The squad descended into the "Canopy," a layer of vegetation three miles thick.
The Revenant stayed in the high atmosphere, acting as a beacon, while the squad took a Void-Steel dropship down. The moment they hit the floor, they weren't in a forest; they were in a Throat.
The ground was soft, made of layers of decayed "High-Men" and Consortium soldiers who had tried to harvest the world. Massive, pitcher-plant structures the size of houses hissed as they passed, spraying clouds of neurotoxic mist.
"Stay close!" Doc commanded. She slammed her Plague-Core Staff into the ground. A wave of emerald rot spread outward, killing the aggressive vines before they could wrap around Vance's legs. "Their biology is Rank 9. If you get scratched, your nervous system will become a radio for the Overgrowth."
Suddenly, the trees didn't just move—they unfolded.
A pack of Stalkers—creatures that looked like a cross between a panther and a venus flytrap—leaped from the shadows. They didn't have bones; they had pressurized hydraulic stalks that launched them at blinding speeds.
[ENTITY DETECTED: UNIDENTIFIED PATHOGEN.] [ACTION: ASSIMILATE. REPLICATE.]
Vance laughed, his Singularity-Plate igniting with a violet glow. "Finally! Something I can actually punch!"
He didn't use a gun. He swung a massive, Void-Steel pillar. When it hit the Stalkers, it didn't just crush them; the Singularity inside the pillar sucked the biological matter into a point of zero-mass.
"Don't kill them all, Vance!" Doc yelled. "I need a sample!"
She caught one of the Stalkers in a cage of emerald spores. She didn't kill it. She hacked it. She injected a strand of Kane's "Void-Hunger" into the creature's spine.
The Stalker shrieked. Its green hide turned obsidian black. Its eyes melted into silver pools. It turned around and immediately tore into its own pack, its new "Void-Venom" melting their Rank 9 biology instantly.
"The infection works," Doc whispered, a predatory smile on her face. "Sarge, I can turn this whole planet into a weapon."