The atmosphere surrounding the Skyfield Forest had reached a fever pitch of elemental violence. While Leo Shaw was busy dismantling the vanguard of the Beast Tide with the clinical precision of a Sovereign, a separate, more concentrated storm was raging five hundred yards to the west.
The Berserk Gorilla was no longer the undisputed king of the woods. The thirty-foot-tall titan looked like a tragic ruin of its former self. Its obsidian-black hide was a map of weeping lightning burns and deep, charred craters where the Vermilion Bird Fire had taken hold. Most of its dark-red fur had been vaporized, leaving behind patches of blackened skin that hissed and emitted thin trails of acrid blue smoke. The beast’s primitive, Tier-6 mind was screaming in a language of pure, unadulterated agony, dri
