A guttural groan of tortured metal announced the impact. The armored transport, a relic known as a Ground-Crawler, buckled inward with a shriek. Corvus braced against the sudden, violent lurch, his knuckles white on the corroded rail.
Then came the screams. The Ground-Crawler, designed to navigate the crystalline plains, crumpled like dried shale. Bodies slammed against reinforced bulkheads, a cacophony of bone and metal. Corvus, unyielding, absorbed the jarring blows, his gaze fixed on the fractured viewport.
Crimson ash billowed beyond, a wall of churning particulate. The entire vehicle groaned, a living thing dragged down. A colossal form rippled beneath the crimson tide. An Ash-Leviathan. One of the Great Devourers.
Fear blossomed in the confined space. Choking dust, disturbed by the violence, filled the air. Air filters failed. The smell of scorched wiring mingled with the metallic tang of fresh blood.
“It’s dragging us!” A voice, raw with terror, tore through the cabin. “Into the grit!”
Grinding earth swallowed the Crawler. Pieces of its armor sheared away with sickening scrapes. The leviathan's pull was immense, undeniable. Survival instincts, sharpened by the harsh reality of Veridian Prime, clawed at the passengers.
A gaunt man, sweat plastering ash to his brow, thrust a hand toward the viewport. “Damn creature!”
A small vortex of sharp grit erupted from his palm, a meager, whining thing. It struck the churning crimson wall. The particulate flickered, then vanished, absorbed without a trace. A low-tier Ash-kin, useless against a Great Devourer.
Despair deepened. A resigned sigh, a choked sob. The man hurled another, weaker grime-lash. It dissipated instantly. His desperation was palpable, pathetic.
Corvus watched, dispassionately. Wasted effort. Inefficiency.
Then, a breach. The ash-skin tore, a colossal maw opening. A wet, tearing sound. A tongue, ridged and black, lashed inward. It snagged the flailing Ash-kin. He vanished, his shriek abruptly cut short, swallowed by the settling particulate.
Silence descended, heavy and absolute, broken only by the rasp of frantic breathing. Ash began to seep into the cabin, a fine, suffocating powder. It crept up ankles, then shins. The vehicle’s death throes continued, a low, structural groan. Another section imploded. More screams, quickly silenced. The particulate rose.
Corvus bit his lip. The coppery taste of blood was distant. His mind, usually a fortress of cold calculation, observed his impending demise with a peculiar clarity. Death was an end. Not an option.
The ash reached his waist. Then his chest. He moved with swift, economical motions. His tattered sleeve, ripped into strips. He wound them tightly around his mouth and nose, a futile but necessary barrier against the choking dust. His eyes, too, he covered, leaving only a sliver to see.
He pushed off the collapsing floor. Plunged into the ash.
Immediate, crushing pressure. The particulate embraced him, an unforgiving shroud. Every breath was a struggle against the fine grit filling his makeshift filter. His limbs were lead. Movement was impossible. He surrendered, letting the settling ash pull him deeper.
Creaks of metal, a final, rending scream, vibrated through the ash around him. The Ground-Crawler was gone. The passengers within, forgotten.
Deep beneath the surface, a tremor. The Ash-Leviathan. It sought him, a warm body detected amidst the cold ash.
His heart pounded. An animalistic rhythm, primal and urgent. Not fear, but a fierce, unwavering refusal to cease. He would not die here.
Bang! A silent explosion in his awareness. Not sound, but sensation. A deep hum thrummed through his bones, resonating with the very particulate around him. The crushing pressure eased. The ash, once a grave, became a fluid medium. It parted, flowed, embraced him without resistance.
It was not a gift, but a re-alignment. An inherent truth. Corvus was Ash-kin, fundamentally connected. He instinctively flexed, a ripple through the particulate. His body moved, propelled through the grit with effortless grace.
A maw materialized where he had been moments before. Teeth, sharp as crystalline shards, spun like a grinder. The crimson-stained interior confirmed the leviathan’s recent meal. A flash of predatory hunger, then the maw snapped shut, devouring empty space.
He had been seconds from oblivion.
His abilities were new, yet precise. Swimming through ash, an elemental communion. But to escape? The Leviathan was faster, its presence a churning vortex of displacement. He felt its pursuit, a monstrous shadow in the particulate.
‘More,’ a thought, crisp and clear, resonated through him. He needed more.
A wild urge, born of pragmatism, not malice, flared. He would not simply escape. He would strike. The Leviathan had consumed without thought. It deserved a taste of its own particulate.
The ash around Corvus stirred. It gathered, condensing with silent, focused intent. A tangible mass formed before him, a compact spearhead of crystalline grit.
‘Grime Lance.’ The name appeared in his mind, unbidden, yet undeniably his own. An innate knowledge.
Fwoosh! The condensed ash shot forward. A high-pressure jet, silent and lethal, pierced the oncoming maw. It struck not the outer hide, but the soft, pulpy interior of the leviathan’s gullet. A wound, small to the world, but devastating to the beast within.
A piercing, guttural shriek tore through the subterranean ash. The leviathan thrashed. The entire expanse of particulate erupted in violent tremors, an ash-quake rippling through the ground. Corvus seized the opportunity. He pushed, propelled himself away, a swift current in the disturbed particulate.
The surface broke with a gasp. Clean, abrasive wind scoured his skin. He sucked in the frigid air, lungs burning, then soothing. The ash-wastes stretched, endless and desolate under a bruised sky.
Then, a rumble. A heavily armored Sand-Scout, its massive treads churning particulate, crested a nearby dune. Figures emerged. Not miners, but hunters. Ash-hunters. Their posture, their gear, their aura, spoke of lethal competence.
“A survivor,” a voice boomed. “And look what it dragged up.”
The Ash-Leviathan, wounded and enraged, burst from the ground behind Corvus. It writhed, a monstrous, flailing mass of grit and flesh, its shriek splitting the desolate air.
A woman with hair like fractured ice extended a hand. “Hold it.”
Frost-motes, sharp and biting, erupted from her palm. The particulate around the leviathan shimmered, hardening, a rapidly spreading crystalline net. The beast roared, thrashing against the sudden, brittle prison. Its momentum stalled.
“Only seconds,” the woman called. “It’s too large.”
“More than enough, Seraph.” A lean man, the leader, drew a massive claymore. The blade, dull with use, hummed with latent power. He charged, a blur of motion across the gritty plains.
Crash! The claymore descended. It tore through the leviathan's hardened ash-skin, exposing thick, crimson flesh. The beast shuddered, a torrent of its ichor spraying the ground.
Another hunter, Kael, pressed his palm against the leviathan’s exposed flank. “A surface hunt. Rare indeed.”
Wuuung! A deep, vibrating hum emanated from Kael’s hand. The flesh beneath his palm rippled, distorted, then exploded outward. A violent, wet burst. The leviathan screamed, its movements weakening.
The final blow came from a hulking figure, a Colossus of a man. He leaped, a mountain of muscle and ceramite, and slammed his reinforced fist into the leviathan’s thrashing head.
Boom! A thunderous crack. The leviathan’s head disintegrated, a pulpy explosion of ash and gore. The massive body slumped, lifeless. The plains fell silent once more.
The Colossus laughed, a booming, guttural sound, splattered with the leviathan’s ichor. Seraph lowered her hand. Kael wiped a crimson smear from his armor.
Their leader, the man with the claymore, sheathed his weapon. His eyes, devoid of warmth, fixed on Corvus. A cold appraisal. A shiver, not of fear but of recognition, traced Corvus's spine. These hunters were not heroes. They were predators.