The dark rock chrysalis at the base of World-serpent’s skull didn’t crack like stone. It fractured like an entire land-wide earth-shaking plate giving way beneath oceanic pressure.
A low, low, deep groan shook through the hollow core, rattling the silver-steel tool cases strapped to Arthur’s rig. Black-diamond armor scales peeled away from the chrysalis in massive slabs. It dissolved into liquid gravity before settling back onto the huge form emerging from the dust.
Titus stepped forward onto the cave floor.
The mud terrapin Arthur had bought for three silver credits from a back-alley drainage dredger was unrecognizable. Titus was now a walking mountain castle. His back shell measured eleven meters across. It was built from linked six-sided plates of black-diamond dark rock. Channels of deep azure light—ancient hydro-gravity channels—pulsed along the seams of his armor, streaming a stabilizing field that pinned the cave’s micro-tremors to a total standstill.
His physical mass had swollen to eighty-five metric tons. Yet, beneath his huge weight, the crystal floor didn’t shatter. His gravity pull redistributed the load evenly across sixty square meters of bedrock.
From the posterior notch of his shell, a second mind rose. The mythical twisted together snake-like tail of Xuanwu had fully showed up—a thick, muscular python of deep jade scales with its own glowing emerald eyes. He curled protectively above Titus’s rear flanks like an autonomous rear-guard turret.
