The descent onto the jade ziggurat was met with an immediate, furious counter-attack from the deep-sea swarm.
Titus’s gravity pull touched the lower tiers of the pyramid. Then, thirty mature Helminthos abyssi detached from the ancient stone. The huge, pale tapeworms undulated through the water like ribbons of bleached bone, their segmented back shells clicking with the sound of a thousand cocking rifles.
They didn’t strike with teeth. They struck with their anterior suction heads.
Each parasite was equipped with four curving, three-foot-long hooks of hardened void metal that flared with dark violet heat wave. When a hook struck living tissue, it didn’t just tear flesh. It injected a packed neurotoxin that turned motor nerve endings into rotting water within seconds.
“Titus! Heavy Grounding!” Arthur roared through the tactical comms.
BOOOOOOM!
Titus slammed his twenty-ton bulk onto the third tier of the ziggurat. His four was dark rock feet locking into the jade flat stone slabs. He didn’t dodge. He activated 10G Tectonic Grounding.
A heavy gravity zone ten times Earth’s normal gravity erupted in a sixty-meter radius around the tortoise.
