Frank Williams stepped away from the giant steel doors. His heavy leather boots sank deep into the pale white dust. The wind howled around him. It was a hot, dry, terrible wind. It picked up the fine white powder from the ground and threw it into his face. The dust stuck to his sweat. It coated his eyelashes and his lips. When he breathed in, the dust burned the back of his throat. It tasted bitter and chalky, like old medicine. Behind him, Elara stepped out of the dark hangar bay. The forty refugees of Lyrendale followed her slowly. They huddled together, covering their faces with their torn clothes to block the blowing dust. They all looked up at the sky. It was an impossible, terrifying sight. They were miles and miles under the ground, but there was a sky above them. It was a swirling, angry ocean of sick, yellow clouds. The clouds moved very fast, spinning in giant circles. There was no sun. There was no moon. There were no stars. The only light came from the clouds themselves

Elara stared at the alien skull. Her mind could not comprehend what she was looking at. Six eye sockets. Metal bones. It was entirely impossible. "We already knew the Root was a cosmic parasite," Frank said, looking out over the endless miles of white dunes. "We knew it traveled through space. We knew it ate worlds. But seeing it... seeing the actual scale of it..."Frank swallowed hard. "Fourteen thousand planets, Elara," Frank said. The number hung heavily in the hot air. "The Root has eaten fourteen thousand entire worlds before it landed on ours. It crushed the bodies of billions and billions of alien creatures, and it dumped their crushed bones here, in its stomach, to make a desert."Elara felt her knees grow weak. She looked at the vast, endless wasteland. She realized that she was walking on top of a mass grave. She was walking on the pulverized remains of entire civilizations, entire species, entire worlds that had failed to stop the machine. Lyrendale was just one city. T

The giant, thirty-foot monster stood in the center of the dark metal arena. It was the Annihilator. It was the ultimate weapon of the Root. Its bottom half was a massive tail made of thousands of spinning metal gears. Its top half was a nightmare of thick white bone, dark steel plates, and pulsing golden muscles. It had four massive arms. Two arms ended in huge bone scythes dripping with green acid. The other two arms were heavy metal cannons glowing with hot golden fire. And in the very center of its chest, a single, massive golden eye stared directly at Frank Williams. Frank stood his ground. He did not run. He did not step backward. His human right arm hung tiredly at his side. His broken ribs burned with terrible pain. But his left arm—the Phantom Limb—glowed with blinding, crackling neon blue and golden light. Tiny sparks of lightning popped in the air around his magical fingers. Frank pulled his glowing fist back. He was ready to fight. He was ready to throw a punch that wou

Standing in the exact center of the vast arena, about a hundred yards away, was the massive, jagged black tower. It was the Prime Core. It was a solid building made of thick, unbreakable alien metal. It had a large, open doorway at the bottom. "The tower!" Elara pointed her dagger at the black spike. "If we get inside the tower, the thick metal roof will protect us from the acid rain!"The refugees looked at the black tower. It was their only hope. It was the only shelter in the entire pocket dimension. But there was a problem. Standing directly between the refugees and the black tower was the thirty-foot-tall Annihilator. The giant monster had not moved. It was waiting for them. Its spinning gear-tail ground against the hot steel floor. Its massive bone scythes dripped with green poison. Its golden cannons glowed with deadly fire. Its single, giant chest-eye stared at them, watching them panic. The monster knew exactly what the storm was. It was part of the immune system. The mon

The sky broke wide open. A million drops of glowing, golden acid fell from the dark, bruised purple clouds. They did not fall like gentle rain. They fell fast and hard, like tiny, glowing bullets shot from the heavens. Tobin was still screaming on the hot metal floor. He held his hand against his chest. The perfect, round hole in his flesh smoked and sizzled. The pain was beyond anything a normal person could imagine. But Tobin’s scream was quickly drowned out. As the massive wall of the acid storm completely covered them, the loud, buzzing sound of the rain hitting the ground grew deafening. It sounded like a giant forest fire. Every single drop of golden rain that hit the white bone dust on the floor sent up a thick puff of sour, burning white smoke. "Cover your heads!" Elara screamed at the top of her lungs. The forty refugees panicked wildly. They grabbed whatever they had. Some pulled the torn pieces of the royal blue banners over their heads. Some grabbed thin sheets of rus