The Great Machine’s eldest of the Adopted, the Treants. So wise yet so prideful. If only they knew of the dark heritage behind their existence. No longer would they worship their ‘father’. They’d despise it.

• An excerpt from the Archive of the High Inquisitor.

**

As with his original quest to find the Source, Brock was plagued with the issue of having no idea where to look as he searched for the Alpha. Especially since it was dark, the streets appeared to be a twisting labyrinth and more than once he had gotten lost within and been forced to backtrack. By now, with the distance he had travelled in the past few hours, Brock had no confidence in finding his way back to the place he’d entered from.

"Not that that even matters." he grumbled, the image of the purple force wall flashing to the forefront of his mind.

The average level of beasts slowly began to climb as he wandered deeper into the area, with enemies sitting around what he had predicted the first Alpha he had fought to be at; level 15 or so. Often, he was met with groups of multiple creatures, and the previously leisurely brawls back in the emerald were soon replaced with fights that Brock seldom walked out of unscathed.

By now, he was littered with a plethora of wounds both light and deep alike, and Brock had already used up over half of his saved up medical supplies. He was nowhere near being out of commission though, but his body was certainly thoroughly beaten and bruised. It made him fear the strength of the Alpha and pack he was meant to kill. If just the grunts of the area could force him to such a sorry state, he shuddered to think of what the Alpha could do.

Though the fights didn’t come without their benefits. Brock felt his once clumsy and unintuitive fighting style from when he was first plunged into this hell improving at a rapid pace due to his constant melees. Swings that were once shaky and struck at ineffective angles were erased by the coming of attacks that were increasingly swift and sharp, targeting places that would inhibit or outright kill the beast if possible.

Speaking of beasts, aside from the new kind of Treant Brock had been slaying, with the strange Augment using ones being scarily common in this place, he had also met both horned demon frogs and incredibly large snakes. The former were known as Void Toads, and had the terrifying ability to teleport, while the latter were appropriately called Titanoboas, and they spat a potent acid, though he was yet to be hit. Luckily.

Brock hoped he wouldn’t find dinosaurs next. Merely imagining a T-rex that blew fire made him shudder. May as well just be a dragon.

Following the few fights he had gotten into, his total knife count had been rapidly dwindling, though a quick duck into a collapsing restaurant held up by thick roots had instantly refilled his reserves with a little extra to spare.

Panting, Brock finally buried his current knife down to the hilt into the scaled head of a Titanoboa as it attempted to wrap itself around him and crush the life out of him. Its flesh and scales bubbled as he let go of his searing weapon and he sighed in relief, the body going limp around him. Brock wormed his way out of its grasp and idly pondered on whether he wanted to make snakeskin shoes in revenge.

Realising he didn’t know the first thing about that process, Brock instead opted to kick the dead beast’s head once and walk off, his body aching in protest from the increasing levels of pressure it had just been forced to persist through. Despite the massive size and terrifying, prehistoric appearance of the snakes, they were easy enough to kill once they had you in their grasp, as they always held their heads close to their body when constricting. Letting himself get captured was an easy way to dispatch them, though it always hurt like shit.

Guess danger's my best friend now...

The violet jungle was a far more unstable place than what he had been used to, with many streets cut off due to rubble and a myriad of buildings seeming all but ready to give in. The moon also hadn’t budged in the sky during his time here, remaining in place for the entirety of Brock’s trip. It was starting to seem like he would have to fight the Alpha under the cover of night.

If there was any benefit to the downtime between fights other than the obvious fact he wasn’t fighting, it was the increased energy density here. Brock predicted it to be around double what it had been back in the green jungle, and it appeared to assist with his recovery to some degree, or at least he thought it did.

It wasn’t until Brock felt his stomach rumble that he finally halted in his ceaseless march and hustled into a nearby building. Per usual, his hunger was met with a serve of cheesy baked beans poured straight into his gluttonous gullet. He was back on the road ten minutes later, idly beating weeds and other plants growing through the road with a stick he’d found.

It was juvenile, but the act was oddly amusing, and it helped pass the time. So glad my co-workers aren't here to see this.

Walking through the streets, he took the next left, the other option being a right turn that was barred by a wall of brambles and roots. Immediately, he was beset upon by one of the Void Toads and it bounded toward the office worker the moment it spotted him. Already familiar with their one-trick pony type gimmick, Brock merely waited for the creature to decide to teleport behind him.

When it finally did, he was already ready for it, striking his blade through its forehead without warning and earning its death croak in response. While the addition of variation to the enemies was slightly troublesome, the Treants were still at the top of the food chain here, even though they seemed to be herbivores. Or omnivores, any time they noticed him. Though fighting the frogs when they were in groups certainly was a painful endeavour.

Glancing around at the intersection he soon arrived at, Brock scratched his chin in indecision, unsure of which would lead him to the Alpha or instead lead him even further away.

“Hey, Windows 10? You mind telling me where the Alpha is, or you still giving me the silent treatment?” Brock asked, almost cheekily as he considered how often he badmouthed the subject of his askance.

Contrary to his expectations, however, the System did indeed respond.

[No.]

And it only left him feeling peeved. While it may appear outwardly to be an unfeeling machine, Brock was all but certain it took great satisfaction in making his life difficult for him. Grumbling to himself about manners, he continued down the road straight ahead, deciding to just wing it and get on with his life, or end it, if he chose wrongly. Just like roulette.

As he pursued his direction of choice, Brock let a small flame spring to life on his palm, studying the product of a magical phenomenon with a critical eye. Within it were specks of purple, flickering inside the sunset flame as it burned. It took a little bit of mental gymnastics, but Brock managed to elongate the flame somewhat. It served no purpose other than being purely cosmetic, but it showcased the control he had come to slowly hone over time.

Preparing to try and make some sort of shape using his flame, Brock flinched back in shock when his fire suddenly blew out. Even when he tried to resummon it, it refused to reappear, the energy sluggish in his pathways. Confused, he glanced around as he approached another street corner, but was left baffled when he sighted nothing out of the ordinary.

Maybe it’s just a quirk of the area? Or I ran out of fire... juice?

His half-baked assumptions were quickly discarded, however, when he finally rounded the street corner and laid eyes upon a towering beast in the distance, surrounded by an entourage of creatures of similar, but ultimately lesser, appearance. Lying before it was the mangled body of one of their own, weakly whimpering as the giant of the group plucked the creature up by the back of its neck and bits its head off, swallowing the rest in the next bite.

Mouth gaping in shock, Brock observed the oversized, six-eyed silverback gorilla and his crew of multi-tailed argent monkeys as their leader turned to them and barked out an order in monke language, his followers shaking under the weight of his gaze. It was clear they were fearful that they too would end up like their recently consumed brethren.

In the air, there was an unmistakable presence, that of an Alpha. I... found it?

Cursing under his breath, Brock disappeared back around the corner and hoped they hadn’t noticed him. He held no illusions in his mind that he could beat that gorilla and his ‘pack’. While individually, the monkeys seemed rather weak, he was hesitant to write off their combined might. Although, that wasn’t to say he wasn’t somewhat confident in defeating them, albeit he expected to it come with grave injuries.

The gorilla, on the other hand, he was just about certain he could manage to injure right before he was ground to paste by a counterattack he would be too slow to dodge. Brock couldn’t see its level, a System function he had come to realise only activated once you were considered in combat with the subject of your gaze, but he was sure it was at least above that of the white wolf.

With the help of his Augment, he could have slain that doggy, or more realistically crippled it at the cost of his own life. But in the face of the silverback, his fiery power was rendered seemingly useless.

Similar to the space manipulating Treants, however, there was a secondary presence in the air, and Brock knew that the area was under the influence of some sort of Augment, though the method through which it cast it out over a wide area was a mystery to him. Just from the sensation in the air, he couldn’t tell what the Augment was, but judging by the other creatures he’d fought, he’d pin it as something related to space, or at least space adjacent.

It worried Brock knowing that he was far from being capable of slaying the Alpha he was being quite literally forced to fight, but he found reassurance in knowing it probably wasn’t going to move. It had been brief, but he had caught sight of not only a myriad of trees of violet bananas but also signs of prolonged inhabitancy. From the looks of things, this place was their den, and they wouldn’t be migrating any time soon.

Considering his most likely unique situation of being barred from the use of his Ascendancy, and by extension the ability to level and get stronger, Brock had the heavy realisation that no matter what he did, even if the monkeys never left, there was a large chance he would never become truly strong enough. Which is just great.

Idly, he dared to peek around the corner once more and he gazed longingly at the bananas that the gorilla had full monopoly on. He could feel the same sort of attraction from his cells that he had felt when looking at the fruit growing in the aftermath of the titans, though compared to before it was far subdued, meaning it was either a lesser Treasure or his cells were still stuffed from eating the strange fruit.

Though he did notice that the bananas seem to emit the same kind of energies the fruit had, and judging by the colour match, Brock had a feeling that the bird it seemed to be the product of had originated from the same place he was now. He hadn’t seen any birds here so far, however. That aside, he doubted that he’d be able to pull off the perfect heist and snatch an armful of race levelling Treasures right from under the Alpha’s nose all while remaining undetected.

So, with both the avenue of increasing his race or potentially gaining another Augment thrown out the metaphorical window, Brock was stumped for the solution to the problem. He neither possessed the personal strength to beat the creature nor the means to become strong enough to change that. And along with the fact that he had no idea how to raise his Augment of Sparks percentage to whatever the next level was - if that was actually something he was allowed to do - Brock was left with little to no options.

Sighing, he once again retreated behind the corner and ran a hand through his formerly silky hair, though now it was messy and matted with a mixture of both sweat and blood. Miraculously, however, showers still worked, although they were icy cold, and since the overall aging of the place seemed to affect the pipes too, he was often met with copper-rust laden water. Although, it still did its job admirably.

It was too bad he hadn’t been able to find a working shower in this place. Most were either destroyed, or the water just wouldn’t come out.

Chewing his lip in indecision, Brock glanced over at one of the many buildings barely holding themselves aloft. It was as he gazed at the straining form of the structure, that he was hit with a bout of inspiration.

Think smarter, not harder…

Why bother stressing over gaining the power to kill the bloody gorilla, when you could get the environment to do it for you?