"Don't stop. Just move."
Kael's voice rang through the comms, clipped and cold. Behind him, the fog-shrouded trees passed in a blur as Ravager's reinforced boots thundered against the metallic forest floor. Specter and Pulse Fang followed close, weaving between half-dead trunks and low-hanging vines.
They didn't dare stop.
Not after what they saw.
The image was still burned into Kael's mind — the way the snake Kaiju had emerged without sound, without heat, without warning. It hadn't fought the tiger Kaiju.
It had devoured it.
Whole.
And then disappeared, like the fog itself had swallowed the beast.
They ran until the sensor pings faded. Until the seismic readings stilled. Until even the humid air began to feel breathable again.
Only then did they slow.
Only then did the weight return.
---
They regrouped in a low valley just below a collapsed ridge. The fog was thinner here, breaking just enough to let them see fifty meters out — far enough for comfort, close enough for caution.
Kael opened Ravager's cockpit partially, letting the stale recycled air inside vent out. His forehead was slick with sweat.
Tyren was already halfway into a rant. "That thing… that wasn't an animal. That was a planetary catastrophe with fangs. We shouldn't be here. We shouldn't be here!"
"No argument," Oris said calmly, powering down Specter's lateral scanners. "But running won't help either. We have no fuel to escape. And no weapons to hold ground."
Tyren threw his gloves across the cockpit. "So what, we just stand here like bait?"
"No," Kael cut in. "We stand like soldiers. We learn. And we upgrade."
The words hung in the air.
Oris leaned forward. "I want to go back."
Tyren blinked. "Back? To that?"
"Not the serpent. The tiger."
Kael nodded slowly. "Its body… we saw where it fell. The blood hadn't pooled yet. No scorch marks. That means it's fresh."
"And dangerous," Tyren snapped.
"And full of data," Oris replied. "Biological samples. Bone density. Blood analysis. If we're going to survive on this planet, we need to understand what we're up against. And maybe…" He glanced at Kael. "Harvest something useful."
Kael's grip tightened. "We move at half throttle. Quiet. Any movement, we bolt."
---
They backtracked.
The world had gone still again — not silent, but expectant, like the trees themselves were listening. The fog hung lower than before, swirling at their mechas' knees like drifting smoke. Their scanners swept wide, but nothing registered. No life. No movement.
It was as if the planet itself held its breath.
Until they reached the corpse.
---
The tiger-like Kaiju's body lay broken across a basin of crushed iron trees. Its back half was missing — torn clean from the spine, ribs jutting out like snapped spears. The front half twitched every few minutes, a muscular aftershock from a nervous system not yet finished dying.
It stank. Thick and sour. Like rusted metal left to rot in stagnant water.
Kael stopped Ravager ten meters away and dismounted.
His boots clanged against the semi-solid soil. Every step squelched into black-red ichor that steamed faintly, but gave off no heat.
He crouched near a wound along the creature's side.
"Still wet," he muttered. "But no heat signature."
Oris had Specter scan the blood trail. "Chemical structure is alien. Viscosity more like oil. But it's rich in iron and copper. It's conductive."
Tyren chimed in. "So its blood's half power gel?"
"Closer to fuel than plasma," Oris replied. "No wonder they eat metal trees. Their biology runs on conductive minerals."
Kael walked around the body, avoiding exposed nerves and protruding bone shards.
Then he paused.
"The eyes."
They were still open — half-glazed, but not dull. There was no pupil, only a series of concentric rings, like sonar waves frozen in flesh.
"It's not just a predator," Kael said. "It calculates."
"Until it got calculated right back," Tyren muttered.
---
They worked quickly, collecting samples with drone arms and extracting a segment of bone from the exposed ribcage.
What disturbed Kael the most wasn't the blood, or the broken body.
It was the quiet.
Too quiet.
Even the fog seemed hesitant to move.
That's when Oris spotted it.
---
"Coils," he whispered.
Everyone turned.
Just beyond the basin, past the fallen trees and mists, a massive shape loomed — not fully visible, not moving — but unmistakably present.
A serpent, thicker than a train, was curled around the base of a massive tree. Its body rose in slow spirals up the trunk, coiling upward like an ancient shrine. Moss covered parts of its back. Bits of bark had broken under its weight.
Its mouth was closed.
Its head rested on one of its own coils.
Sleeping.
For now.
---
Kael's breath caught.
"We're too close," Tyren said.
Oris was still staring. "It hasn't moved. Not even a flick."
Kael scanned the terrain. "The ore veins are nearby. We're here anyway."
"You want to harvest metals next to that?" Tyren barked.
"We need to. This is the most active zone we've seen. If we want to upgrade our mechas, this is the place to do it."
Oris nodded. "Even five kilos of dense rad-metal would triple our core output."
Tyren hesitated.
Then cursed under his breath. "Fine. Five minutes. No more."
---
They fanned out, working quickly and silently.
Kael used Ravager's wrist-drill to extract from a deep vein in a nearby rock. The fragments glowed faintly — not hot, but alive, like the planet's bones were filled with coals.
Oris and Tyren coordinated battery siphons to store excess radiation for future core synthesis.
All the while, the serpent remained still.
Watching?
Sleeping?
Dreaming?
No one could tell.
---
Finally, with two containers full and the storage limit ticking red, Kael gave the order.
"Fall back. Quiet and slow."
No one argued.
They stepped away — one by one — disappearing into the fog as carefully as ghosts.
Behind them, the serpent remained.
Coiled.
Waiting.
And somewhere beneath the soil, Kael swore he felt it:
The tremor of something even bigger.