The world was tilted at forty-five degrees, and the floor was made of fire.
Varian hung by one arm from a jagged tear in the deck plating of the Iron Sovereign. His boots scrambled for purchase on the superheated steel, but the anti-slip coating had long since melted away.
Below him, the deck had become a slide into hell.
The massive land-ship was capsizing. The Brood Mother's impact had shattered the starboard repulsor nodes, causing the magnetic field to collapse on one side. The ship wasn't sinking—it was surfing on its side, dragging its armored flank through the molten rock.
SCREEEEEEE.
The sound of the hull grinding against the lava was deafening, a high-pitched shriek of dying metal that vibrated in Varian's teeth.
"Help me! Sovereign!"
A Dreg soldier slid past Varian. He had lost his grip on the railing. He clawed frantically at the smooth steel, his eyes wide with a terror that transcended language.
Varian lunged. He extended his free hand.
"Onyx! Reach!"
The black Symbiote shot out like a whip. It wrapped around the soldier's ankle just as he went over the edge.
Varian groaned as the weight hit him. He was holding himself and the soldier, dangling over the churning orange ocean.
A wave of lava splashed against the hull, sending a spray of liquid fire arcing over them.
The droplets hit the soldier's leg.
He screamed. It was a raw, wet sound. The lava burned through his Roach-Shell armor in a second, cooking the flesh beneath.
"Pull him up!" Varian roared, his shoulder socket popping with the strain. "Gorgon!"
Gorgon was ten meters up the deck, braced against a turret mount. The giant was a statue of red-hot misery. The Crimson Paladin armor was glowing so brightly it was painful to look at. The heat of the magma sea was overcharging the suit, feeding the rage engine until Gorgon was barely holding onto his sanity.
"I... can't... move!" Gorgon bellowed. "If I let go... I slide!"
Varian looked down. The soldier was thrashing, his leg smoking.
Then, the lava below churned.
A Magma-Shark breached.
It didn't attack Varian. It jumped for the soldier dangling like a lure.
SNAP.
The jaws closed around the man's waist.
There was no resistance. The shark fell back into the lava, taking the bottom half of the soldier with it.
The weight on Varian's arm lightened instantly. He was left holding a severed leg wrapped in black slime.
Varian stared at the limb. The heat, the noise, the chaos—it all faded for a microsecond into a cold, singular point of horror.
I couldn't save him.
[Mental Stress: Rising.][Symbiote Feedback: Rage.]
Varian dropped the leg. He hauled himself up onto the jagged metal grating, his breath coming in ragged gasps inside his helmet.
"Status!" Varian screamed into the comms. "Jack! Get us upright!"
"I'm trying to re-route power to the port thrusters!" Scrap-Jack's voice was hysterical. "But the intake valves are sucking in magma! The coolant lines are vaporized! We are bleeding energy!"
The ship lurched again.
The Brood Mother slammed into the keel. The massive Commander-Rank shark was treating the 5,000-ton fortress like a chew toy. It rammed the underside, trying to flip the ship completely over so the soft, fleshy contents would spill out.
"We're going to turtle!" Lady Venom yelled from the bridge doorway. She was clinging to the frame, her tail wrapped around a pipe. "If we flip, we all burn!"
Varian looked out at the sea.
It wasn't just the Brood Mother. The water—no, the lava—was boiling with fins. Hundreds of Magma-Sharks were circling, waiting for the ship to capsize.
They were trapped. They couldn't fight an ocean.
"We need a distraction," Varian realized. "Something to draw them away from the hull."
But what? They had no depth charges. No meat. Nothing but themselves.
"Varian," a calm voice cut through the panic.
Silas.
Varian looked up.
Silas was standing on the highest point of the tilted deck—the railing of the observation tower. He was leaning on his cane, looking down at the swarm of sharks. His coat whipped in the superheated thermal updraft.
"Silas! Get down!" Varian shouted. "You'll slide!"
Silas ignored him. He looked at the massive, obsidian fin of the Brood Mother circling the ship.
"They hunt by vibration," Silas said, his voice carrying over the roar of the fire. "And heat signature. They are swarming the ship because it's the hottest, loudest thing in the sea."
"We can't turn the engine off!"
"No," Silas agreed. "But we can give them a better target."
Silas reached up and touched the brim of his hat. The Vampire Bat King, Nosferatu, was clinging there, screeching at the heat.
"I need the swarm, Nos," Silas whispered to the bat.
Nosferatu hissed, baring its fangs. It shook its head.
"I know," Silas said softly. He stroked the bat's fur. "I know they are your children. I know it took us years to breed them."
Silas looked at the Dregs clinging to the railings. He looked at Echo and Elian huddled in the bridge window, terrified.
He looked at Varian.
"You asked me why I joined, Varian," Silas called out. "You asked if I could follow orders."
Silas took a deep breath.
"I can't. But I can pay my rent."
Silas raised his cane.
"FLY!" Silas roared.
He didn't just shout. He projected a psychic command, amplified by his blood-bond.
From the cargo hold, a dark cloud erupted.
The Vampire Bat Swarm. Five hundred winged horrors.
They didn't fly away from the ship. They flew down.
"Silas, no!" Varian screamed.
"Dive!" Silas commanded, his eyes glowing crimson. "Feast! Bleed! Die!"
The bats obeyed.
They dove into the lava sea. They couldn't survive the heat for long—their wings would singe, their blood would boil. But for a few seconds, they were alive.
They swarmed the surface of the lava, skimming the waves. They screeched, creating a massive sonic disturbance.
The Magma-Sharks went into a frenzy.
A thousand tiny, frantic heartbeats hitting the water. A thousand heat signatures.
The sharks turned away from the ship. They leaped into the air, snapping at the bats.
SNAP. CRUNCH. HISS.
Bats caught fire. Bats were eaten mid-air.
The Brood Mother roared, distracted by the cloud of pests buzzing around her eyes. She lunged out of the lava, snapping her jaws on a cluster of fifty bats.
"Now!" Silas screamed, tears streaming down his face as he felt every death through his link. "Jack! Pulse the engine! Now!"
Varian didn't hesitate. He slammed his fist against his comms.
"JACK! PUNCH IT!"
Inside the engine room, Scrap-Jack slammed the override.
"Eating magma!" Jack yelled.
The repulsor engine groaned. It sucked in a massive gulp of superheated air and lava spray. The turbines spun past the red line.
WHOOOOOM.
A blast of blue magnetic force exploded from the bottom of the ship.
Because the sharks had moved away to chase the bats, the blast didn't hit resistance. It hit the lava surface cleanly.
The Iron Sovereign launched.
It bucked upward, correcting its tilt. The ship flew—literally flew—twenty meters into the air, clearing the waves.
It soared over the Brood Mother's head.
Varian watched as the ship hung in the air for a breathless second. Below them, the bats were dying. Burning. Screaming.
Silas fell to his knees on the deck, clutching his chest. Nosferatu shrieked a mournful keen.
They had bought the Legion thirty seconds of life.
"Radar contact!" Rix screamed from the crow's nest. "Big iron! Huge iron! Straight ahead!"
Varian scrambled to the bow.
Through the heat haze, a shape loomed.
It was an island. But it wasn't rock. It was rusted, melted steel.
A mountain of metal rose from the lava sea. It was jagged, skeletal, and massive—easily five times the size of the Sovereign.
[Object Identified.][Subject: Union Super-Carrier (Titan-Class).][Status: Wrecked / Partially Submerged.][Age: Approx 50 Years.]
It was the wreck Mama Ferro had spoken of. A Union ship that had tried to cross the Magma Sea decades ago and failed. It had run aground on a spire of obsidian, its hull breached, its reactor dead.
But it was solid. And it was high enough out of the lava to be safe.
"Land on it!" Varian ordered. "Crash land if you have to! Just get us out of the water!"
"We're coming in hot!" Scrap-Jack warned. "Thrusters failing in 3... 2..."
The Iron Sovereign dropped.
It slammed onto the rusted flight deck of the sunken carrier.
CRASH-SCREEEE.
Metal shrieked against metal. Sparks showered the air like fireworks. The Sovereign skidded across the deck, smashing through rusted fighter jets and debris.
"Brace!"
The ship spun, hitting the carrier's control tower.
THUD.
It came to a halt.
Silence returned.
The hum of the repulsor engine died with a whine. The lights flickered and went out, leaving only the red emergency strobes.
Varian lay on the deck, bruised but alive. He pushed himself up.
"Report!"
"Hull breach on Deck 4!" Venom shouted. "But we're sealed! No lava ingress!"
"Engine is toast," Scrap-Jack coughed. "The coils are fused. We aren't flying anywhere."
Varian stood up. He walked to the railing.
They were stranded.
Perched on top of a dead ship in the middle of an ocean of fire.
Below, the lava churned. The Magma-Sharks were circling the wreck, frustrated. They couldn't reach the high deck.
Varian looked at Silas.
The Blood Mage was still kneeling. He was staring at the empty air where his swarm used to be. Nosferatu was nuzzling his cheek, making soft, clicking sounds.
There were maybe twenty bats left. The survivors who had clung to the hull.
"Silas," Varian said softly.
Silas stood up. His face was a mask of cold porcelain.
"Don't," Silas said. "Don't thank me. And don't apologize."
He turned away, walking toward the shadows of the wrecked carrier's tower.
"Just make sure it was worth it, Varian. Make sure we kill the Dragon."
Night in the Magma Sea didn't bring darkness; the lava glowed eternally. But it brought a shift in the wind.
The Iron Legion set up a perimeter on the flight deck of the wrecked carrier. It was a eerie place. The skeleton of the massive ship groaned as the thermal currents shifted.
Varian led a scout team—Gorgon, Venom, and Rix—into the carrier's interior.
"We need parts," Varian said, his voice echoing in the rusted corridor. "If we want to fix the Sovereign, we need to cannibalize this ship."
The interior of the Union Carrier was a time capsule.
Skeletons of crewmen lay where they had died fifty years ago, mummified by the dry heat. They still wore Union uniforms.
"They didn't die from the crash," Venom noted, pointing to a skeleton. "Look at the bones. Gnaw marks."
"Boarders?" Gorgon asked, raising his shield.
"Small ones," Rix sniffed. "Fire-rats. Or... hatchlings."
They reached the Armory. The blast door was fused shut.
"Gorgon. Knock."
Gorgon smashed the door with his hammer. It crumpled.
Inside, racks of weapons lay untouched. Most were rusted useless. But in the back, sealed in a cryo-stasis pod, was a heavy weapon.
It looked like a bazooka, but the barrel was made of transparent blue glass.
[Item Acquired: Cryo-Cannon (Prototype).][Ammo: Liquid Helium Canisters.][Status: Operational.]
"A freeze gun," Varian whispered. "The Union brought this to kill the Dragon."
"They didn't get to use it," Venom said, looking at the skeleton of the Quartermaster slumped over the console. He had a pistol in his hand and a hole in his skull. Suicide.
"We will," Varian said. "Scrap-Jack can mount this on the Sovereign."
They continued deeper.
They reached the Bridge.
The glass was shattered. The captain's chair was empty. But the ship's log was still blinking on the emergency power loop.
Varian accessed it.
[Log Entry: Final.][Captain Harlock recording.][We failed. The heat shielding held, but the engine... the engine attracted Him.][He didn't attack us. He just... surfaced. The wave capped us.][We are stranded. The food is gone. The heat is driving the crew mad.][If anyone finds this... do not cross the sea. The Dragon King is not a beast. He is a calamity.]
The recording ended.
"Encouraging," Gorgon grunted.
"Boss!" Rix shouted from the window. "Look!"
Varian looked out.
From the high vantage point of the carrier's bridge, they could see across the Magma Sea.
In the distance, rising from the lava like a jagged black tooth, was a massive island. It was made of obsidian shards.
And at the peak of the island sat a crater.
Heat radiated from it in visible waves.
"The Obsidian Island," Varian said. "The Throne."
But something was wrong.
The lava around the island wasn't flowing. It was... still.
"Why is the water flat?" Rix asked.
Varian used his Genetic Archivist zoom.
The lava wasn't flat. It was solid.
A ring of black rock had formed around the island.
"It's cooling," Varian whispered. "The lava is cooling."
"How?" Venom asked. "It's a volcano."
"Something is sucking the heat out," Varian realized. "Something is eating the thermal energy of the entire sector."
He looked at the crater.
"The Dragon King isn't just a fire beast. He's a Thermal Vampire. He's draining the Core to feed himself."
Varian turned to his team.
"We have the Cryo-Cannon. We have the Sovereign (if we fix it). And we have the element of surprise."
He looked at the distant island.
"The Union failed because they tried to fight fire with tech. We are going to fight fire with... hunger."
He touched the Abyssal Armor.
"I'm going to eat his heat."