Echoterra: Rise of the Verdant King
Chapter 41: {Bonus - } Iron and Ash

Chapter 41: {Bonus Chapter} Iron and Ash

[I promised Sauron_0405 a bonus Chapter. Here it is. Thanks once more for the Dragon gift.]

Clayton’s eyes lingered on the broken reactor tower where the cloaked figure had vanished. The air still carried the faint tang of ozone and scored earth from the Charhound Tyrant’s demise, but his focus was elsewhere.

His pulse hadn’t slowed.

That silhouette; human, not Behemorph, hadn’t attacked. On one hand, it confirmed something. ’I’m not the last human alive’.

Clayton never acknowledged how important it was to know this, but confirming that he was not the last surviving human among billions of humans that once populated Earth made him feel like a lump just left his throat. The burden he never knew he was carrying since now evaporated like steam.

But there was another thing.

That human, it hadn’t attacked. And yet, it hadn’t fled either, rather, it had watched.

And in Clayton’s world, being watched meant you were prey or a problem. He’d bet on the latter.

He crouched low, his Mycoglyph gauntlet pulsing faintly against his wrist. The Regalia of the Verdant Warden hummed in his grip, its spear form coiled with latent thorns, ready to shift at a thought.

The Expanse was quiet now, but quiet never lasted.

His instincts, honed in the Scorchpath Outskirts where he grew up, and sharpened in Echoterra’s crucible screamed one truth; whoever that was, they weren’t here to talk.

Maybe he was being paranoid, but it was better being paranoid than dead.

"Alright, you bastard," he muttered, his voice low, edged with that dark humor that kept him sane. "You’re the first human I’ve met since coming back to this... ugh, Earth? I dunno. I’d really like to talk, but you’re clearly not in the mood".

His eyes gleamed darkly. "You wanna play hide and seek? I’m game".

He didn’t chase. Not yet.

Chasing blind in a city this broken was a death sentence, and Clayton Hunt didn’t survive 312 years of absence just to die stupid.

Instead, he let his senses stretch. The ground beneath his feet whispered; roots, faint and feral, stirred by his Sovereign Bloom. They weren’t his yet, but they recognized him. The Expanse was alive, and he was its pulse.

He moved, silent and deliberate, toward a shattered overpass draped in moss and rusted rebar.

The soul pressure he’d felt days ago lingered, stronger now, like ripples converging on a stone. And now, he finally knew where it originated from.

Whoever, or whatever was out there, they were close.

And they weren’t alone.

...

Meanwhile, three kilometers west, Ironblood Remnant Outpost: Bastion-7.

The cloaked scout slipped through a jagged tear in the side of a hollowed-out skyscraper, its steel frame fused with blackened vines that hadn’t grown in decades.

The air inside was sharp with the smell of oil, plasma, and recycled air; a stark contrast to the Expanse’s organic rot.

Bastion-7 wasn’t a home, it was a fortress.

Old-world servers hummed in the shadows, their screens flickering with scavenged data. Makeshift turrets, cobbled from pre-Protocol tech, tracked the scout’s movements with cold precision.

The Ironblood Remnants didn’t trust the living any more than they trusted the green.

The scout, a wiry man named Kael, pulled back his hood, revealing a face scarred by Genesis burns and a shaved scalp wired with neural implants.

His scope, a relic from the United Earth Congress era, clicked as he set it on a steel table. The room was dim, lit by the glow of a plasma forge where three figures stood; Commander Vrenna, a grizzled woman with a mechanical arm and eyes like cold slate.

Lieutenant Torv, a hulking man whose skin was pocketed with anti-Genesis grafts; and Sylas, the tech-scribe, hunched over a terminal, his fingers dancing across a holo-keyboard.

"Report," Vrenna snapped, her voice cutting through the hum of machinery. No pleasantries. The Ironblood didn’t waste breath.

Kael straightened, his implants pulsing faintly.

"Sighted a new anomaly in the Aether Core District. Not a Behemorph. Humanoid. Male. Wielding Genesis matter; roots, vines, the works".

"Took down a Charhound Tyrant solo. Late-Initiate Tier, maybe higher. Moves like he’s been fighting his whole life".

Torv grunted, cracking his knuckles. "Another Apostate? They’re crawling out of the woodwork".

"Not Apostate," Kael said, shaking his head. "This one’s different. Controlled. No corruption bleed. His roots... they obey him. Like he’s some kind of anchor. I’ve never seen anything like it".

Sylas paused his typing, his eyes narrowing behind cracked googles. "Describe the roots".

"Black-green. Thorned. Moved like they had a mind of their own. He summoned them from the ground, tore the Tyrant apart from the inside".

"He had a weapon too, a spear, then a bow. It looked alive".

Vrenna’s mechanical arm whirred as she leaned forward. "A Verdant Lord". Her voice was flat, but the weight of the term hung in the air. "The Genesis Protocols are spitting out relics again. Thought we burned the last of them in New Chicago".

Sylas tapped his terminal, pulling up a grainy holo-feed from the Genesis Archive Sigma-4. "Verdant Lords were Phase Two anomalies. Rare. Tied to Echoterra’s trials. If one’s here, it’s not random. The Expanse is waking up".

Kael shifted uncomfortably. "He saw me. Didn’t pursue, but he knew I was there".

Torv laughed, a harsh bark. "Smart. Most rootspawn would’ve charged. This one’s got brains".

"Which makes him dangerous," Vrenna said, her eyes glinting. "The Protocols turned this city into a jungle. We’ve spent years torching infestations, reclaiming tech, keeping the green from swallowing us whole".

"This... thing is no different. It’s a root infestation with a pulse".

Sylas frowned, his fingers hesitating. "If he’s a Verdant Lord, he might be a key. The Sigma-4 Archive mentioned a Warden-Class Host. Could unlock dormant systems, maybe even a Furnace Core".

Vrenna cut him off. "Doesn’t matter. He’s Genesis-touched. That makes him a threat. We’ve seen what happens when the green takes root".

Her face turned grave. "Entire outposts gone, families buried alive by sentient vines. No more chances". She said, her tone sharp and uncompromising.

She turned to Kael. "Mark his last position. Mobilize Strike Cell Omicron. Plasma lances, EMP rounds, and Genesis suppressors. We move at dusk".

Torv grinned, hefting a plasma rifle from a rack. "Burn the roots, salt the earth. Same as always".

Kael nodded, but his eyes lingered on the holo-feed, where a faint image of Clayton’s silhouette flickered, roots coiling around him like a crown.

Something about the man felt... wrong.

Not monstrous. Not human. Something else.

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