Cracked Pillars of Fate

Chapter 23: Organic Heart Attack

The calm piano music still echoed in their ears when a static scream from outside the tent tore through the silence. El Joe grabbed his energy sword, his eyes fixed sharply on the exit. Outside, the orange sky of the Destiny Arena seemed to burn more intensely than usual.

"Everyone out! Now!" Joe commanded, his voice cutting through the panic.

Archen Huge burst through the tent door first, followed by Joe and Dylan Smith. Before them, the landscape of the upside-down city had transformed into an organic hell. Fleshy red roots that had previously only crawled across the asphalt had now swollen as thick as old tree trunks. They pulsed, pumping a stinging bluish fluid toward the heart structure at the center of the city.

"Look at that!" Dylan pointed toward the ranks of the Xylon faction warriors.

One of the Xylon soldiers was trapped. A thin root coiled around his leg, and within seconds, the man’s skin began to pale, his veins turning bright red. He was sucked into the colony's fleshy mass, becoming part of a building wall that now appeared to be breathing.

"Xylon! Don't let your troops scatter!" Joe shouted as he saw the military captain begin to panic. "Serena, take the high ground! Burn every root that tries to get close!"

"We can't hold it back, Joe!" Serena replied from atop the remains of an overpass. "This thing eats anything it touches!"

Archen stepped forward, his feet creating small cracks in the asphalt due to the weight of his increasing gravity. "Out of the way, all of you! Let me clear the path!"

"Archen, wait!" Dylan held Archen’s arm for a moment while staring at his holographic screen. "Don't attack blindly. The outer structure of this colony has a kinetic shield. The harder you hit it, the stronger it reflects back."

"Then what am I supposed to do? Watch them get eaten?" Archen growled, his fists already trembling with overflowing black energy.

"Use resonance frequency," Dylan said, quickly tinkering with coordinates on his crystal. "I’ll inject a disruption code into your gravity aura. You have to strike the paler outer membrane. That’s the energy transmission point!"

Joe stood beside them, raising his energy sword high. "Coalition forces! Listen to my instructions! Xylon, form a tortoise formation on the left flank! Serena, protect the energy archers from above! Archen will destroy the main gate; move in as soon as the path is open!"

"Are you crazy, Joe?" Xylon shouted amidst the thunderous noise. "Go inside that mass of flesh? It’s suicide!"

"If we stay here, we’ll become fertilizer for this colony, Xylon!" Joe shot back with a look that silenced the captain. "Choose now: die as a coward or fight as a human!"

Xylon growled, then drew his sword. "Troops! Advance! Follow El Joe’s instructions!"

A wave of human soldiers charged. War cries mixed with the electric hiss of energy weapons. Archen shot forward like a black bullet toward the colony’s main gate, which resembled a giant mouth. Fleshy tentacles tried to seize him, but Archen only had to flick his arm to make them crumble under extreme gravitational pressure.

"Dylan, give me the coordinates!" Archen roared.

"Now, Archen! Five meters ahead, hit the part pulsing blue!" Dylan shouted through the comms.

Archen leaped, concentrating his entire body mass into a single point in his fist. His Focused Gravity Strike slammed into the colony’s pale membrane.

BOOM!

It wasn't a fiery explosion that appeared, but a transparent shockwave that tore through the organic structure. Blue fluid sprayed out, and the fleshy gate swung wide, revealing a pulsing corridor inside.

"Move in! Now!" Joe led the charge.

They ran through a corridor that felt like the throat of a living creature. The walls around them were damp and warm. The smell of rusted metal and rotting meat stung their nostrils. Several soldiers at the rear began to scream as the walls beside them tried to assimilate their armor.

"Don't stop moving!" Joe warned. "Dylan, where is the core?"

Dylan ran while staring at a screen that was vibrating violently. "We’re almost there! The colony’s heart is right under that hanging city hall building. But there’s a problem, Joe!"

"What?"

"The assimilation energy at the center of the colony is reaching a critical level. If we don't destroy it within three minutes, this entire sector will be pulled into nothingness!"

"Archen, did you hear that?" Joe turned his head.

"I’ll rip it apart, don't worry!" Archen crushed a group of colony guardians—shapeless creatures made of woven muscle—with a single sweep of his hand.

They arrived in a vast room that resembled a cathedral of flesh. In the center, a massive heart-shaped mass pulsed with a light so red it hurt the eyes. Thousands of black data cables were connected to the heart, sucking energy from the buildings around the Destiny Arena.

"That’s the core!" Dylan pointed. "But look at the protection! It’s a pure data shield. We need an attack that doesn't come from system energy!"

Xylon and his troops tried firing energy cannons, but their attacks were simply absorbed by the shield. "Useless! Our weapons are just feeding it!" Xylon shouted in despair.

"Use our pure energy, Archen!" Joe grabbed Archen’s hand, and Archen grabbed Dylan’s. "Dylan, channel all the remaining Arcana fragments we have into Archen. I’ll stabilize the flow!"

"This is going to hurt, Archen!" Dylan warned.

"Just do it!" Archen closed his eyes.

Green energy from Joe and blue energy from Dylan flowed into Archen’s body, merging with his black gravity. Archen’s body began to glow with a blinding white light. The veins on his forehead bulged, and he screamed as the uncontrollable power tried to tear his body apart from the inside.

"Now, Archen! Strike the heart!" Joe commanded.

Archen launched himself. He no longer used technique, only pure will to protect what remained of the world. His fist slammed into the data shield, and for a moment, time seemed to stop. The shield cracked, then shattered into pieces like glass.

"Die, you cosmic parasite!" Archen buried his fist deep into the colony's heart.

A momentary silence enveloped the room before a massive energy explosion threw them all backward. White light swallowed everything. The once-mighty red roots began to wither and crumble into ash across the city. The Colonial Architect exploded, leaving behind an echoing shriek that did not sound like it came from Earth.

Joe struggled to his feet, wiping blood from his lip. He saw Archen and Dylan also slowly standing amidst the cooling fleshy ruins. Xylon’s troops and Serena stood silent, staring at the destruction they had just survived. They had won.

However, the victory felt hollow when a giant holographic projection emerged from the remains of the destroyed heart. It wasn't a map, but an eyeless face smiling coldly.

"You think this is the end?" the hologram's voice echoed, far heavier than any Colonial Architect. "You have only cut one fingernail from the hand that will crush this universe."

Dylan stared at his crystal screen, which was suddenly filled with rows of pitch-black code. "Joe... this isn't the system. This is a direct transmission from something much larger."

"The Omega Architect," Joe whispered, his hair standing on end.

Suddenly, the ground beneath them began to crack again, but this time it wasn't from roots, but from a gravitational force far greater than Archen’s. Something was pulling the entire Destiny Arena toward the center of a deeper void.

"Joe, we have to get out of here!" Dylan shouted as he saw the buildings above them starting to fall.

Xylon stepped forward, but instead of helping, he approached the remains of the colony core, which was still glowing a faint red. He reached out to take the Core. "With this, I will have the power of a Pillar!"

"Xylon, don't!" Joe warned, but it was too late.

As Xylon’s hand touched the Core, a small black hole was created, beginning to swallow the captain and everything around him.