Chapter 252: The Planting
THUD.
Astraxion landed heavily on the Vanguard staging pad inside Bastion Six. The neon-purple Void Dragon folded his massive wings. He looked exhausted. He had flown four hundred miles north alone, carrying a single iron case strapped to his spiked back.
The city around the landing pad was visibly dying.
The corruption had advanced significantly since dawn. Sickly, ash-white veins crept through the cracks in the cobblestones of the second district. The rot was bleeding into the lower stone walls of the barracks. The air smelled of decaying leaves and wet earth.
Aegon Logcheville unbuckled the heavy iron case from the dragon's scales. He threw the heavy latches open.
He stared at the payload.
It was a severed branch. The wood was coated in a thick, hardened alchemical resin. It smelled of sharp silver and raw pine. The heavy golden sap sealed beneath the resin pulsed with a very faint, dying light.
