They didn't land; the earth spat them upward.
The fall stopped abruptly. Corvin felt his leather boots strike a hard, unnaturally warm, and curved surface. His shattered body balanced with difficulty, hands digging into the bone dust to keep from sliding.
The place was vast. An horizon of crystallized ivory and veins of pulsing amethyst stretched beneath their feet. Heat radiated from below with a terrifying tectonic rhythm.
They were standing on the palm of the Titan.
"Maren! Stay close!" Corvin shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the gale-force winds whipping across the giant's fingers.
Maren tried to stand, but her daughter was screaming in her arms. It wasn't a cry of fear, but of pain. Blue crystalline spots were beginning to appear on the child's skin; the Titan's energy was 'reconstructing' the blood of the humans nearby.
Kael stood at the edge of one of the fingers, his silver hair rising toward the sky like mercury filaments. He didn't turn. He said nothing. He looked into the void with a coldness Corvin had never seen before.
Suddenly, the sky went dark.
It wasn't a cloud, but millions of Synod 'Void-Stalkers.' In the center, the 'Golden Relic' emerged. The 'Sun-Lance' at its prow began to charge. A searing golden light boiled in the air, turning oxygen into the choking scent of ozone.
Corvin crawled toward Kael, dragging his broken leg. "Kael! We have to move! They'll melt this place!"
Kael finally turned. There were no tears. No fear. His eyes were black holes reflecting the light of the incoming lance. He reached out his small hand and pressed it against Corvin's chest, directly over the heart that was struggling to stay alive.
He didn't speak a single word. He only looked into Corvin's eyes with a flicker of regret, then pressed his hand down.
The world exploded.
Corvin didn't feel pain at first; he felt silence. Then the cold began. A sharp metallic chill crawled from where Kael touched his chest, spreading through his veins like poison. Corvin looked at his right hand.
His skin was cracking like shattered ceramic. From beneath the cracks, no blood emerged; instead, a liquid silver flowed—thick, shimmering, and cold.
Corvin tried to pull his hand away, tried to scream, but his muscles no longer responded to his will. They were 'petrifying' into a flexible steel. He heard the sound of his bones snapping, melting and realigning into chrome alloys.
His fractured blade fell from his hand, but it didn't hit the ground. The liquid silver leaking from his pores swallowed the hilt, fusing the sword into his forearm bones. The blade and the arm became one.
"Ka... el..." Corvin tried to speak, but his voice came out as a hiss of pressurized steam from brass gears.
He could no longer feel his heartbeat. In its place was a constant magnetic hum. He felt the memory of Elara's face fading, as if his new body was deleting 'unnecessary' human data to make room for the resonance.
The Sun-Lance fired. A pillar of white heat that shredded matter descended like an axe of light over the Titan's palm.
Corvin's body moved automatically. He didn't decide to jump; the 'machine' he had become decided for him.
The beam struck his silver arm. The heat was enough to melt mountains, but Corvin didn't feel the burn. He felt 'pressure.' He felt the weight of death pushing him downward.
Maren screamed behind him as she saw her daughter bleeding purple crystals from her eyes due to the energy pressure radiating from Corvin. His very existence was now a threat to those he loved.
Corvin pushed against the beam with everything he had. He roared with madness, and silver resonance exploded from his body to deflect the heat away from the palm.
The explosion ended. A desolate silence fell.
Corvin fell to his steel knees. Steam rose from his body, scorching hot. He looked at Maren; she was looking at him with terror, as if staring at a monster that had killed her friend and worn his skin.
He turned toward Kael. The boy looked at him coldly, as if watching a piece of furniture being repaired. There was no longer a human bond—only... resonance.
Corvin felt something deeper. The ground beneath his feet was no longer ground.
He felt the Titan's 'nerves.' He felt the Citadel's 'gears' above. There was no longer a difference between his mind and the mechanics of this world. His human heart had stopped beating entirely.
In that moment, he felt the sound boom inside his skull. It wasn't a voice; it was the Titan 'recognizing' him. Not as a passenger, but as a 'part.' Like a bolt that had fallen out and been hammered back into place.
Corvin's silver body stiffened, and he raised his head toward the Synod ships with a terrifying mechanical precision.
"I... don't... feel... me," thought Corvin, or what was left of him, as the Titan beneath his feet began to close its gargantuan fingers, ready to crush the sky and everyone in it.