The click of the pistol echoed again and again, a sharp, empty sound swallowed by the ruins. Kael pulled the trigger until his knuckles turned white, until the echo faded into silence. And still, the gun refused to fire.
A second later, the weapon betrayed him. A burst of heat, a flash, and the gun exploded in his hand.
The blast tore through his palm and wrist. Kael screamed. A sharp, strangled noise that bounced through the half-collapsed tunnel. He fell to the ground, clutching the mangled remains of his hand as blood hissed when it met the smoldering floor. The arrogance that had painted his face just moments before cracked, burned, and melted away with the light that had once surrounded him.
Ashfall, crouched behind a broken pillar, watched it all with detached eyes. Part of him almost wanted to laugh.
That's what you get for playing god, you smug bastard.
The creature in front of Kael—what was left of the woman and the child—watched too, but not with human eyes. Its body trembled, twitching between collapse and rebirth. It was supposed to die there, burned and beaten, but something began to stir beneath its melted flesh. The baby wrapped in cloth started to writhe wildly in the woman's arms.
Ashfall blinked, and the cloth slipped free. What he saw beneath it didn't belong in this world.
The baby had no face; only a smooth, circular dial of cracked glass, and behind that glass, faint metallic hands ticked without rhythm. Its body was not flesh at all but a shapeless, glistening black mass, half-liquid, half-flesh. It wasn't separate from the woman. Tubes, tendrils, and muscle-like fibers connected them, running straight into her chest. The creature wasn't a mother; it was a host.
Ashfall's breath caught in his throat. The ticking grew louder, as if the thing had finally noticed it was being watched. The "baby" pressed itself against the woman's face, merging with her. In seconds, their two forms twisted together, bones cracking, the woman's scream dissolving into a wet, distorted hum. The remaining tentacles from her body snapped upward, grabbing the scattered corpses and dragging them into her chest.
It was like watching a black hole feed.
Everything—every minor Mythborne, every piece of corrupted flesh that had clogged the tunnel—was pulled toward it and consumed. The sound was unbearable, a mixture of slurping and tearing, all happening faster than Ashfall's mind could follow.
When it was done, only one figure stood in the smoke and dust: a humanoid shape, tall and strangely perfect, its face replaced entirely by the frozen surface of a clock. Its hands were stuck at twelve.
The creature turned slowly, its head tilting, scanning the wreckage. Then it moved toward Kael.
Kael tried to crawl away, one arm pressed against his chest, the other just a mangled ruin. "No... no, wait...!" His voice broke into a pathetic rasp. He tried to summon light again, but nothing came. The glow that had once burned like a miniature sun around him was gone. His power had drained away, leaving only a dim aura flickering along his body.
The clock-faced creature reached him in two long steps. It didn't hesitate. Its hand shot forward and slammed Kael into the ground so hard the tunnel shook. A dull crunch followed, and dust rained from the ceiling.
The ceiling—already cracked and weakened—finally gave in. A jagged line split open, and daylight poured through for the first time in days. Shafts of pale light spilled into the underground chaos, catching the drifting snow and debris, illuminating the monstrous figure in full.
Ashfall flinched as the light touched him. He could barely make sense of what he was seeing anymore. The Mythborne stood motionless in the broken tunnel, its head slowly tilting up toward the light above, as if it remembered what sunlight used to feel like.
Then the creature stepped forward, its body radiating a quiet hum, and crushed something under its foot. Ashfall's stomach turned as he realized what it was: a man who had been crawling toward the wall, someone who'd somehow survived the earlier chaos. The creature didn't even look down. The body folded in half with a sickening crack and was gone beneath its heel.
And then the creature turned toward another body lying farther away: Rhea.
Ashfall's jaw clenched. Her chest was still rising—barely—but he knew what came next. He didn't move. He didn't speak. He didn't even breathe. There was nothing he could do now. The creature reached her, paused for a moment, and then the faint ticking in the air sped up, sharp, fast, almost like laughter.
Ashfall looked away before it was over.
When he finally dared to look again, Rhea was gone. Not dead, but gone with no blood and no body. Just the faint imprint of where she had lain, and the echo of that impossible ticking.
He swallowed hard. The tunnel ahead was finally open now; the wall of flesh that had sealed it was gone, melted away during the chaos. For a moment, escape actually seemed possible.
He could run. He should run. But when he looked toward the exit, his heart sank. The ground had collapsed deeper in that direction. The tunnel floor split open into a jagged drop. The only way out was past the creature itself.
"Of course," he muttered under his breath, gripping his broken knife. "Hate my luck..."
He sank back into the shadows, pressed behind a shattered beam, and tried to think. The creature's head twitched as it scanned the ruin, its movements jerky and unnatural. It seemed to be… searching for something. Or maybe just waiting.
Then Ashfall noticed the old man. He was barely still alive. The old man's body was burned and broken, but he was dragging himself along the debris with sheer willpower, leaving a trail of blood behind. He crawled toward a pile of weapons. His hand shook as he reached them.
Ashfall watched, silent, confused, until he saw what the old man was doing.
The man's trembling fingers picked up a pistol, checked its chamber, and then his gaze flicked toward Ashfall. Their eyes met for a split second. The old man didn't need to speak. The meaning was clear: Hide.
Ashfall cursed under his breath but ducked lower behind the debris. He heard the faint clicks of the gun being armed, the shifting of metal. The old man was going to blow it all; ignite the remaining gunpowder, set off the munitions, maybe even take the creature with him.
Ashfall exhaled slowly. Crazy old bastard.
Seconds passed. No explosion. He frowned, risked a glance and froze. The old man hadn't failed. He'd been stopped.
The creature had moved faster than sight, its arm now buried deep in the old man's chest. It had lifted him effortlessly, pinning him against the wall like a doll. The man's lips moved, but no sound came out.
Then Ashfall noticed something strange. The creature wasn't moving anymore either. Its arm was wedged between the old man and the pile of weapons, the limb stuck in the twisted metal of the crate. Its head tilted slightly, as if realizing its mistake.
The old man's hand, still gripping the gun, twitched weakly. His eyes met Ashfall's again. There was pain there, and something else: acceptance.
Ashfall's pulse pounded in his ears. He knew what was about to happen. If he moves, it all goes up.
The ticking sound from the creature's head grew faster again, like the second hand of a clock spinning wildly. It tried to pull free, but the metal wouldn't give. Its other hand reached up, claws scraping along the debris, and the whole pile groaned.
Ashfall ducked lower, heart racing.
He's really gonna do it. The old fool's actually... The thought cut off as the old man drew in one last breath.
He mouthed something Ashfall couldn't hear over the ticking, but he thought he saw the words: Run.
And then nothing. No sound or explosion yet. Just that unbearable stillness before something catastrophic.
Ashfall's muscles tensed, every instinct screaming for him to move, but his legs wouldn't obey. He didn't know if he wanted to see it or not.
Somewhere deep inside him, a thought flickered: Sacrifice doesn't make you a hero. It just makes you dead.
He gritted his teeth, pressed his back against the cold stone, and waited for the inevitable.
The ticking reached a deafening pace.
The metal beneath the creature's arm began to spark and then...