Root of Dominion

The station's newfound stability came from Liam's roots, which wove through the cracked foundations like veins pumping life into a corpse. He directed their growth with subtle pulses of will, thorns retracting to form arching supports that held back the dripping ceiling. The air still reeked of ozone and charred metal from the abomination's demise, but the cache of servers hummed faintly under Lena's probing tools. She knelt by the rusted rack, wires spilling from her fingers as she jury-rigged connections to the mana-core battery. Sparks flew, illuminating the fresh scars on her arms from the burrower acid—shallow burns that blistered but didn't slow her.

'Old-world data,' Lena murmured, her voice echoing in the chamber. 'Blueprints for the grid, maybe even rift stabilization tech. If I can decrypt this, we route power lines back to Thornewood.' The collar at her throat glowed in approval, syncing her efforts to Liam's domain. She worked methodically, ignoring the slaves who huddled nearby, their chains clinking as they sorted debris under warrior supervision.

One of the new thralls, the wiry man with the split lip, sorted cables with trembling hands. His eyes darted to the water's edge, where the dissolved slave's remnants floated in oily slicks—bones picked clean by the current. A warrior noticed his hesitation and cracked a whip across his back, the leather biting into flesh with a wet snap. Red welts bloomed instantly, and the man yelped, dropping a bundle into the flood. 'Useless,' the warrior spat, yanking him up by the collar. The thrall's feet kicked futilely as he was dragged to the roots; Liam's tendrils snaked out, coiling around his legs and pulling him down. Thorns pierced ankles and thighs, drawing screams that cut short as roots muffled his mouth, absorbing him slowly—flesh dissolving into nutrient slurry, bones crunching under pressure. The other slaves averted their eyes, but the gaunt woman whimpered, her branded breasts heaving with each sob.

Hannah patrolled the perimeter, her hammer tapping against her palm like a metronome of threat. The warrior's gaze swept the shadows, muscles coiled under her scarred hide. 'More signals from the east tunnel,' she reported, voice gravelly. 'Human voices, faint. Scavengers or traps?' Simone perched on a ledge above, her wind bracers whispering as she scanned with enhanced senses. 'Desperate tones. Not organized. Worth the risk—fresh meat for the chain.'

Cassia nodded from her tablet, fingers tracing projected maps. The strategist had overlaid the station's layout with rift data, marking unstable zones in red. 'Link it to the docks as planned. But watch for collapses; the quakes are syncing with the fractures above.' Liam absorbed the intel, his World Authority at 16% letting him feel the earth's groan—a vast, fracturing pulse like a dying heart. Roots extended probes into the east tunnel, tasting the air: salt from the nearby sea, mingled with sweat and fear.

The group mobilized, warriors forming a wedge with slaves in tow. The chain rattled as they advanced, the hollow-eyed woman now leading the water carriers, her thigh bandage soaked through with pus. She limped, earning prods from spears that drew pinpricks of blood. Deeper in, the tunnel narrowed, walls slick with condensation and streaked with bioluminescent slime that pulsed like veins. Faint echoes grew: murmurs, the scrape of metal on stone.

They rounded a bend to find a barricade of overturned carts and debris, lit by flickering lanterns. Behind it, a ragged group of survivors—eight in all, gaunt and armed with improvised weapons: pipes, shattered glass taped to handles, a single rusted shotgun. The leader, a broad-shouldered man with a beard matted in grime, leveled the gun shakily. 'Back off! This stretch is ours—food, meds, all of it.' His eyes widened at the sight of Liam's entourage, the roots creeping along the floor like living shadows.

Liam raised a hand, halting the advance. Identify pinged: Level 8 Survivor, no class, low stats across the board. The others ranged from 5 to 10, malnourished and rift-touched—subtle mutations like elongated fingers or glowing veins. 'Join or die,' Liam stated, voice carrying the weight of command. Roots flexed visibly, thorns glinting.

The leader hesitated, sweat beading on his brow. A woman beside him, her arm in a sling, whispered urgently. Gunfire cracked first—a wild shot that ricocheted off a root barrier, splintering stone. Warriors surged, spears thrusting through gaps in the barricade. One survivor screamed as a blade punched through his gut, twisting to spill hot entrails onto the tracks. He clawed at the haft, blood bubbling from his lips, before slumping.

Chaos erupted. Hannah charged, hammer shattering a cart and sending two foes flying—one's skull caving in with a crunch, brains splattering the wall; the other's leg snapping at the knee, bone protruding white amid red. Simone's arrows whistled, one embedding in the leader's shoulder, pinning him to wood. He roared, firing blindly, the shot grazing a warrior's arm and tearing a furrow of flesh.

Liam void-stepped over the mess, roots lashing out to ensnare the gunwoman. Thorns wrapped her wrists, drawing blood as she struggled, her sling arm flailing uselessly. 'Please—mercy!' she begged, but roots tightened, lifting her high. Cassia directed from the rear, calling targets: 'The mutie on the left—flank him.' A warrior obliged, axe cleaving through the man's neck in a spray of arterial blood, the head rolling into the dark with eyes still blinking.

The fight wound down quickly, survivors' desperation no match for disciplined force. Three lay dead, their bodies mangled—guts steaming in the chill, limbs twisted at unnatural angles. The remaining five dropped weapons, kneeling in the gore. Liam's roots claimed the corpses, essence flowing: minor boosts, but the human yield carried a spark of potential, edging his thresholds.

'Interrogate,' Liam ordered. The leader, arrow still lodged in his shoulder, gasped as roots pried his mouth open. 'We've got a camp ahead—doctors, supplies from the docks. Rifts spitting fish-things, but we hold.' His words tumbled out under duress, fear cracking his resolve. The woman dangled nearby, tears mixing with snot. 'Don't kill us. We'll serve.'

Cassia cross-checked with her maps. 'Viable. Absorb them—bolster numbers for the waterfront push.' Collars snapped around necks, ethereal chains binding the new thralls. The leader's group shuffled into line, the wounded woman hobbling with a spear as crutch. One mutie, his fingers webbed, stared at the absorbed bodies with horror, but a warrior's cuff silenced his protest.

Pressing on, the tunnel widened to an access shaft, ladders leading up to street level—but blocked by a collapsed hatch. Lena's emitter scanned, confirming structural weakness. 'Breach it. Roots can shore the exit.' Liam directed the growth, tendrils burrowing through concrete, cracking it open to reveal the night sky fractured by auroras. The waterfront loomed: skeletal cranes over warped piers, ships half-sunk in rift-torn harbors, waves lapping at debris.

But below, in the shaft's base, something stirred—a low rumble. Roots probed: a nest of rift-spawned eels, electric-charged and writhing in the water. 'Flush,' Liam commanded. Torches plunged in ignited the murk, eels surging in a frenzy of sparks and fangs. One latched onto a thrall's leg, jaws grinding through muscle to bone, electricity jolting him rigid before he convulsed and fell, foaming at the mouth.

Warriors speared the beasts, tips sizzling on contact. Hannah smashed a cluster against the ladder, bodies bursting in sprays of viscous fluid and blood. Simone's wind arrows dispersed the swarm, pinning eels to walls where they thrashed, tails whipping. Liam's light bolts illuminated the chaos, exploding clusters in bursts that lit the shaft like fireworks.

The nest cleared, the group ascended, emerging onto rain-slicked docks. Thornewood's influence extended here—roots already claiming pilings, drawing essence from the sea's anomalies. The new thralls gasped at the vista: a city in ruins, but ripe for conquest. Signals from the survivors' camp beckoned—more to claim, more to break.

Losses tallied: one thrall electrocuted, his corpse left to the roots. The delve yielded ground, inch by bloody inch, as Earth's fractures bent to Liam's will.

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