It stirred.
Awake. Hungry for fresh blood.
The final cage burst outward.
Iron bars shredded apart like shrapnel. Austin threw an arm across his face as jagged slivers pierced the vault. Seven pushed Elena behind a root pillar. Maelis conjured a wall of ember fire that intercepted much of it, melting through large chunks before they could strike the other captives.
The thing lumbered through the smoke.
Near twelve feet tall.
Black muscle coated its limbs, hips, and spine. Pale armor plating edged its shoulders and ribs. Twin massive horns curled backwards from its skull. A mouth split vertically across its chest, lined with flat grinding teeth.
Green brands scarred its abdomen and thighs. Each one pulsed with the same rhythm as the roots sprouting above.
[Entity detected: Flesh- Garden Behemoth.]
[Classification: Siege Organism.]
[Threat estimate: Catastrophic.]
[Potential traits: Root Armor, Regenerative Mass, Siege Growth, Terror Roar.]
[Warning: target sustains itself by consuming living biomass.]
The Behemoth sniffed the air.
Its eyes fixed on the wounded prisoners.
"No," Austin warned.
It bolted forwards.
The Behemoth wasn’t fast. It didn’t need to be. Each lumbering step crumbled stone walls around them. When it first charged into the prison block, its fist punched clean through a cell half a moment ago housing a winged demon woman. She would have perished then and there if not for Maelis dragging her out in a wave of fire.
Austin dashed along the wall behind the protection of the remaining cages. The Behemoth swiped at him, but he rolled underneath its arm. He climbed atop its forearm before driving his palms into one of the green brands dotting its shoulders.
DEVOUR answered.
The brand writhed away from him like a living creature. It wasn’t just a contract Austin signed that day in the park. Malrec grafted the Behemoth directly into his personal connection with the Grand Meridian’ underground network. Each time the Behemoth suffered damage stolen root-mass rebuilt its body anew.
Austin retracted his hands before it could suck him inside.
"Maelis!"
"Burning it will burn the building down!" She called back.
"Rin!"
The fox demon jumped atop the Behemoth’s back. She clawed at the brand patches trailing down its neck, ripping green flesh from its body. Her nine tails bloomed crimson through the smoke as she leapt away from one massive hand.
"It has six anchor points!" Rin yelled over the rampage. "Shoulders, hips, spine and chest!"
Seven heaved the broken remains of his polearm at the Behemoth’s flank. The splintered weapon burrowed into muscle. Violet flame erupted from its skull, cracking stone beneath its feet.
The Behemoth roared then spun to face Seven.
Sound erupted through Austin’s bones.
[Terror Roar detected.]
[Willpower check initiated.]
The world around Austin blinked out of focus.
For a moment he was seven again. Back in that convenience store. Hungry. Weak. Alone.
He could feel something stalking through empty streets. But it was muted. Gray.
Then he heard Elena scream his name.
"Austin!"
Reality snapped into focus.
He looked up just as the Behemoth brought its fists crashing down onto Seven. The enforcer stumbled to a knee but went to block its momentum before being slammed hard into the wall.
Austin clawed his fingers into the vine matrix again.
They answered him now. Listened to his voice beneath the floorboards, starving for instruction. It was his weapon this whole time. His shield.
"Hold it!" Austin shouted.
Black roots erupted through the vault walls.
Long spines wrapped around its ankles, waist, and forearms. The Behemoth thrashed in one direction then another. Thick vine erupted from the ground and dug into muscle and tissue. It shredded through half the recent growth in seconds. But that was long enough for Seven to roll out of harm’s way.
The roots screamed in Austin’s head. Hungry for more.
More flesh. More core. Whatever it could take. Feed.
He finally understood.
"A-Ruin!" Rin shouted from behind him.
Austin spun around just in time to see the Behemoth rake one of its massive hands across her back. Clawing viciously through muscle and bloody sinew. Rin cried out in pain but kicked out with her hind legs anyway, scratching at its wrist.
Austin reached the creature’s side in time, took a leap of faith, and punched straight through the glowing green brand covering its chest.
It shattered beneath his strength.
His arm burrowed deep into muscle. Pitch black blood singed his wrist. Heat flooded into Austin’s chest as he found the source buried underneath the beasts chest-mouth.
A cluster of tendrils roughly the size of a human head pulsing rapidly.
The System lit up with warning notifications.
[Siege Core detected.]
[Potential gain: Root Armor, Regenerative Mass, Siege Growth.]
[Assimilation risk: severe.]
His fingers closed around the Siege Core.
The Behemoth screamed as its body began to be shredded from within.
Rock burst from the ground beneath its massive weight. Thorns burst from the earth penetrating any orifice it could find. Eyes. Mouth. Both ears were easily torn from its skull before sharp roots dug through its brain. Every instinct in Austin’s body screamed at him to rip the cluster free.
But he didn’t move.
Roots devoured the Behemoth whole until nothing remained.
Splintered armor plates littered the ground. Black vines stitched together creating a gruesome tapestry draped over a dark pool of blood.
[A fistful of black tendrils have been removed from Grand Meridian Overgrowth.]
[Ancillary enhancements en route.]
[Slot #3: Root Armor]
The Fortress of solitude had a new guardian.
Roots grew directly out of Austin’s chest,
Coating his arms, hands, and fingers in thorned muscle.
Austin stood there staring down at his new hand.
Instinct wanted him to plug into it. Taste the power that ran through its veins.
Images flashed before his eyes. Vivid dreams of what could be.
He could regenerate by feeding on the biomass around him.
His skin would harden into thick root armor plating.
Grow to the size of Giants if he sought out the right kind of blood.
Austin looked over at the small cluster of prisoners behind him.
At Rin pressed safely against Seven despite being smeared with blood across her tail.
At Maelis helping the Winged demon woman to her feet.
At Elena studying him cautiously across the ruined prison vault.
The old Austin would have tossed the core aside out of fear.
wondered what the new Austin would do
Austin opened his mouth.
"Wait," Elena called out before he could speak. "If you consume that you may never come back."
Austin eyed the Siege Core with newfound resolve.
He should have felt fear at the prospect of losing himself.
It felt right. Natural, even.
Instead he slammed his fist into a tight fist around the Siege Core.
"Then I’ll wait until I need something bigger to not feel human again."
Rin glared at him with narrowed yellow eyes. "Typical. You say that like you have a plan."
"I sure as hell do now."
The steel hatchway above them screeched open.
Heavy strikes battered down the door from the boiler hall below.
"What the fuck!" Vorth screamed into the ducts.
Malrec’ Hounds had found them.
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