The sharp scent of upas tree sap and burning incense assaulted Damang’s senses even before he was fully able to open his eyes. The last thing he remembered was the pain splitting through his bone marrow as the Rajah on his body reacted to the aura of the ancient tomb. Now, he felt the cold surface of a stone floor beneath his back, but there was something colder and sharper pressed directly against his Adam’s apple. “Don’t move. One small twitch, and the tip of this blowpipe dart will send kalas poison into your bloodstream. Your heart will stop beating within five seconds,” a woman’s voice said lowly, yet filled with undeniable authority. Damang slowly opened his eyes. His vision was still slightly blurred, but he could make out the silhouettes of several people surrounding him in the dim cave. The torchlight attached to the stone walls cast an orange glow over faces that looked hardened and full of suspicion. Right in front of him, a woman wit

The dawn mist hung low, shrouding the canopies of the ironwood trees that had begun to wither along the outskirts of the West Sector. The air felt heavy, not only because of Borneo’s suffocating humidity, but also because of the ozone stench coming from the high-voltage laser fence surrounding the massive facility owned by The Andalusian Order. Hidden behind the thick ferns, Damang crouched with steady breaths. His bare chest revealed the black Rajah pulsing faintly, emitting a thin violet glow that was almost invisible unless observed carefully. “Bara, your position?” Damang whispered into the small transmitter attached to the collar of his robe. “Already at the blind spot of the northern watchtower, Commander. I can see the main fiber-optic cable from here. One small explosion, and their communication system will be blind for three minutes,” Bara’s voice crackled through the static. There was a tension he could not hide. Sali, standing beside

The heavy steel elevator doors hissed open slowly, revealing a chamber far too vast to exist hundreds of meters beneath the ground of Borneo. Damang stepped out, his boots immediately greeted by hot steam that reeked of rust and harsh chemicals. The room was spherical in shape, a gigantic globe whose walls were coated with pitch-black hexagonal panels. At the center of the chamber floated a sight that made Damang’s stomach churn instantly. An organic crystal the size of a two-story house hovered in the middle of the sphere. Its dim crimson glow pulsed slowly as though it possessed a heartbeat of its own. From the crystal, thousands of transparent flexible tubes stretched in every direction, connecting it to cylindrical tanks lined along the walls. Inside those tubes, thick red liquid flowed rapidly. Blood. It was not synthetic fluid. Damang could see clusters of leukocytes and remnants of hemoglobin clotted at several joints of the pipes. “Beautiful, i

The black blood pouring from Panglima Nyarung’s heart did not fall to the floor. The thick liquid floated in the air, pulled by an invisible gravitational force toward the core crystal of the Earth’s Heart. The moment the final drop of blood touched the surface of the pulsing crystal, the dim red color vanished instantly, replaced by an explosion of golden light so pure that it could blind anyone who looked at it. Elias Thorne burst into loud laughter from the observation balcony above. His voice shrieked sharply, competing with the roar of the Harvester machines that were now exploding one by one from energy overload. “Finally! For thousands of years we have waited for this moment! The blood of the ruler of the land, spilled by the hands of his own flesh and blood! This is the most perfect sacrifice!” Damang was still holding his father’s body, which had begun to grow cold. But suddenly, his embrace became empty. Nyarung’s black-scaled body slowly crum

Thin black smoke still rose from the bottom of the crater that had just become the silent witness to the total destruction of Sector West. The smell of sulfur, burned earth, and the stinging remnants of ozone filled the humid air of Baram. The silence that came after the massive explosion felt deeply unnatural, as if every creature in the forest was holding its breath at the same time. In the middle of the crater, the ruins of Thorne’s laboratory were scattered like the giant bones of an ancient beast that had just been violently unearthed.Sali crawled out from behind the mound of earth that had protected her. Her clothes were barely recognizable, and her face was smeared with dust and dried blood. She rubbed her burning eyes, trying to find one figure amid the devastation.“Damang!” Sali shouted. Her voice was hoarse, drowned out by the roar of the distant waterfall that had slowly become audible again after being silenced by the explosion. “Damang, where are you?!”There was no ans