“Right then,” Kou declared, a flicker of something almost akin to eagerness in his eyes. He started walking, a casual, unhurried gait that belied the enormity of his pronouncement. Rinzen Vael, still on one knee, scrambled upright, her heavy armor clanking. Tarkis Lorn, who had been trying to shrink into a discarded hydro-tank, let out a terrified squeak and scuttled after them. “Master, wait!” Rinzen’s voice was thin and dry, rasped raw by her suit's external speaker. “The fortress is miles across the Ash-Veil Flats. You... you can’t simply walk. The ambient spore count out here is lethal. Even a pinprick leak in a suit means total infection.” Her armored hand gestured vaguely at the swirling ochre haze that swallowed the distant skyline, a mist of fine, particulate death. Kou merely glanced over his shoulder, his expression as flat as the horizon. “I am walking.” Tarkis, panting slightly as he struggled to keep pace, adjusted the cracked viewscreen of his personal datapad. “She’s right, Elder. Vorstag’s atmospheric purifiers only cover the Rustborn settlement. Outside this zone, the air is eighty percent mutagenic fungal spores. A single unprotected breath, and your lungs turn to sludge in minutes. It’s why martial arts were banned – heavy exertion, heavy breathing... it hyper-accelerates the infection. A regular human would be dead before they could throw an extra punch.” He tugged his environmental scarf tighter around his collar seal, adjusting the ill-fitting joints of his salvage exo-suit. Kou stopped then, turning fully to face them. He took a slow, deliberate inhale. Rinzen and Tarkis watched, frozen, as the toxic air of Orox, thick with the metallic tang of rust and the sickly perfume of mutant bloom, visibly swirled into his unprotected mouth and nose. Rinzen’s hand instinctively went to her mech’s weapon hardpoint, ready to gun down any Chitin-Hound that might emerge, or perhaps, in a fit of desperate loyalty, even Kou himself, to spare him a slow, agonizing death by spore. Kou’s chest expanded, a subtle, almost imperceptible rise and fall. He held the breath for a moment, his gaze distant, unfocused. Then, with a soft, almost inaudible sigh, he exhaled. A thin wisp of pure, unblemished steam curled from his lips, dissipating harmlessly into the toxic atmosphere. It smelled faintly of ozone and something clean, like fresh mountain spring water. Rinzen gasped, a sound that cut through the comms like a raw shriek. Her mouth fell open against the chin pad. Her pilot canopy hissed open, and she dropped to the grit with an unpadded metallic clatter, sinking to both knees before him. “Teacher,” she breathed, her voice ragged over open air. “You… you purify the very air! You are a living beacon in this rot! Your qi… it is a crucible! A divine filter! This is true enlightenment! Flawless control!” She stared upward, transfixed. Kou, meanwhile, simply picked a piece of rust flake off his tunic. “It’s a simple internal cleansing technique. Helps with digestion. The local air is particularly… pungent.” He gave a small shrug. “Now, are we going to steal my nap, or are you going to kneel in the dirt all day?” Rinzen hauled herself up, joints whining in mechanical unison. “Of course, leader! Lead the way!” Tarkis, however, was less entranced and more terrified. He fumbled with his datapad, the screen flickering to life with a hastily decrypted government report. “Elder,” he stammered, his voice higher than usual, “I’ve just cross-referenced old planetary archives with Vorstag’s public health directives. He didn’t ban martial arts because he thought they were primitive. He banned them because… because he was right! Early colonist records, classified until now, show that any sustained physical exertion outside a filtration suit caused a rapid, irreversible internal bloom of spores. Martial artists, with their deep, heavy breathing during training and combat, were dying in droves. Their bodies became mobile spore factories, spreading the contagion faster. He wasn’t a tyrant; he was trying to save humanity from literally breathing itself to death!” A sudden, piercing alarm shrieked from Tarkis’s datapad, cutting off his panicked exposition. “Warning! Multiple heavy patrol units detected! High-grade ordnance. They’re painting us!” The horizon, previously an unbroken line of haze, rippled. Three towering enforcer rigs, sleek and slate-gray, their dark hulls almost invisible against the backdrop of the Ash-Veil Flats, materialized from the atmospheric distortion. Their shoulder-mounted plasma cannons glowed ominously, aiming directly at Kou. Their optical sensors, single red slits, narrowed. “Unauthorized personnel. Drop your weapons and prepare for termination,” a synthesized voice boomed from the leading mech. “You are in a restricted zone. Any attempt to approach the fortress will be met with lethal force.” Rinzen’s mech whirred on standby, its heavy particle cannon swiveling to track the incoming threat. “Get behind me! These are the Iron Wardens, Vorstag’s personal guard. They’re equipped with pulse shields and advanced fire-control arrays!” Kou, however, merely sighed. “Such a fuss. All this shouting will disturb my digestion.” He took a step, then another, a peculiar, wavering gait. He looked like a drunkard, swaying precariously, his movements fluid and unpredictable. This was the ‘Drunken Beggar Steps,’ a technique designed to disorient and evade, making him appear harmless, yet impossible to pin down. The enforcer rigs fired. A volley of superheated plasma bolts streaked across the Ash-Veil Flats. Kou, with an almost comical stumble, weaved between the projectiles. The first bolt, meant for his chest, scored the red salt where he had stood an instant prior. The second, aimed straight at his skull, swished through empty air as he ducked into an exaggerated bow. “Maintain optical lock!” the lead rig barked, its red sensor array twitching. “He’s erratic! Compensate for irregular movement patterns!” The wardens adjusted their vectors, their fire-control suites struggling to predict Kou’s seemingly random lurches and slides. Kou continued his 'stumble,' a performance of pure, unadulterated clumsiness. He zigged when they expected a zag, swayed when they anticipated a dive. Another volley erupted from the squad. This time, as Kou appeared to trip over his own feet and fall face-first, the plasma bolts, compensating for his downward trajectory, overshot. One searing blast slammed into the left arm of the wingman rig, shearing through its armor plating with a screech of tortured metal. “Friendly fire!” the damaged mech roared, staggering back. “Idiot! Check your field!” the lead rig snapped, its optics locked on Kou, who had bounced back up, tilting sharply to the right. A beam that would have scorched his skull sheared instead across the lead rig's knee actuator, buckling the limb. Its tracking calibration went wild, throwing sparks. Rinzen watched, her particle cannon held uselessly, a choked gasp escaping her. The wardens, thrown into confusion and discharging plasma into each other's paths across Kou’s feigned tumbles, tore their own line apart. The third rig, snapping off a shot as Kou slipped backward, instead blew a smoking rupture through the core chassis of the point unit. With a final, violent breach, the three multi-ton machines, reduced to mangled plating and spewing pressurized coolant, tumbled backward. They crashed with sickening force into the ground, which, under the immense impact, gave way. A fissure ripped open, revealing a dark, gaping chasm beneath the Ash-Veil Flats. From the depths, an unholy, ancient stench billowed upwards, a miasma of rot and chitin. And there, revealed in the sudden, hellish light, stretching further than the eye could see, was a sprawling, subterranean nest. Thousands upon thousands of Chitin-Hound mutants, their carapaces slick and dormant, lay in silent, hibernating rows, right beneath their feet.

The Breathing Ban