The stairway ended in a breath of heat.
Draven lifted an arm to shield his eyes as pale mist curled from fissures in the stone floor. The chamber was vast, vaulted like a cathedral, its ceiling lost in shadow. Roots hung down in clusters, each vein pulsing faint green as if blood still coursed through them. The hum that had haunted every hall before now thundered here — a weight pressing in his chest, matching his heartbeat, crushing each breath.
Feyra crouched low, fur bristling. Stonehide's scales rattled as it hissed, tail scraping against stone.
"This place is alive," Draven whispered. His voice vanished into the fog.
The ground split.
A fissure tore open across the chamber floor. Roots writhed from it, thick as serpents, twisting together. They climbed, knotting, hardening. Bark cracked, plates formed. The vines bent and fused into a colossal jaw lined with thorn-like teeth. More coiled upward, forming limbs, tentacles, and a hollow chest that glowed with emerald glyphs.
The creature roared.
The sound was wood splintering, stone grinding, thunder tearing sky. It shook dust from the ceiling, rattling bones embedded in walls.
The Green Maw had awoken.
The first strike came fast.
A vine lashed out, snapping like a whip. Stonehide lunged to intercept, plates flaring green. The impact flung the beast across the chamber, slamming it into stone. Cracks spidered along its scales. Stonehide staggered back, bellowing in pain.
Another coil struck at Draven. He slashed with knife and rusted spearhead — the blade bit bark, cut sap — but the wound sealed instantly, vines knitting whole again.
"Damn it—"
Feyra darted forward, aura bursting in a pulse of warmth. For an instant the vines recoiled, flowers blooming in cracks of stone. But the Maw shuddered, inhaled, and the blooms withered in a breath. The air itself grew thin, drained of life.
Feyra staggered, ears flat.
Draven's chest tightened. It doesn't kill. It consumes.
Another coil wrapped around him, crushing ribs, dragging him upward toward the gaping jaw. Thorns scraped his skin, hot sap burning like acid. He gasped, knife falling from his fingers.
Whispers pressed into his mind: "Yield. Silence. Endure nothing, and you will not suffer."
He saw Stonehide struggling to rise, Feyra clawing at vines that smothered her glow. Their eyes flickered — not with fear, but waiting for him.
Draven drew a ragged breath.
"You won't silence us."
He pressed forward, deeper into the coils, until thorns tore flesh, blood dripping down his arm. His voice rose, raw, defiant:
"Life endures!"
The chamber ignited.
Feyra screamed, aura erupting into a blaze of green. Warmth surged, searing vines into ash. Stonehide roared, emerald veins blazing across its plates. It heaved, bracing against coils — and shattered them in an explosion of splinters.
Draven drove his shoulder forward, blood slick on bark, forcing himself free. He staggered to his knees, lungs burning. Knife gone, body broken, but eyes blazing.
The Maw convulsed. Its jaw split wider, vines flailing in chaos. Light poured from its hollow chest — too bright, too wild. With a final roar, it collapsed. Vines unraveled, bark cracked, and the construct fell into a rain of ash and roots.
When silence returned, only stone remained.
At the far end of the chamber stood a gate.
Colossal, arched, etched with glyphs that glowed faint emerald. Its surface pulsed in rhythm with the chamber's hum, each beat a living heartbeat. Across its face, faint antler-like shadows flickered, too vast to belong to anything mortal.
Draven stood trembling, one hand on Feyra, the other on Stonehide. Both beasts pressed against him — battered, wounded, but alive.
They stared at the gate together.
"Beyond this," Draven whispered, voice hoarse but steady, "lies the true heart of the Ruins."
And step by step, they moved toward it.