The shockwave from Brasília's fall wasn't sonic; it was psychic.

  Even a hundred kilometers away, on the shoulder of the BR-060 highway, I could still taste copper in my mouth. The taste of the world's mana being torn apart.

  We stopped the truck at an abandoned gas station, whose sign "Last Stop Before Civilization" now seemed like a bad joke.

  I was sitting on the hot hood of the vehicle, watching the southern horizon.

  Where the golden dome of Sovereignty once shone, there was now a column of black and purple smoke piercing the stratosphere. The sky around the capital had changed color. It wasn't blue, nor cloudy. It was the color of a fresh bruise: yellow, purple, and sickly green.

  "Metastasis," I muttered, noting it on my tablet (which now ran on an improvised solar battery).

  "What did you say?" Luna appeared beside me. She had washed her face, but the dark circles under her eyes were deep. Her silver gala dress was torn at the hem and stained with grease. She looked like a princess who had survived trench warfare.

  "The Devourer King. He isn't just sitting there. He's infecting the fabric of reality." I pointed to the cloud. "That storm isn't weather. It's a zone of physical alteration. Everything that smoke touches stops obeying the laws of thermodynamics and starts obeying the laws of Hunger."

  "And the people?" Luna asked, her voice cracking. "The slums around it... the millions who lived outside..."

  I didn't answer immediately. The Parasite vibrated with cold logic.

  [CASUALTY CALCULATION: 90% IN THE FIRST HOUR.]

  [SURVIVORS WILL BE CHANGED. THE CONCEPT OF "HUMAN" NO LONGER APPLIES IN GROUND ZERO.]

  "They are part of his ecosystem now," I replied, trying to be gentle but failing. "Running was the only option, Luna. We couldn't save those who were already inside the stomach."

  Valéria came out of the gas station convenience store carrying gallons of water and packs of snacks that had expired ten years ago. Gristle came right behind, dragging an ice cream freezer that miraculously still contained dry ice.

  "The roads are clogged," announced Valéria, tossing the supplies into the truck bed. "Radar shows thousands of vehicles coming from the Federal District. The elite are fleeing."

  "Let them come," Gristle opened a bag of chips with her teeth. "Let's see how long luxury cars last in the Mutant Cerrado without Paladin protection."

  "We're not waiting." I jumped off the hood. "We need to get off the main road network. If we stay on the highway, we'll get stuck in the end-of-the-world traffic jam. And when the King expands his territory, he'll eat the stragglers first."

  "And where do we go?" asked Valéria. "The North is dense jungle. There are no truck roads there."

  "We'll follow the Line of Towers." I pointed to the gigantic deactivated power transmission towers cutting through the landscape, heading straight north. "The ground beneath them is cleared for maintenance. It's a dirt scar that goes straight to Tocantins and then to the Amazon."

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "The High Voltage Trail," Valéria nodded, calculating. "The ground is bad, but it's straight. And there are no tolls."

  We got back on the dirt road. The truck shook violently but moved forward.

  The landscape around us began to change.

  It wasn't the dry, twisted Cerrado anymore.

  The vegetation was... aggressive.

  Trees grew visibly in real-time. Elephant grass broke through the hard soil, reaching three meters in height in minutes.

  And the color wasn't green. It was a dark blue shade, almost black.

  "What's happening?" Gristle looked out the window, gripping her cleaver. "Are the plants... hissing?"

  "It's an immune response," I explained, observing a tree that seemed to bleed red sap. "The planet felt the wound in Brasília. Earth is sending mana to the region to try and 'scar over' the hole made by the King. The result is this disordered super-growth."

  Suddenly, Valéria braked hard.

  "Arthur! Roadblock!"

  In front of us, the trail under the power towers was cut off.

  Not by a barricade.

  But by a Forest of Thorns that seemed to have sprouted in the last five minutes. The thorns were the size of spears and glistened with poison.

  And in the middle of the thorns, there was something moving.

  A convoy of Sovereignty luxury cars—three black armored SUVs—was trapped in the vines.

  The plants were crushing the armored cars like soda cans.

  "Help..." we heard a muffled scream.

  A man wearing a Sovereignty General's uniform was trying to crawl out of a crushed car. He was clutching a silver briefcase.

  A vine wrapped around his leg and pulled him back.

  "Should we help?" asked Luna, hand on her baton.

  "Wait." I held her arm. "Look at the plants."

  The vines weren't just killing. They were absorbing.

  The thorns pierced the general's armor. His blood was drained in seconds. But it didn't stop there. The vines entered the silver briefcase.

  The briefcase glowed. Refined mana crystals fell out. The roots grabbed the crystals and dissolved them.

  "They eat magic," I realized. "It's a Natural Containment Barrier. Nature is creating a wall to stop anything mana-charged from leaving Brasília."

  "And us?" Valéria asked. "We're full of magical equipment. And you... you're a walking battery."

  The Parasite hissed.

  [ALERT: BIOLOGICAL CAMOUFLAGE REQUIRED. IF WE ENTER LIKE THIS, WE WILL BE DIGESTED.]

  "Turn everything off," I ordered. "Luna, store the baton in the lead box. Valéria, cut the mana injection to the engine. We run on dirty diesel only. Gristle, no using augmented strength."

  "And you, Doctor?"

  I closed my eyes and concentrated. I ordered the Parasite to retreat deep into my bone marrow. I reduced my aura to zero. I became, for all biological intents and purposes, an ordinary, weak human.

  I felt the cold and fatigue hit immediately.

  "We go through slowly," I whispered. "Valéria, idle speed. Don't accelerate. Show no aggression."

  The truck moved forward.

  We entered the thorn zone.

  The vines brushed against the truck's bodywork. The sound was nails on a chalkboard—SCREEEECH.

  They groped the metal, searching for magical heat.

  We passed the General's car. His body was already dry, turned into fertilizer. The briefcase was empty.

  A thick vine, with a "mouth" full of thorns, stopped in front of our windshield. It swayed like a snake, "smelling" Valéria and me.

  I held my breath. If the Parasite reacted... if it tried to defend itself... we would die.

  The vine touched the glass.

  Waited.

  Sensed no magic. Only cold metal and the smell of burnt diesel.

  It lost interest and retracted.

  "Keep going..." I whispered, without moving my lips.

  We advanced another fifty meters.

  And then, the forest of thorns ended as abruptly as it began.

  The path ahead was clear.

  Valéria let out the breath she was holding.

  "I'll never complain about normal traffic again."

  I turned the systems back on. The Parasite emerged, furious at the humiliation of hiding from a plant, but alive.

  "We're outside the Containment Ring." I looked back. The thorn barrier now looked like an impassable wall. Whoever was in Brasília, stayed in Brasília. Whoever was out, wasn't getting back in.

  "The path to the Amazon is open," I said, looking north. "But if the Cerrado reacted like this... imagine what the Amazon Rainforest will do when it smells the King."

  "Gaia is waking up," said Luna, poetically grim. "And she's in a bad mood."

  The truck accelerated, kicking up dust.

  Behind us, civilization was dying. Ahead, the wild was preparing for war.

  And we were just the bacteria traveling from one body to another.

  "Gristle," I called. "What's for dinner?"

  "Chips and melted ice cream."

  "Perfect. The meal of end-of-the-world champions."