The air smelled stale and dry, like dust that had not moved in ten thousand years. A sound echoed from the dark ceiling above them. The refugees froze. Kael raised his metal pipe. "Blind crawlers," Mr. Thorne whispered in a panic. Frank stopped hopping. He looked up into the pitch-black shadows. He did not have his glowing magical legs to scare the monsters away anymore. He was just a human boy in the dark. But as the blind crawlers skittered closer, ready to drop down and attack, the soft blue pulse in Frank’s mind suddenly flared brightly. The blue light inside Frank’s chest, his Echo Core, responded to the pulse. It flashed with a sudden, bright burst of pure blue energy. The light hit the ceiling. The blind crawlers screeched in pain. The pure, clean magic of the blue light burned their sensitive, sightless faces. They scrambled backward rapidly, retreating deep into the cracks of the stone ceiling, terrified of the beacon. "The light protected us," Mrs. Gable breathed a si

Elara stopped walking. She squinted her pale eyes. "Frank," Elara whispered, pointing her dagger at the cage. "There is something inside that one."Frank stopped. He turned his head and looked at the heavy iron cage. Inside the thick, rusted metal bars, a massive shape was slumped on the floor. It was completely still. Silas nervously raised the glowing crystal higher, illuminating the inside of the prison. The refugees gasped in absolute horror. It was a skeleton. But it was not a human skeleton. It was the skeleton of a massive, terrifying alien creature. It had four long arms, a thick tail made of crystal bone, and a giant skull with a dozen empty eye sockets. It was wearing strange, ancient, shredded armor. It had died inside the cage thousands of years ago. "It is one of the previous hosts," Frank whispered, staring at the alien bones. "A warrior from another planet. The Root captured him, but he refused to surrender his soul to the Prime Core. So the machine locked him in

Frank looked around the massive, silent cavern. He remembered the giant iron cages they had seen earlier. The cages that held the giant skeletons of alien warriors. "There has to be a way to lower the cage," Frank said. "This is a machine. The Root built this place. There must be a mechanism. A winch. A gear."Frank hopped forward on his left leg. He leaned heavily on his wooden crutch. He moved past Luna’s hanging glass sphere, walking deeper into the dark cavern. "Silas, follow me," Frank ordered. "Keep the light high."Silas walked right beside Frank, holding the glowing yellow crystal up. Elara walked on Frank’s other side, keeping her chipped royal steel dagger ready. The crowd of thirty-seven terrified refugees followed closely behind them, holding hands so no one would get lost in the pitch-black shadows. As they walked deeper into the cavern, the yellow light revealed the true, terrifying scale of the room. They had thought it was just a prison for giant alien warriors. B

They stepped out of the dense forest of glass and rusted iron. They entered a wide, open clearing in the exact center of the colossal cavern. Frank stopped hopping. He leaned heavily on his wooden crutch. He stared straight ahead into the dim yellow light provided by Silas’s crystal. "We found it," Frank whispered. In the dead center of the clearing sat a massive, terrifying structure. It was a vault. It was shaped like a perfect, giant cube. It was easily forty feet tall and forty feet wide. But it was not made of dark, ancient stone like the temple walls. It was not made of rusted, red-brown iron like the bunker doors. It was not made of wet, squishy gray-pink brain tissue like the Nerve Center. The massive vault was made of indestructible, perfectly smooth, pitch-black metal. The metal was so incredibly dark that it seemed to absorb the dim yellow light from Silas’s crystal. It cast no reflection. It had no seams. It had no bolts or screws. It looked like a solid block of abso

Frank Williams did not hesitate. He did not ask for permission. He simply raised his bare, human right hand and slammed it directly down onto the bowl of sharp, dark metal needles. The sound of the thick, rusted needles piercing his human flesh was sickening. The sharp points drove deep into the palm of his hand. They cut through his skin and scraped against the bones in his fingers. Frank gasped loudly. He gritted his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut. The pain was sharp and cold. Bright, dark red human blood immediately welled up around the metal needles. But the red blood did not stay red for long. Because Frank’s internal System Core was cracked, the raw, toxic magic of the alien parasite was leaking into his bloodstream. As his blood flowed into the ancient stone bowl, it began to glow. Thick, glowing golden poison mixed with the red blood. It filled the bottom of the bowl, shining with that sick, aggressive yellow light. The golden liquid touched the base of the metal needles