Seven days.

  That was the time it took us to cross the "Ecotone of Death," the transition zone between the destroyed central plateau and the Amazon basin.

  The armored truck, once a pride of improvised engineering, now looked like a chewed-up sardine can. The suspension groaned with every meter of potholed dirt road. The air conditioning had died on the third day, replaced by the hot, humid breath entering through the open windows.

  "I miss the zombies," Valéria grumbled, wiping sweat from her forehead with a grease-stained arm. "Zombies are slow and predictable. Sparrow-sized Vampire Mosquitoes are not."

  "Don't scratch," I warned, looking at Luna's swollen arm in the back seat. "Their saliva has a mild necrotizing enzyme. If you scratch, you spread the toxin and the skin falls off."

  "Great." Luna sighed, fanning herself with a giant banana leaf. "My skin falls off, the world ends, and we're driving into the middle of the bush without GPS. Arthur, are we lost?"

  I looked at the horizon.

  The power transmission towers—our metal compass—were still there, but now they were covered in vines so thick they looked like green muscles strangling the steel.

  Ahead, the sky wasn't blue. It was white, saturated with water vapor. And there was a constant sound, a low roar that made the ground vibrate.

  "We aren't lost," I pointed. "We're reaching the edge. The river."

  The road made a sharp turn, rounding a hill.

  And then, the view opened up.

  It wasn't just a river. It was a sea of muddy, violent, churning water, miles wide.

  The Tocantins River. Or what it had become after absorbing the continent's magical sewage.

  The bridge that should have been there—a massive concrete structure—was snapped in half. The central span had collapsed, and on the ruins of the pillars, nests of giant birds (probably Harpies) balanced precariously.

  Valéria braked the truck on the muddy bank.

  "End of the line, boss. The truck doesn't swim. And that current takes us to the Atlantic in little pieces."

  I stepped out of the vehicle. My boots sank into the hot mud. The smell was overwhelming: rotten fish, fermenting plants, and raw mana.

  The Parasite inside me, which had been hibernating to save energy, woke with a jolt.

  [BIO-DIVERSITY ALERT: OMEGA LEVEL.]

  [WATER LIFE DENSITY: 500% ABOVE NORMAL.]

  "The water is alive," I murmured.

  "Alive like 'little fishies'?" asked Gristle, stepping down with her cleaver.

  "Alive like 'primordial carnivorous soup'." I picked up a rock and threw it into the water.

  Before the rock touched the surface, a fish with metal scales and saw-teeth jumped, swallowed the rock in mid-air, and dove back down.

  "Armored Piranhas," I identified. "They eat ore. Imagine what they'd do to the truck chassis."

  "So how do we cross?" Luna crossed her arms. "Build a raft?"

  "No. We hitch a ride."

  I pointed to the middle of the river.

  Coming from the mist, a colossal floating structure approached the bank.

  It wasn't a boat. It was a Floating Favela.

  Dozens of barges, rafts, and old ship hulls were tied together with chains and vines, forming a mobile artificial island. Chimneys spewed colorful smoke. There were vegetable gardens, chicken coops, and even a watchtower made from a bus chassis on top of containers.

  At the bow of the main structure, a flag made of anaconda skin fluttered. The symbol: A Fishhook piercing a Skull.

  "The Mist Riverfolk," I explained. "Aquatic nomads. They control the crossing. And they hate land-dwellers."

  The "island" stopped fifty meters from the bank. A mechanical drawbridge descended with a crash, but didn't reach us.

  A figure appeared at the end of the plank.

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

  A short, stocky woman with sun-weathered skin and blue tattoos that glowed faintly on her face. She smoked a wooden pipe and held an electric harpoon.

  "Who steps on Captain Jurema's mud?" her voice was raspy, magically projected to the bank. "If you're Sovereignty, turn around. My alligators have already eaten today."

  "We aren't Sovereignty!" I shouted back. "We are refugees from Brasília! We bring metal, medicine, and a tuned truck!"

  Jurema laughed, releasing a cloud of green smoke.

  "Refugees bring disease. Metal I have plenty from shipwrecks. And your truck is useless here on the water. Get lost before I release the eels."

  She started to turn away.

  "Arthur!" Valéria hissed. "Do something!"

  I analyzed the situation. Money was worthless. Land technology was worthless.

  What has value in the jungle?

  Health.

  I activated my enhanced vision, focusing on the crew peeking behind Jurema.

  They looked strong, but something was wrong. Slow movements. Yellow spots in their eyes. Some were coughing up green slime.

  "Captain!" I shouted. "Your crew is sick!"

  Jurema stopped. She turned slowly, her look dangerous.

  "What did you say?"

  "Toadstool Spores!" I diagnosed from a distance. "You fished near the southern swamps recently, didn't you? The fungus enters through the fish gills and contaminates whoever eats it. Causes fever, blindness, and in three weeks, your lungs turn into mushrooms."

  A murmur ran through the crew. I had guessed right.

  "I am a doctor!" I raised my hands. "I have Concentrated Alchemical Fungicide in my pack. I can cure your boat in an hour. In exchange, you cross us to the north bank."

  Jurema looked at her men, then at me. She spat into the river. The water where the spit landed boiled.

  "If it's a lie, Doctor... you become live bait. Lower the bridge!"

  The plank finished descending, crushing the mud.

  Valéria started the truck and we drove up the ramp carefully, parking on the rusty steel deck of the main barge.

  As soon as we got out, we were surrounded by men and women armed with bone tridents and fishing rifles.

  Jurema came down from her tower. Up close, she was even more intimidating. The tattoos on her face moved like running water.

  "Show me the cure," she demanded, extending a calloused hand.

  I took out a vial of blue powder (copper sulfate mixed with purified mana).

  "Mix this into the main water tank. And stop eating the fish livers for a week."

  Jurema smelled the powder. She nodded to a subordinate, who ran to test it.

  "Meanwhile, let's cross." She shouted to the crew. "Cast off! Start the mana engines! Course North!"

  The floating island began to move, fighting the powerful current.

  I went to the edge, looking at the dark water.

  "Why the rush, Captain?"

  "Because the river is nervous, Doctor." Jurema looked south, where the smoke from Brasília stained the distant sky. "That flash we saw days ago... changed the water. The bottom beasts are rising. They are afraid."

  "Afraid of what?"

  Before she could answer, the barge deck shook violently.

  A siren made of conch shells sounded.

  "ATTACK TO STARBOARD!" shouted a lookout.

  I ran to the side.

  The water was boiling. Not piranhas.

  Something gigantic was rising.

  Tentacles made of slime, algae, and dead animal bones broke the surface.

  "Slime Hydra!" shouted Jurema, spinning her harpoon. "Class A! Protect the engines!"

  The beast emerged. It didn't have one head. It had five, each shaped like a grotesque caricature of river creatures: an alligator head, a turtle, a dolphin... all made of semi-solid mud animated by necrotic magic.

  It roared, spraying acid on the deck.

  One of the heads (the Alligator) bit the side of a smaller barge, ripping wood and metal like Styrofoam.

  "Valéria! The truck's harpoon cannon!" I shouted.

  "Gristle, hold the front line! Luna, stun it!"

  "Out of my way, strangers!" Jurema tried to push us. "This is a sailor's fight!"

  "No, Captain!" I held her harpoon. "Look at its body! It's not flesh! It's polymeric slime! If you pierce it, it just reforms!"

  "Then how do you kill mud?!"

  "You don't kill it. You dry it." I looked at the barge engine. An open furnace burning enchanted wood. "We need heat!"

  I ran to the truck.

  "Valéria, the reserve fuel tank! The one with the nitroglycerin mix the Pilgrims made!"

  "You're going to blow up the barge?!"

  "I'm making a family-sized Molotov cocktail!"

  Valéria tossed the jug to me.

  Gristle was holding one of the Hydra's heads with her bare hands, her orc muscles popping under the pressure.

  "Doctor! Fast! It has sewer breath!"

  Luna ran to the edge.

  "Hey, you ugly mud puddle! Here!" She unleashed a high-frequency sonic screech.

  The Hydra's mud vibrated, losing cohesion for a second. The heads wavered.

  It was my chance.

  I activated my boot thrusters (failing now, but enough for a jump).

  I leaped over the Hydra's central body.

  I uncapped the jug and stuffed in the makeshift wick (my own burning tie).

  "Dust to dust, mud to brick," I murmured, and threw the jug into the swirling central mass of slime.

  The Parasite covered my body with the shield the moment the explosion happened.

  BOOOM!

  It wasn't just fire. It was intense chemical heat.

  The Hydra's mud boiled instantly. The water evaporated. The slime solidified.

  In seconds, the flexible monster turned into a grotesque statue of baked clay and hot brick.

  The too-heavy "statue" cracked under its own weight and crumbled into the river, sinking like a giant stone.

  I landed on the deck, rolling to put out the flames on my pants.

  Silence returned, broken only by the hissing of boiling water where the monster fell.

  The Riverfolk crew looked at me. Then looked at the sinking statue.

  Captain Jurema walked up to me. She was singed, but smiling.

  She slapped my back so hard it almost dislocated my shoulder blade.

  "You cook well, Doctor!" She laughed. "I like you. The North will eat you alive, but at least you'll give it heartburn."

  She pointed forward.

  The north bank was approaching.

  And beyond it, rising like a dark green wall touching the clouds, was the Amazon Rainforest.

  It didn't look like a park. It looked like a fortress. The trees were hundreds of meters tall. Vines glowed with bioluminescence even in daylight.

  And the feeling of mana coming from there was so dense the air felt like syrup.

  "Welcome to the Green Hell," said Jurema. "Where the cure for the end of the world might be hidden... or where we'll just fertilize the soil."

  Valéria's truck drove down the ramp onto dry land.

  I stepped on Amazonian soil.

  The Parasite took a deep breath (metaphorically).

  [ENVIRONMENT: MAXIMUM HOSTILITY.]

  [EVOLUTION POTENTIAL: INFINITE.]

  "Let's go in," I said, adjusting my backpack. "We have a god to kill, and I think I just found his garden."