In an incredible move combining soccer, kung fu, and gymnastics, White casually flips the skull-ball over the advancing warriors’ heads, then leaps off the ground and executes a stunning airborne double side kick from a full split, the heel-to-face impact a double deathblow that shatters the shocked combatants’ temporal bones into brain-slicing fragments.

‘Jesus …’

White lands, takes three strides forward, and in one continuous motion kicks the skull-ball, sending it end over end toward the stone ring.

With a sickening thwack, the severed head banks high off the eastern wall and passes through the hoop—

—instantly transforming the arena into something entirely different.

Gone is the Mayan Ball Court. In its place—the valley of a hellish underworld, its mountainous horizon bathed in vermilion twilight cast from a subterranean roof of volcanic coal. Whiffs of brown smoke roll beneath the emberlike ceiling, creating shadows of movement throughout the terrain.

Manny’s limbs turn to Jell-O. He leans against the glass for support.

At the heart of the valley is an enormous crater lake, its molten silvery surface simmering. Rising along the far bank is a great alabaster tree, its entanglement of ivory-colored roots knotted and thick, its sequoia-sized trunk dripping a white ooze.

The bare limbs of the monstrous tree stretch outward in every direction, twisting in the hot wind as if animated with life.

Suspended from one centrally located knot along the trunk is an object—

—a human skull.

Dr. Mohr points. Coming into view—the two soldiers, still clad in their respective white and black body armor. They are double-timing it, approaching the crater lake from the east, the man in white now wielding a double-edged sword.

The center of the lake begins bubbling as they approach.

Immanuel grips the cool iron guardrail in his sweaty palms, unable to move … unable to breathe.

Something large is rising from the depths of the lake. Thick globs of silvery ooze drip away … revealing a tall alien biped.

Lead gray silicon-like skin. Two arms and legs, heavily segmented, as if adorned in body armor. The anvil-shaped skull is disproportionately large, like that of a monstrous fire ant. Instead of being positioned above its three-humped shoulder, the skull extends horizontally in front of the chest like a turtle’s neck, giving the creature an upright yet squat appearance. There are no facial features other than a slit of a mouth and two pupilless eyes, which blaze a burned yellow against the dark skin covering.

The eight-and-a-half-foot being continues to rise out of the silvery lake, its tall, grotesque, angular body devoid of hair or clothing. The thorax is V-shaped and powerful, the abdomen slender, connecting to a pair of squat legs—humanoid in design—except they are twice as thick below the knee as above.

The upper arms are dense and powerful, and hang stiffly from the wide shoulder girdle. The elbows are ball joint in design, allowing the heavy forearms to rotate 360 degrees.