The eight surviving Mycelial Centipedes came together on Irrigation Pump House Alpha with the relentless coordination of an insect hive mind. Their thirty-foot segmented bodies plowed through the concrete retaining walls like living battering rams, their hard-shelled plates deflecting small-arms fire from the scared pump house workers holed up behind the security shutters.
“They’re going for the main intake pipe hub!” Lukas Webb’s voice screamed over the radio. “If those beasts rupture the high-pressure seals, forty million liters of town drinking water will be contaminated with neuro-rot venom in less than two minutes! The backup filters can’t stop that level of organic toxin!”
“Not while the Vanguard stands,” Arthur replied, his voice flat, icy, and fully steady.
Fifty paces ahead of the charging centipede pack, the mud-choked waters of the central drainage canal parted with the slow, terrifying majesty of a rising continent.
Titus rose from the underwater outflow basin.
The sixteen-ton Northern Xuanwu tortoise didn’t hesitate. He advanced with three thunderous, deliberate strides, planting his massive, pillar-like legs squarely across the concrete threshold of Pump House Alpha. His front belly shell dropped flush against the pump house intake grates. He formed an iron-hard, four-foot-thick wall of linked deep-sea dark rock and solid iron marrow.
