Night in the Cerrado doesn't bring coolness; it just turns off the sun and turns on the convection oven. The asphalt radiated the heat accumulated during the day, creating thermal mirages even under the moonlight.

  Valéria drove with the headlights off, guided only by night vision goggles.

  "Something's wrong," she muttered, gripping the steering wheel. "The engine is making a weird noise. Not mechanical. It's like... it's coughing."

  "Magnetic dust in the air intake," I diagnosed, checking the filters. "The air here is so charged with ore that the truck is basically smoking an iron bar per kilometer."

  Suddenly, the truck's radio—which had been mute for days—exploded into static.

  A distorted voice, mixed with the sounds of grinding gears and Gregorian chants, filled the cab.

  — ...lost sheep in the lead pasture... the Shepherd has seen the sin... the Shepherd collects the tithe of flesh...

  "Turn that off!" Luna covered her ears. "It's horrible! Sounds like a praying blender!"

  "Radar!" Valéria shouted.

  On the dark horizon behind us, spotlights turned on. They were dirty, yellowish lights mounted on vehicles that shouldn't exist.

  They were pickups fused with tractors, motorcycles with circular saw wheels, and trucks that looked like gothic altars on monster truck tires.

  They weren't chasing us. They were herding us.

  "The Pilgrims," I said, feeling the Parasite prickle the hairs on the back of my neck. "They found the Armadillo carcass. And now they want payback."

  "There's so many of them!" Gristle looked through the armored slit. "About thirty vehicles. And they have harpoons!"

  One of the pursuing vehicles—a Buggy with a pulpit welded to the roof—accelerated. A masked man hanging off the side fired a harpoon.

  It wasn't a rope. It was a chain of living metal.

  The harpoon hit the rear door of our truck with a deafening CLANG. The chain went taut and began to glow red, heating up the armor.

  "They're cooking us!" Valéria swerved the truck, trying to snap the chain, but the enemy vehicle was too heavy.

  "Arthur! Plan?" yelled Luna.

  "We can't fight a whole caravan in motion!" I looked around. We were surrounded. "Valéria, stop the truck."

  "What?! They'll butcher us!"

  "Stop the truck! It's a negotiation, not an escape! They are fanatics, not animals. Fanatics have rules!"

  Valéria cursed in three dead languages and slammed on the brakes.

  The truck skidded in the red dust and stopped.

  Immediately, the circle of Pilgrim vehicles closed the net, engines idling like a pack of mechanical dogs.

  We got out of the vehicle with our hands up (though Gristle held her cleaver in one hand and raised the other).

  From the lead vehicle—an armored school bus covered in exhaust pipes forming a pipe organ—an imposing figure descended.

  He wore priest robes made of monster leather and rusty chainmail. His face was covered by a welding mask painted with sacred symbols.

  In one hand, he held a censer puffing diesel smoke. In the other, a giant, gold-plated pipe wrench.

  Deacon Chrome. The leader of the pack.

  He walked toward us, his footsteps heavy on the asphalt.

  "Impure brothers," his voice echoed, amplified by the mask. "You have profaned the sacred flock. You killed 'Lazarus,' the Armadillo that carried the relics."

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  "He tried to run us over," I replied calmly, maintaining eye contact (or what I assumed were his eyes through the dark visor). "It was legitimate automotive defense."

  "Defense is irrelevant. The metal demands blood. The rust demands flesh." The Deacon raised the wrench. "Hand over the Orc. Her muscle mass will pay the debt."

  Gristle snarled.

  "Come and get it, scrap metal. I'll make you swallow that screwdriver."

  The other Pilgrims cocked their weapons—crossbows made of shock absorbers and double-barreled shotguns.

  "Wait!" I took a step forward, entering the danger zone. "Deacon... you're limping."

  The giant stopped.

  "The path of faith is painful."

  "It's not faith. It's Magical Metallosis." I activated my analytical vision.

  The man's body wasn't just covered in metal; metal was growing from the inside out. His joints were calcifying with iron. His blood was turning into mercury.

  I looked at the other gang members. All had gray patches on their skin. Yellowish eyes. Hand tremors.

  "You live in this dust. You eat food grown in this metallic soil. You worship technology, but technology is killing you. Your kidneys are failing. Your liver is hard as a rock. You won't last another month, Deacon. The 'sacred oil' will stop your heart."

  The Deacon lowered the wrench slowly.

  "You speak like an Oracle of Flesh."

  "I am a doctor. And I know how to filter heavy metals from the blood."

  A murmur ran through the Pilgrims. They were tough, but they were sick. Pain was visible in their every movement.

  "You... can purify the Lead Blood?" asked the Deacon, his voice losing aggression and gaining a tone of contained desperation.

  "I can perform an alchemical dialysis session right now." I pulled a transfusion kit from my backpack. "In exchange, you let us keep the Armadillo meat, give us clean fuel, and guide us to the border of Brasília."

  The Deacon looked at his followers, who nodded anxiously.

  He took off the welding mask.

  The face underneath was a map of silver veins and gray skin. He looked a hundred years old, but was probably not even forty.

  "If you fail, Doctor..." he spat dark saliva on the ground. "We will weld you inside the bus engine and listen to your screams while we drive."

  "Fair enough."

  The "clinic" was set up in the bed of a pickup truck.

  The procedure wasn't pretty.

  I used large-gauge needles connected to flasks containing Mana Magnets and Blackroot Chelating Solution.

  When the Deacon's blood started flowing through the tubes, it was almost black. As it passed through the magnetic filter, iron particles got trapped, forming small shiny clusters. The blood returning to his arm was bright red.

  The relief on his face was immediate. His breathing, previously wheezing, cleared up.

  "Miracle..." he whispered, looking at the tube.

  "Science," I corrected, changing the clogged filter. "But call it a miracle if it helps your theology."

  While I treated the leader, Luna and Gristle socialized (tensely) with the rest of the tribe.

  Valéria was enchanted by their vehicle engines.

  "They use direct raw mana injection into the cylinders!" she told me, excited. "Arthur, that's unstable as hell, but the power is absurd. They taught me how to tune the truck. Now we do 0 to 100 in four seconds."

  When I finished the dialysis, Deacon Chrome stood up. He cracked his back. The sound was bone, not grinding metal.

  He took my hand and kissed it—which was gross, because his lips tasted like old battery acid.

  "You are a Saint of Oil, Doctor." He signaled his men. "Refuel their vehicle! Give them clean water! And bring the Map of the Pilgrimage!"

  He opened a map made of trucker skin on the hood of my truck.

  "You want to go to the Golden City. Brasília."

  "That's the plan."

  The Deacon shook his head, sad.

  "No one enters Brasília. The Wall of Light burns the impure. We, the Pilgrims, try to get there every year to offer sacrifices. But the Archangel... he does not accept offerings."

  "We have a special invitation." I touched the pocket where my father's drive was. "But we need to know the safe route. Where there are no aerial patrols."

  The Deacon traced a crooked line with a grease-stained finger.

  "Here. Through the Valley of Mirrors. It is an ancient anomaly. Sovereignty radars don't work there because the ground reflects magic back to the sky."

  "But beware. The Valley reflects not only radar. It reflects... regrets."

  "We've dealt with ghosts before," said Luna, confident.

  "They are not ghosts, girl of sweet voice." The Deacon put his mask back on. "They are Crystal Doppelg?ngers. If you enter there, you will meet the worst version of yourself. And usually, it tries to kill you."

  He tapped the roof of our truck.

  "Go with the blessing of Rust. And if you reach the Emperor's Throne... tell him his children out here are still waiting for forgiveness."

  We got back on the road, now with a full tank and escorted by the Pilgrims to the entrance of the Valley.

  As we pulled away, I looked in the rearview mirror. The caravan lights looked like sick fireflies in the vast darkness of the Cerrado.

  "They're sad," commented Luna, looking out the window. "They think the government abandoned them because of their sins. But the truth is, the government just doesn't care."

  "Indifference is the gods' cruelest weapon, Luna," I replied, watching the landscape change.

  The red dust was vanishing. The ground was becoming vitrified, smooth and shiny.

  We were entering the Valley of Mirrors.

  The Parasite inside me vibrated, but this time, it wasn't hunger. It was... doubt?

  [PSYCHIC FIELD ANALYSIS: HIGH INTENSITY.]

  [ALERT: PREPARATION FOR INTERNAL CONFRONTATION.]

  I looked at my reflection in the dark window glass.

  For a second, just a second, the reflection didn't blink when I blinked. And it was smiling in a way I hadn't smiled in a long time.

  "Guys," I said, locking my seatbelt. "Get ready. The next fight isn't going to be against monsters. It's going to be against the mirror. And I have a feeling my reflection is an asshole."