The darkness in the tunnels was absolute.
We had flashlights, but the beams were weak, swallowed by the oppressive black. The air was thick with dust from the cave-in.
"Is everyone here?" I coughed, waving dust away from my face.
"Thirty-four of us," Marcus reported, his voice shaky. "We lost the Jensen boy in the rush. He tripped."
I closed my eyes. Another name on the list.
"He's outside," Ryan whispered. He was huddled next to Lily, who was still unconscious. "I can hear him."
I listened. Above the sound of our own ragged breathing, there was a thumping. A rhythmic pounding.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The Lord was trying to dig us out.
"He can't break the stone," I said, more to reassure myself. "Not quickly. This is granite."
"He doesn't need to be quick," Alex said, checking his pistol magazine. Empty. He tucked it away. "He has an army. They'll dig until the sun burns out."
I activated the System interface. The Base Core was still active, pulsing beneath the valley. Even though we were in the tunnels, we were within the base radius.
"System, status."
[BASE INTEGRITY: 2%]
[BARRIER: OFFLINE]
[CORE STATUS: UNSTABLE]
The Base was dying. Without the barrier to filter the Mist, the corruption was seeping back into the land. The Lord was sitting on top of our power source, strangling it.
"We need to do something," Dr. Okoye said. She was checking Lily's vitals. "She's stable, but her powers are depleted. She needs time."
"We don't have time," I said.
I looked around the tunnel. We were in the main artery, the one that led to the deep cavern I had cleansed weeks ago. The roots of the valley were here, threading through the ceiling.
"I have an idea," I said. "It's dangerous."
"More dangerous than the giant skeleton man trying to crush us?" Liang asked dryly.
"Possibly."
I walked to the center of the tunnel and knelt. I placed my hands on the soil.
"I'm going to wake up the valley," I said.
"You're going to do what?" Alex asked.
"The plants. The roots. The ecosystem. I've been treating them like tools. But they're connected. The Lord is attacking the surface. We attack from below."
I closed my eyes. I reached deep into the Plant Affinity. I didn't ask for growth. I asked for rage.
Wake up, I commanded the roots. Protect the Core.
I poured my will into the earth.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the ground shook.
Not from the Lord digging above, but from below.
A low rumble vibrated through the soles of my boots.
"What did you do?" Ryan asked, his eyes wide.
"I called the cavalry," I said.
All around us, the tunnel walls began to shift. Roots, thick as tree trunks, burst from the stone, writhing and snapping. But they weren't attacking us.
They were moving upward. Toward the surface. Toward the Lord.