Kitt had undersold the "biological" threat.

Verdict kicked in Blake's grip. The recoil round slammed into the nearest shambling mass of rot and vine. Not penetration. Displacement. The creature—a grotesque mockery of something that might have once been human, now just animated decay held together by parasitic growth—flew backward. It crashed into two others, a tangle of snapping branches and pulpy flesh. Not enough. More pushed forward.

The corridor pulsed. Walls, floor, ceiling—all coated in the same sickly, organic webbing that birthed these things. It felt like fighting inside a diseased artery. The air hung thick with the stench of compost and something else. Something metallic, sharp. Blood? No. Different.

He held Verdict low, snapping off shots. Each impact bought inches, a brief window. In his left hand, Fang felt alive. Mana flowed. The blade glowed faintly, and beside it, shimmering like heat haze, the Phantom Edge extended. A secondary blade of pure power.

A wave surged. Vines whipped like tentacles, thorny protrusions aimed for his face. Blake ducked, pivoted. The Phantom Edge swept wide, a scything arc of energy. It sheared through the attacking limbs. No resistance. Just clean cuts, weeping thick, viscous sap. The physical blade followed, punching into the core of a vine-wrapped torso. It shuddered, collapsed.

"Too damned many." Kitt's presence was a tight knot in his mind, focused, analyzing. "We're bleeding mana. But there's a room ahead, might give us space to maneuver."

He knew. The Recoil Rounds were mana-efficient, but they weren't free. Phantom Edge wasn't either. He needed to reach the core, needed Kitt to interface. This gauntlet was just the appetizer.

Another blast from Verdict sent a cluster of the plant-things tumbling. Blake surged forward, using the opening. Fang and its phantom twin became a whirlwind. He carved through the press, boots skidding on slick organic matter. He wasn't sure if he was killing them; but he was mulching them. Creating space.

A heavier shape detached itself from the far wall. Larger than the others. Bulbous, thorny, dragging itself forward on thick, root-like limbs. It opened a fissure down its center, revealing rows of needle-sharp teeth made of hardened wood. A low groan echoed down the corridor, vibrating through the deck plating beneath his feet. This one felt different. Meaner. It blocked the way forward.

Blake sized it up, spat derisively to the side, and charged.

The double doors imploded inward. Metal screamed, torn like paper. Blake rode the blast wave, propelled backward into the cavernous space beyond. The concussive force of his [Kinetic Detonation] hammered the air, a physical blow that sent the bulbous, thorny guardian dissolving into fetid chunks and splinters. For a heartbeat, he was airborne, suspended in the superheated backwash. Then, instinct. Mana flared. He kicked against empty air, finding purchase on a shimmering platform conjured by [Unfettered Stride]. The kick spun him, converting backward momentum into a controlled aerial flip. He landed light, boots sliding only slightly on the damp vegetation covering the ground. He rose, Verdict already level, Fang held ready in his off-hand.

Splattered remnants of the plant-thing dripped slowly from the ceiling grid high above, thick and viscous like spoiled jam. Blake eyed the mess, grimacing.

"Someone," he muttered, voice rough, "has to teach these things about blocking doorways."

He turned, sweeping his gaze across the new environment. The horde he'd carved through wouldn't be far behind. The sounds of their shambling pursuit, a wet, dragging scrape, were already echoing faintly from the corridor he'd just exited. He had moments, maybe less.

Hot, heavy air slapped him in the face, thick with moisture and the cloying sweetness of decay. It condensed instantly on his skin, on the surface of his armor, on the surfaces around him. This place... it reeked of a different kind of wrongness than the rest of the ship so far. The corridors outside were only a pale imitation of this new zone. Here, life had grown with wild, cancerous, uncontrolled abandon. It was a damned jungle; steel beams and overhead catwalks served as trellises for monstrous vegetation.

He stood on what was once a grated metal walkway. Now the floor was choked with biomass—layers upon layers of rotten leaves, pulpy fruit, decomposing stalks, all woven together with the same parasitic, vine-like growth that animated the creatures outside. It looked like the bottom of a colossal compost heap, steaming faintly in the oppressive heat.

High above, the catwalks crisscrossed the space, disappearing into shadow. Industrial light fixtures hung from them like strange fruit, some flickering erratically, others casting pools of harsh, artificial sunlight onto the rampant decay below.

Along one wall, massive cylindrical tanks slumped, stained and weeping dark, questionable fluids. Water storage, maybe? Whatever they'd once held, the contents now looked thick and foul, feeding the unnatural growth. Opposite them, generators, pumps, and monitoring stations rusted quietly, half-swallowed by grasping vines and thick layers of mold. Wires snaked everywhere, some sparking feebly, others torn loose, dangling like severed nerves.

This had obviously been the ship's greenhouse. An industrial arboretum likely designed to feed the crew, replenish oxygen, maybe even provide a touch of green sanity on long voyages in the black. There was nothing natural or comforting about the place now.

"Hostiles inbound," Kitt's thought brushed against his mind, urgent but nowhere near panic. "I don't exactly have access to her senses, but our host can feel something big moving around in here."

Blake scanned the room again, faster this time. Potential cover? The tanks were solid but exposed. The machinery offered angles but was overgrown, likely unstable. The catwalks above? Too high, too slow to reach under pressure. His best bet was movement. Use the space, stay ahead of the tide—and hopefully, whatever this new threat was.

The scrabbling from the corridor intensified, closer now. A low, collective groan joined it, the sound of a hundred decaying throats finding voice. They'd reached the doorway.

Blake picked up the pace, moving with a predator's fluid grace, Verdict held ready. He skirted a patch of ground that looked… gelatinous. The smell intensified – rot, damp earth, and that sharp, coppery tang that wasn't blood but felt just as vital, just as wrong. Definitely nothing worth stepping in.

He reached the machinery cluster. More pumps, nutrient injectors maybe, feeding lines running off into the green tangle. And behind them, a heavier console, screens dark, coated in grime and fungal growth. He bounded up on top of the console, trying to use the vantage to chart a path forward.

Unfortunately, as he spied the first wave of plantlings spilling onto the walkway, something else moved to his left. Deeper within the greenhouse, down amongst the choked machinery and steaming biomass below the grating. A heavy shifting in the tangled depths.

Wait, shit. Blake thought, suddenly worried.

"Shit, Blake," Kitt interjected at almost the same instant. "The floor below us is also part of the greenhouse."

The metallic groan of stressed supports preceded the explosion. A section of the walkway grating—ten feet square, maybe more—ripped upward. It was shoved from below. Tangled roots, thick black soil, and rotting vegetation rained down as the heavy steel grid flipped end over end, crashing against the nearby tanks with a deafening clang.

From the newly opened pit, a wave of stench rolled out, thicker, fouler than before. It was the smell of deep decay, of anaerobic processes churning in the dark, wet depths beneath the greenhouse floor. And with the stench came the light.

Not warm, not inviting. Cold. A dozen pinpricks of icy blue-white phosphorescence ignited in the muck below. They didn't illuminate much, just hinted at slick, dark surfaces shifting beneath the stagnant water and decomposing biomass. The lights moved, not randomly, but with a coordinated drift, like the eyes of something impossibly large turning its attention upward.

A low thrum vibrated through the console Blake stood upon, through the very air. It wasn't just sound; it was pressure, a physical weight pressing in. Something vast stirred down there, displacing the slurry of rot and ruin.

Well, shit.

Muscles coiled, Verdict snapped up, and Fang's phantom edge was already shimmering bright beside the physical blade. He pushed off the console, aiming for the relative solidity of the main walkway—

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Too slow.

From the darkness below, something moved with impossible speed. Not shambling, not crawling. It shot upward. A vine, thick as his own arm, slick with black slime, burst from the pit. Its tip, a hardened, spear-like point of chitinous wood, aimed directly at his chest. It was also glowing a cold, ethereal blue, which was not a happy coincidence.

The attack crossed the dozen feet of open air in less than a heartbeat, and Blake barely reacted in time to avoid a new hole in his torso. There was no time to accurately target the incoming spear, so with a burst of [Telekinesis] Blake threw himself violently down and to the right. He bounced painfully off the metal case of the console and rolled to a stop on the ground on the far side of the machines from the… Thing.

He wasted no time springing to his feet—the damned thing was underneath him after all. With his feet under him, he ran. No plan, no fixed destination, just a frantic retreat.

"What in the ever-loving fuck is that thing, Kitt?"

"You think I know?" She sounded offended.

"I was kind of hoping, yeah."

"Big and dangerous," she responded dryly. "Let me know if you need me to clear any of that up for you."

"Nah." Blake grinned, kicking off an unfortunate plant creature who had stepped into his path. He soared through the air, grabbed a low hanging branch of some sort, and swung forward to extend his flight. "I think I got that much. I also think I'd rather get out of here than waste time cleaning up the galaxy's biggest gutter clog."

"Yeah, no chance that thing fits easily into any of the corridors," Kitt agreed.

"Can you find us an exit?"

"Already on it," she replied, and three new markers appeared on Blake's HUD.

Behind him, closer than he would have believed, three more sections of floor were cast violently into the air as more spears of ichor-slick wood shot after him at alarming speed.

Blake ducked as one vine-spear punched through the air where his head had been, and managed to adjust his trajectory with [Unfettered Stride] in order to avoid the other two. The thing—whatever the hell it was—had decent aim, but Blake was confident in his mobility.

Still, he wasn't left with much time to think. He kept moving.

To his right, the horde of smaller plant creatures dragged themselves forward, blocking his quickest path to the exit. Ahead, more sections of floor erupted as the massive thing below tried to cut off his escape.

"What's this bastard's deal?" Blake asked, leaping over a collapsed section of catwalk.

"Actually… It's a she. Or it was." Kitt's voice was strangely muted in his mind. "It's not... it's not just awakened plants. The ship says... it was her botanists. Then the Outsider got to them. They were all piled together in the crash."

Blake felt his jaw tighten. Botanists. This thing used to be people?

A vine shot up through the grating near his feet. Blake pivoted, the movement nearly instinctive, and slashed downward with Fang. The phantom edge flared bright, severing the vine mid-strike. Black ichor sprayed across his armor, hissing where it touched.

Acid. Great.

More vines erupted around him, turning the path ahead into a forest of slashing, stabbing limbs. Blake emptied Verdict's chamber, the recoil rounds hammering into the mass of vegetation. Each impact created a kinetic shockwave, snapping vines and clearing a momentary path.

He charged through the gap, knowing it wouldn't last. Behind him, the walkway gave way completely as something massive surged upward, tearing through the remaining supports. A wet, sliding sound filled the chamber, like a thousand slugs moving at once.

"New exit!" Kitt shouted in his mind. "Three o'clock, maintenance hatch!"

Blake spotted it—a narrow service door set into the wall, half-hidden behind a tangle of dying, normal plants. He altered course, but the shifting of the thing below matched his movement.

Because of course it had to be smart.

A wall of smaller plant creatures shuffled into his path, forming a crude barrier. No time for finesse. Blake gathered mana into his core, letting it build for a half-second before releasing a pulse of [Telekinesis]. The force slammed into the line of creatures, bowling them over like rotten pins.

Blake grunted at the mana drain, vaulting over the scattered remains of the plant-things. He landed in a roll, came up running. The maintenance hatch was twenty feet away. Fifteen.

Something wrapped around his ankle.

Blake went down hard, helmet cracking from the force of the impact. Stars burst in his vision. He twisted, peering though the spiderweb cracks of his visor, and saw a thin vine wrapped around his boot, pulling him back toward the heaving mass at the center of the room.

No no no. Fuck that.

He slashed with Fang, but the angle was wrong. The physical blade scraped across the vine without cutting deep enough. The phantom edge flickered, weakened by his dropping mana reserves.

The pull intensified. Whatever had him wasn't letting go.

Blake fired Verdict point-blank into the vine. The recoil round detonated, shearing through the growth and sending feedback vibrations up the length. The grip loosened, just enough.

He kicked free, scrambled to his feet. The maintenance hatch was right there. Ten feet. Five.

Something massive rose up behind him. Blake didn't look back, didn't need to. The temperature in the greenhouse soared as the thing emerged fully from its pit. The stench of rot intensified tenfold, coupled with that strange metallic tang. With his helmet compromised, it was enough to make Blake wretch.

He hit the hatch at full speed, shoulder-first. The aged metal groaned but held. Blake cursed, shoulder screaming, stepped back, and pulled at the hatch instead. Not spotting the hinges had cost him precious seconds. He wedged his fingers into the opening , pulling with everything he had.

Behind him, a sound like a thousand whispers merged into one vast exhalation. Blake risked a glance over his shoulder.

The thing had no definite shape. Just a massive, writhing column of vines, roots, and decomposing matter rising from the pit. But at its center, suspended in the tangle, hung something that might once have been human. Several somethings, actually, fused together like hideously melted wax. The bodies were split open, hollowed out, and the chest cavities he could see looked to be filled with some manner of softly glowing lichen. Nestled in the bed of lichen were fleshy stalks of corrupted flesh, hideous mockeries of flowers that shone with arctic light.

Blake immediately regretted looking.

Metal screamed as the hatch opened onto pitch darkness. Blake dove through the hatch, tugging it closed behind him. The corridor beyond was narrow, cramped, a maintenance shaft barely wide enough for his shoulders. He moved forward awkwardly, fast as he could manage, hearing the wet slap of vines against the opening behind him.

"Door controls," Kitt spoke.

"Great," he gasped in return. "Where?"

Kitt directed his attention to a small panel set into the wall. Blake punched it, once, twice. The third blow shattered the casing. He reached in, grabbed a handful of wires, and yanked.

An emergency bulkhead began to descend, designed to seal off sections in case of hull breach or fire. It moved with agonizing slowness.

The hatch was tugged open slowly. Clumsily. The first vine slithered into the corridor, probing forward like a blind worm.

"Faster, damn it!" Blake snarled, watching the bulkhead inch downward.

The vine sensed him, oriented, and struck with blinding speed. Blake jerked sideways, but the narrow confines of the corridor limited his movement. The hardened point sliced along his side, parting armor and skin in a line of fire.

Blake grunted, pain flaring sharp and immediate. He kicked at the vine, caught it with his boot, and pinned it to the floor. There was a moment of resistance when the bulkhead made contact, then a wet crunch as the massive weight severed it completely.

Blake sagged against the wall, breath coming in harsh pants. His hand went to his side, came away wet with blood.

"How bad?" Kitt asked, concern evident.

Blake probed the wound with careful fingers. "A slice, not a puncture. Couple inches long, not too deep." He glanced at the severed vine, still twitching on the floor. "Better question is whether that thing was venomous."

"No way for us to know," Kitt replied after a moment. "But let's not take chances. We need to keep moving."

Blake nodded, pushing himself off the wall. The pain in his side flared, then settled into a steady throb. He could work with that. He had to.

Because somewhere ahead lay the core, and with it, maybe a way to end this nightmare.

"Lead the way."

The question of venom was answered only a few seconds later, as Blake's legs failed him, and he collapsed into a heap against the wall.

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