The World-Eater was a mountain of rusted iron and pulsing blue veins. It groaned under my weight. I was no longer a man. I was a mile of obsidian scales and jagged lightning."Osric! Look out!" Kael’s voice screamed through my mind. "The alloy! It’s reacting to your touch!""I feel it, Kael!" I roared. My voice sent a shockwave across the dry harbor. "It’s cold! It’s drawing the heat right out of my scales!""It’s an ancient heat-sink!" Kael shouted. "The pre-deluge masters built it to survive volcanic shifts! If you keep squeezing, you’ll freeze solid!""I don't care what they built it for!" I hummed. The vibration shattered the rusted plates beneath my claws. "I’m tearing it apart!""No!" Elowen’s voice broke into the frequency. She was still on the tilting balcony of her tower. "You’re destroying the only power source left! If the World-Eater dies, Oakhaven stays dark forever!""The city is already dark, Elowen!" I snapped. I slammed my massive head against the machine’s hull. The

Elowen was backed against the glass railing, her expensive white suit stained with soot. She looked like a broken doll. She was trembling so hard I could hear her teeth rattling over the roar of the gale."Osric! Stop! Just listen for one damn second!" She shrieked. Her voice cracked, thin and desperate against the massive gale."I’m listening, Elowen," I hummed. The vibration was a bone-shaking rumble that made the glass behind her spiderweb. "I’m listening to the sound of your legacy finally snapping in half. It’s a beautiful sound, isn't it?""It doesn't have to end like this!" She yelled, her eyes darting toward the horizon. She fumbled with a small, glowing drive in her shaking hands. "I have the override codes! I can hand you the keys to the World-Eater! We can turn this thing around right now and save what's left!""You think I want to drive that parasite?" I asked. I brought my massive, obsidian eye inches from her face. "I want to watch it sink. I want to watch it choke on th

"Osric, the temperature is dropping too fast! Your thermal regulators are red-lining!" Kael’s voice was a jagged needle in my ear."I can feel the ice, Kael!" I roared back. I pushed my mile-long bulk through the freezing sludge of the Arctic Circle. "Stop looking at the dials and start looking for the trench! I didn't come this far to freeze into a statue!""The signal is coming from right beneath that shelf!" Kael shouted. "But the pressure is wrong! It’s too high! It shouldn't be possible!""The rules of the surface don't apply here!" I snapped. I slammed my massive tail against a floating glacier, shattering it into a million diamonds. "These aren't just fish. They’re the first line of defense! The original guardians!""They’re prehistoric monsters, Osric!" Kael cried. "The Megalodons were supposed to be extinct for millions of years! Even the Abyssal records say they were purged!""The records were written by cowards!" I hummed. The vibration made the deep ice groan. "The Thorne

I felt the prehistoric giants watching me. They weren't just sharks; they were living fossils with eyes as cold as the Arctic ice. One of them drifted closer, its snout scarred from a thousand years of killing. I could feel my own heart thudding against my ribs like a trapped bird."Osric, stay back!" Kael’s voice was a frantic mess. "Their brainwaves are spiking! They aren't following you! They’re looking at you like you’re a snack!""I am not a snack, Kael!" I growled. I turned my head to the lead Megalodon. "You enjoyed the metal fish, didn't you? You liked the taste of that steel?""The steel was cold," the shark’s vibration rattled my bones. "We want something warm. We want the heat of a King. Do you bleed like the rest?""You’ll get a broken jaw if you try me!" I snapped. "We have a pact! We have work to do in the trench!""A pact is just words!" The second shark hissed, circling my tail. "Words are for the sun-world! Down here, we only follow blood! Show us, Thorne!""He’s righ

I was tumbling through a pipe filled with boiling steam. My scales were burning and the metal walls were closing in. I could feel the machine groaning around me like a dying beast."Osric! You have to shift now!" Kael’s voice was screaming in my ear. "The passage ahead is less than ten feet wide! If you stay at full size, you’re going to be squeezed into a red paste!""I’m trying!" I roared back. I sucked in a breath and forced the Pearl’s energy to pull inward. It felt like my bones were breaking and folding on top of each other. "How much smaller do I need to be?""Smaller!" Kael yelled. "Think human-sized! Maybe a bit bigger! You have to navigate the cooling veins or you’ll hit the primary incinerator!"I gritted my teeth. My mile-long body collapsed. It was a sickening sensation, like being folded into a tiny box. I stopped falling and slammed against a wall that felt slimy. I wasn't just touching metal anymore."What is this stuff?" I wiped a handful of black sludge off my arm. I