders, and snapped them visor to visor.
"The mist is insulating comms and muffling sound. Stay still," Wu Mei ordered.
Ghost Fox snarled and twisted.
"Jing'er, stay still."
Wu Mei didn't let her.
She tore the connector from her own communicator, cracked Ghost Fox's unit open, and rammed the hardline into place.
Static snapped once.
Then Wu Mei's voice hit Ghost Fox's ear, clean and undeniable.
"Jing'er. Listen to me. This is an order. Come back."
Ghost Fox thrashed.
Wu Mei tightened her grip, Nüwa's power flaring through her hands like an anchor.
"Breathe," Wu Mei said. "That's it. Breathe. Stay with my voice. One. Two. Three."
Ghost Fox shuddered as her chest heaved.
Her eyes flickered.
"Mei…?" she whispered, small and shaken. "Is that really you? You're… real, right?"
"Yes," Wu Mei said, breath coming hard. "Welcome back."
Ghost Fox's blades slipped from numb fingers and hit the dirt.
Wu Mei still didn't let go.
"Stay with me," she said. "Don't think. Just follow my words."
Ghost Fox swallowed, trembling. "I thought I…"
"I know," Wu Mei cut in. "The mist wants you wasting strength on illusions. Don't feed it."
Ghost Fox's gaze snapped to Zhifu. Horror surged across her face.
"Is he…?"
Wu Mei released one shoulder and dropped to a knee beside him, checking his pulse through a seam in the broken armor.
"Alive," she said. "Barely."
She hauled Ghost Fox upright and formed a partial terracotta brace around her torso, a stabilizer, in case the hallucinations returned.
"Can you walk?"
Ghost Fox nodded, breath shaking. "Yes."
"Good." Wu Mei held her eyes. "We move now. Keep his head steady. Keep his airway clear. We each take a shoulder. And if you start seeing things again, you tell me immediately. Got it?"
Ghost Fox swallowed hard. "Understood."
They lifted Zhifu between them. His armored weight settled across their shoulders like dead stone.
Wu Mei's muscles burned immediately.
Still, they climbed.
Mist surged around them, pressing close, trying to smother.
Ghost Fox flinched at something unseen.
"Eyes on me," Wu Mei snapped.
Ghost Fox forced her gaze back. "On you. Yes. On you."
"Good," Wu Mei said. "That's your anchor. If reality slips, you tell me immediately. I'm with you. Remember that."
Ghost Fox nodded, too tight to speak.
Twice, loose stone shifted underfoot and nearly sent them tumbling back into the ravine.
Somewhere on the ascent, the terrain stopped matching Wu Mei's mental map.
Her damaged mask seal whistled, a thin, reedy sound that sharpened as the fog thickened. Violet vapor scraped her lungs with every breath. She swallowed blood and kept moving anyway.
The pressure behind them built, uneven and persistent.
The fog thickened at their backs while thinner air opened ahead, drawing them toward a single point.
Wu Mei's stomach sank.
"Was I right? Is the mist herding me? Please let me be wrong."
Ghost Fox looked up, confused and unsteady. "Sister Mei… do you know where we're going?"
"Doesn't matter," Wu Mei said. "First, we need distance from this place. Then if we reach the outer nodes, we live."
Then the fog pulsed.
Like something deep in the mountain had inhaled.
The violet veil split, ripping aside like a curtain.
A towering silhouette stepped out.
Wu Mei moved on instinct. She lowered Zhifu against the ravine wall, propped him upright to keep his airway open, and spun back as terracotta snapped up around her.
"Jing'er," she barked. "Behind me."
The silhouette roared.
"Demon!"
The voice was wrong, watery, distorted, like it had climbed out of a drowned throat.
Wu Mei's eyes widened as the figure resolved.
"Zou Kang."
Her voice went hard. "Stop."
Thundermind's eyes bled at the corners. Violet tears streaked down his face. His expression was pure hatred, primal and unrecognizing.
He wasn't seeing her.
He was seeing a monster wearing her light like bait.
Wu Mei's blood went cold.
"Zou Kang! It's me. Snap out of it!"
He didn't slow.
If anything, he accelerated.
Lightning gathered in his palms as he crashed through her first terracotta line, ripping it apart like paper.
Wu Mei braced and drove her power into the earth.
Terracotta surged up in layers. One barrier sealed Zhifu and Ghost Fox inside a protective dome. Another rose in front of her as shield and spear. Plates climbed over her armor, locking into a reinforced shell.
Her expression went solemn as Zou charged again, sword raised.
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry for this."
Back to the present