For the past fifteen decades, Kaaslithe had lived a pampered existence. Twenty years after he made the wise decision to crawl out of the boiling ocean, he stumbled upon the Fringe and immediately claimed it as his territory. While its frost-covered lands were a poor prize, its waters proved to be a haven. Although the catastrophe had decimated most of the Fringe’s wildlife, its krill population had quickly acclimated to the frigid temperatures. By the time he arrived, the waters were teeming with pink crustaceans. With few predators to compete with, the titan had almost free rein to sieve as much krill as he wanted. If it were up to him, Kaaslithe would never leave his pink paradise, but every decade he was forced to scramble onto land to avoid the Sea King, a nomadic god beast that could slay Kaaslithe as easily as a wolf could snap up a lamb.

These excursions onto land were always a terrible inconvenience. Kaaslithe typically depleted the lands of prey within months of making landfall, forcing him to live off his fat reserves for the remaining waiting period. He thought that raiding Parabellum would have saved him from that usual discomfort. Instead, that decision proved to be the greatest regret in his life. Ever since that disastrous assault, suffering dominated the titan's life. Unable to dislodge the chain tangled around his throat, Kaaslithe was locked into a constant struggle for air. Miserable in the extreme, he now spent most of his time sleeping to escape his perpetual discomfort, waking only when his gut pangs grew too incessant to ignore.

Unbeknownst to him, his newfound lethargy would only end up magnifying his torment. Strychnine and Shadow crept up on the resting giant. The snow hampered their ability to remain concealed, but it hardly mattered. Centuries of near undisputed dominance made the Silent Death complacent.

Still, getting so close to the gargantuan beast remained a nerve-wracking experience. Strychnine’s hands shook when a gust of hot breath blew across her face. She inhaled deeply. Zhulong’s grinning visage popped into her mind. She would not disappoint him. She would not be abandoned again.

Mustering their courage, she and Shadow drew canisters from their coats and poured their gray contents into their hands. They gently applied the sludge onto the titan’s eyelids, flinching every time he stirred.

‘Let’s get out of here,’ Shadow signed once they completed their task.

Strychnine was just as eager to get away, but an insane desire to go above and beyond the line of duty kept her rooted in place. She scooped up another handful of gray paste, and to Shadow’s horror, smeared the stuff onto Kaaslithe’s nostrils.

The monster sneezed but didn’t wake. Grimacing, a mucus-drenched Strychnine peered up the lumbering beasts’ nose. Much of the mixture had been expelled from his nasal cavities, but a decent amount of the gunk remained lodged within the orifices. Strychnine considered reapplying the substance, but thought better of it when her fellow saboteur tugged on her sleeve.

She knew it was time to settle down when Shadow of all creatures was urging restraint.

*****

Two rotations later, Zhu was busy stroking his barbels and his ego. So far, his scheme had gone without a hitch. Kaaslithe’s health was rapidly declining. The titan’s doom was no longer a question of “if” but “when”. Sarin and several of his more cautious subordinates advised that they simply wait for him to die. Zhu entertained the idea but decided against it.

Besides, being an incredibly anti-climactic way to win, a passive approach presented its own risks. If they waited too long, there was a possibility that Kaaslithe might decide to slip into the ocean and perish within its icy depths. Zhu couldn’t bear the possibility of losing a titan stone.

To ensure that didn’t happen, he assembled a strike team that was composed of eight poison wyverns and twelve cockatrices. Each of the animals carried at least two riders, in the event some accident befell the primary pilot. Normally, such a small air force would have no hope of felling a titan, but Sarin assured him that the plan he had come up with was a sound one.

Sitting atop Pathogen’s back, Zhu patiently waited for the ground team to give them the go-ahead. Shrike ran up to him during this downtime.

“I’m going too.”

Zargon shot her a disapproving look over Zhu’s shoulder but said nothing.

“You sure you wanna come with us? This might get dangerous,” Zhu warned.

“I want to see that monster choke with my own two eyes.”

“Alrighty then. Put this gas mask on and hop on a cockatrice. Just make sure you don’t get in the pilots’ way.”

Less than an hour later, Zhu received a transmission from Dargoth. “The ground team is in position. Target is still asleep.”

“Good. We’ll be heading out now.”

“Archduke, are you certain that we should commence this operation during the day?”

“We’ve been over this. Visibility is going to be pretty damn important for this mission.”

“And if the tribals loose another anti-air miracle on you?”

“If that happens, that means your team failed to screen for those threats and will be in for a serious ass-whooping.”

“We will remain vigilant, but protecting the strike team from such a wide attack radius could be untenable.”

“Discussions over. Commence operation Asthma Attack,” Zhu said to both Dargoth and his squad of flyers.

Kaaslithe was still snoring when Zhu and his strike team arrived.

The past few days had been the worst in his life. The mixture Strychnine and Shadow smeared over his eyelids had hardened, robbing him of his vision. He had spent an entire yellow sun trying to rub the adhesive substance off and had to resort to scraping his eyelid against a boulder to regain his vision. The process had been so painful that he chose to remain blind in one eye. Worse, he could barely get any air into his nostrils. His struggle for air kept him up throughout the night.

Naturally, Kaaslithe was outraged when a cockatrice vomited more of the wet gray substance onto his snout. The titan lunged at the pterosaur, but only snapped up a mouthful of air. Realizing the futility of attacking a flying creature, Kaaslithe turned its back on the obnoxious creature and dragged his face against the ground, trying to scrape off the sticky gunk before it hardened. Just doing that made his world spin. Kaaslithe desperately gulped down a mouthful of air.

When Kaaslithe raised his neck again, a green gastrolith struck his jaw, dousing his head in searing gas. The titan screamed and bounded out of the cloud of green-hued vapors. Unable to see through the stream of tears polluting his vision, he had no way of preventing a cockatrice from spitting bio cement into his blistered eye.

Kaaslithe’s cells rushed to repair the damage done to the delicate organs, but growing a new layer of tissue did not wash away the residual chemicals, nor did it fill his lungs with fresh oxygen. He had just regained some of his vision when his face was submerged in another deluge of lung-searing gas.

On and on, this pattern went. Zhu and the other pilots were careful to keep themselves spread out and only attacked when they were in his blind spot. They perfectly coordinated every action via a combination of telepathic messages and flag signals. When Kaaslithe wasn’t breathing in miasma he was busy trying to expel puke from his nostrils and eye.

As well as things were going, Zhu couldn’t help but feel anxious when their target remained on his feet twenty minutes after they launched their assault.

“How the hell is this thing still standing?” Pathogen waited for Kaaslithe to lunge at a cockatrice before she darted in and spat a gastrolith into his open mouth. “That was our fourth shot, right?”

“I think so, lord,” Zargon replied.

“Damn, only three shots left then. Guess we better make them count.”

Kaaslithe had devolved into a total state of panic. He had never known such pain, but what truly frightened him was how lightheaded he felt. The only thing keeping the titan upright was the realization that he would never rise again if he fell.

Sensing that the titan was on its last legs, many of the pilots grew bolder. They hovered within biting range to increase the accuracy of their shots. Zhu was content to allow his minions to commit these aggressive maneuvers until Kaaslithe snagged a cockatrice.

“Shit, tell them to ease up on the daredevil stunts,” Zhu ordered Zargon. The pseudowyrm’s stomach dropped when another pterosaur practically landed inside the titan’s mouth. He cursed when he spotted the dark matter cloud that had manifested above Kaaslithe.

“Sputnik! How the fuck did those luddite bastards slip through our perimeter?” Zhu demanded, clenching his jaws so tightly he chipped a tooth. Besides himself, only four other flyers remained in the air.

The ground rumbled as Kaaslithe pursued his grounded tormenters. A quick-thinking saboteur tried to distract the vengeful titan with a monstrous illusion, but the Silent Death simply charged through it. The titan quickly overtook a pair of galloping cockatrices, crushing one beneath his feet and the other between his jaws. So great was Kaaslithe’s rage that he didn’t even think to feed. He just spat out the shattered corpse and looked for another victim to sink his teeth into.

The only positive Zhu could pick out from this disaster was that so far, no wyvern had been caught. They were faster than the cockatrices and their greater range ensured that they had been further from the get go further. That sole consolation turned into ash in Zhu’s mouth when he realized Shrike was riding the cockatrice just twenty body lengths ahead of the furious giant.

“Pathogen, bring me towards the chain!” he shouted as Kaaslithe closed in on his squire.

Another wyvern winged in beside him.

“What are you doing?” Regardless of how harsh it sounded at that moment; Zhu was relieved to hear Sarin’s voice.

“Something stupid!” Zhu responded as he passed the reins to his copilot. “Make sure you keep your distance after I jump.”

Zhu leaped before Zargon could respond. He bridged the fifteen-foot gap, only narrowly managing to grab onto a steel link. Kaaslithe shook his head when he felt the unwanted hitchhiker’s presence. Zhu screamed as his hand slipped off. He coiled his tail around the titan’s neck just in the nick of time. Blood rushed to his head as he dangled in the wind.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, you bastard son of a whore’s mother!” Zhu shouted as he completed the most important sit-up in his life. He gripped the chain so tightly that it nearly cut into his palms.

Kaaslithe snorted in annoyance but made no real effort to dislodge Zhu. The titan was confident that such a small pest could do him no harm.

Zhu quickly dispelled that notion when he yanked with all his might. “Don’t ignore me, you eel-faced bitch!”

Kaaslithe let out a strangled gasp as the steel links dug into his throat. His vendetta against the wyverns and cockatrices forgotten, the titan frantically swung his neck from side to side. Zhu winced when the two massive iron balls dangling below Kaaslithe's throat slammed into each other. The pseudowyrm closed his eyes and tried to scream his fear and regrets away.

An intense wave of heat surged throughout Zhu’s body as he continued to throttle his immense foe. Steam billowed out of the gaps between his scales, and his muscles thrummed with newfound power. His terror forgotten, Zhu let out a deranged cackle and pulled harder.

In a last-ditch effort to save himself, Kaaslithe reared up on his hind legs. Zhu growled when the sudden shift in elevation caused his head to slam into the chain. The struggle had severely tapped his own strength. The pseudowyrm’s blood was growing watery, and he was blinded by the steam coming off his body. Bottling his exhaustion, Zhu lived up to his parasitic nature and clung on.

“Nothing personal, big guy!” Zhu told his bucking victim. “You’re a majestic beast, but you’re in my way! So, just lie down and be my stepping stone!”

Kaaslithe’s tortured lungs gave out just before his forelegs slammed into the earth again. Zhu let out a triumphant whoop when the massive animal finally toppled over. His elation caught in his throat when he realized he was also hurtling towards the unforgiving ground. He called out to minions, but no one was close enough to intercept his fall.

For a moment, Zhu’s world went black. When he regained consciousness, he almost wished he hadn’t.

Zhu had thought he was completely desensitized to gore. It turned out that years of playing Conquest and exposure to shock sites didn’t prepare him for violence when it visited his own body.

Zhu screamed when he looked down at his waist. The top section of his tail was pinned beneath Kaaslithe’s neck. His blastema cells rushed to repair the damage, but all they did was constantly restore sensation to his pulped flesh. He lashed out like a trapped animal, blunting his claws and teeth on Kaaslithe’s hard scales.

“Get this thing off at me!”

Several of his subordinates grabbed his arms and tried to yank him out. Their efforts just worsened his pain. Bellowing, Zhu smashed his fist into a synth's jaw and threw the rest of them off.

A black tail constricted his left arm and held it in place. “What are you idiots waiting for?” Sarin shouted. “Restrain his other arm and amputate his tail!”

Even in his weakened state, it took six synths to pin Zhu’s thrashing limb.

“Forgive me, lord!” A bearded synth pleaded before he drew a sword and started sawing through Zhu’s waist.

By the time they freed him, the biofuel dripping out of Zhu’s wound was as clear as water. Sarin tossed several red heart stones into his mouth before he blacked out. The sweet, sharp taste jolted him awake. He winced when a synth applied a tourniquet to his ravaged tail stump.

“Fuck me. That was embarrassing,” Zhu chucked whilst he wiped away his tears.

Sarin smiled and used a handkerchief to clean the drool dribbling down his jaw. “You slew a titan with your bare hands. I’ve never seen anything so impressive. Or reckless.” Her voice developed a grim edge. “So, it’s true. You can feel pain now.”

“Yeah. It sucks.” Zhu glanced at his tail. “Looks like my healing factor is not up to snuff either.”

“You just ingested those heart stones, creator. Give your body some time to digest.”

“It normally only takes a minute for it to—oh yeah 12x speed. Keep forgetting about that.”

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. How many guys did we lose?

“We’ll find out soon enough. For now, focus on yourself, creator.” Zhu let out a surprised grunt when Sarin scooped him up bridal style. She stood there for a moment, cradling him in her arms, smiling down at his startled expression. Although her grin was warm, he could have sworn there was a faint predatory gleam in her eyes.

“I already lost a lot of manliness points when I started crying. Are you trying to make me look like a total bitch?”

“I thought you enjoyed this kind of treatment,” Sarin giggled.

“Where did you hear that? Whoever told you that was lying! It’s slander I say! Slander and libel!” His denial just amused her further. “You’re supposed to be the normal rational one. You should realize this is weird. Seriously though, can you just give me a piggyback ride or something? Hey, what are you laughing at Shrike? Remember that saddle I said I’d make for you? Not happening anymore. You’re consigned to the kangaroo pouch for three hundred and thirty-two years, you smug cunt!”

The playful atmosphere faded away when a shamefaced Dargoth plodded up to them.

“Archduke, I cannot express—”

“Well don’t. An apology isn’t going to kiss my fucking boo-boos away. Did you find the guys that cast the anti-air spell?”

“Yes. The savage hid inside the titan’s droppings, archduke.”

“Wow. Really? God damn. Did you capture him alive?”

“We have. We thought we’d clean it off before we presented it to you.”

Zhu wrinkled his snout when the captive was brought before him. His minions had scrubbed the neanderthal raw, but an awful odor still lingered around him.

“Whoo! And I thought the stables smelled bad. How long were you hiding in their man?”

The shivering neanderthal glared at him.

“Don’t waste my time with this silent treatment crap. Seriously, how long?”

The impressed and genial note in Zhu’s voice pried an answer from the luddite’s bruised lips. “Hours.”

“Hah! That’s some real dedication! Not sure if that’s badass or just plain gross. I take it that this wasn’t just some opportunistic sabotage. Is your beef with us really that deep? From what I hear, that giant noodle neck fucker has been making your lives miserable. You really would have preferred to live with it instead of us?”

“Yes!” the neanderthal snarled. “Your kind has wreaked more suffering than that monster could have accomplished in ten thousand years! Any true child of Shiagaur would allow maggots to infest their eyes before they considered coexisting with you!”

“You greenskins really are an unhinged lot, aren’t you? That’s a shame. Living side by side with a bunch of half-plant people would have been neat. Oh, well.” The neanderthal flinched when one of Zhu’s needle-tipped barbels jabbed his neck. The immediate rush of nausea he experienced was gradually swept away by a disturbingly warm and lovely sensation.

“What did you do to me?”

“Since you’re set on this whole defiant martyr thing, I figured I just shoot you up with my special blend of subjugator heroin. Within twenty to sixty hours, you’ll do anything for another fix.” The drugged neanderthal curled up into a fetal position. “Hogtie his ass and then dry him off. He’s not allowed to freeze to death until he’s done snitching.” Zhu squeezed his hands together when a sharp pain emanated from his stump. “Oh, looks like the tail finally decided it wants to come back. You guys go ahead and start extracting the heart stone. I am gonna crawl behind that boulder and quietly writhe in agony.”