# Chapter 196: The Crystal Worm
Grak, his pride stung but his spirit unbroken, roared a challenge of his own and charged again. This time, he was smarter. He didn't aim for the creature's head, a battering ram of crystal and bone. Instead, he drove his warhammer into the base of a nearby pillar, a crumbling remnant of the Sunken City's architecture. The stone cracked and groaned, and with a final, mighty heave, Grak sent the top half of the pillar toppling. It crashed against the worm's flank with a deafening boom, a shower of dust and pebbles erupting on impact. The creature barely flinched, its crystalline plates absorbing the blow with indifferent ease. It was like throwing a rock at a mountain.
"Grak, fall back! It's useless!" Nyra yelled, her voice sharp with urgency. She was already in motion, a blur of dark leather and silver hair as she darted behind the remains of a stone fountain, her daggers held in a reverse grip. Her eyes, sharp and analytical, scanned the leviathan, looking for any hint of a weakness, any flaw in its shimmering armor.
The worm ignored the dwarf. Its attention, a palpable force of malevolent intent, was fixed on Soren. It lowered its head, the crystals on its brow glowing with an intense violet light. Soren felt a pressure build in his skull, a psychic hum that resonated with the trauma still fresh in his mind. He gritted his teeth, pushing back against the invasive presence. He wouldn't be broken again. He wouldn't be a puppet for the Bloom's echoes.
"Kestrel! On my mark!" Soren shouted, his voice cutting through the creature's oppressive drone. He thrust his hand forward, not at the worm, but at the ground before it. Ash and stone coalesced, swirling into a dense, spinning vortex. He poured his energy into it, the familiar, painful heat blooming across his skin as his Cinder-Tattoos flared with a furious orange light. He hurled the vortex of debris at the creature's face.
It was a direct hit. The ash and rock slammed against the worm's maw, a torrent of kinetic force that should have shattered bone and torn flesh. But the creature's hide was not flesh. The debris scattered harmlessly, the sound a dull, wet thud against the crystal plates. The attack had done nothing. Worse, it had only succeeded in enraging it further.
The worm reared back, a terrifying motion that revealed its true scale. Its body, a hundred feet of segmented, crystal-encrusted flesh, rose into the ashen sky. And for a fleeting, crucial second, Soren saw it. The underside. Where the armored plates on its back were thick and interlocking like a fortress wall, its belly was a softer, glowing membrane. The light from the heart-stones pulsed within it, a network of vulnerable, pulsing veins. It was the key.
Captain Bren's voice echoed in his memory, a lesson from a sparring session months ago in the training yard of House Marr. *"Every fortress has a gate, Soren. Every wall has a foundation. You don't beat your head against the stone. You find the point where the strength is focused and you strike the point where it is not."*
The worm crashed back down, its head lashing out like a whip. Its maw, a ring of crystalline teeth, snapped shut where Grak had been standing a moment before. The dwarf had heeded Nyra's warning and rolled clear, the impact of the creature's jaw sending a shockwave through the ground that threw him off his feet.
"Nyra! Kestrel!" Soren yelled again, his voice now stripped of its panic, replaced by a cold, hard clarity. The vision, the terror—it was still there, a cold knot in his gut. But he was shoving it down, compartmentalizing it, using the hyper-awareness it had granted him. "Aim for its belly when it lunges! Grak, get its attention! We only get one shot at this!"
Grak scrambled to his feet, a grin splitting his bearded face. "Now you're talking!" he bellowed, slamming his warhammer against his shield. The clang rang through the plaza. "Hey, you overgrown geode! Your mother was a common rock!" He charged again, not to attack, but to harass. He weaved and dodged, a surprisingly nimble target for his size, striking the creature's leg joints with his hammer, blows that did no damage but were infuriatingly distracting.
The worm, its focus on Soren momentarily broken by the noisy pest, turned its massive head toward Grak. It let out another grinding roar, the sound vibrating in Soren's teeth. It coiled its body, preparing to strike.
"Now, Kestrel!" Soren commanded.
From his perch atop a crumbling archway, Kestrel drew his bow. He was already nocking a special arrow, its tip a shard of obsidian they'd gathered in the wastes, honed to a monomolecular edge. He didn't aim for a random point. He aimed for the largest, brightest vein Soren had spotted, a pulsing line of violet light that ran down the creature's center. He loosed the arrow. It flew true, a black streak against the glowing chaos.
The arrow struck. There was no pathetic tink this time. There was a sickening, wet *schlick* as the obsidian tip pierced the softer membrane. The worm shrieked, a sound of pure agony that was both psychic and physical. The crystals on the ground flared violently, and a wave of disorienting energy washed over the plaza. Soren staggered, his vision swimming, but he held his ground.
"It's wounded!" Nyra shouted, her voice filled with a mixture of triumph and disbelief. "It's working!"
The beast thrashed in pain, its tail lashing out and smashing through the remains of a building, sending stone and crystal flying. It was wounded, but it was far from dead. It was now a cornered, enraged animal, and that made it infinitely more dangerous.
"It's going to burrow!" Soren predicted, his tactical mind racing. He could see the way its muscles were bunching, the way it was pressing its lower body against the ground. "It's trying to escape! Nyra, we need to hit it again, harder! Kestrel, another arrow, same spot!"
But the worm was faster. It lunged, not at Grak, but at the archway where Kestrel stood. The stone structure crumbled like sand under the force of the impact. Kestrel leapt, his agility saving him as he grabbed onto a falling slab of rock and swung to a lower ledge, his bow clattering to the ground below.
The creature began to sink, its body churning the earth and ash as it prepared to retreat into the safety of the deep. They were losing their chance.
"No!" Soren snarled. He wouldn't let it get away. He wouldn't let this sacrifice be for nothing. He pushed past the pain, past the fear, and drew on the deepest well of his power. He remembered the feel of the Withering King's presence, the cold, absolute certainty of its destructive will. He didn't fight the memory; he channeled it. He embraced the cold clarity.
"Nyra, with me!" he yelled, sprinting forward. He wasn't aiming for the creature's belly anymore. He was aiming for the wound Kestrel had made.
Nyra understood instantly. She was a shadow at his side, her movements fluid and sure. As the worm's body sank, the wounded underbelly was exposed, a glistening, vulnerable target. Soren gathered his ash, not into a vortex, but into a dense, superheated spear, a lance of pure Cinder energy. It coalesced in his grip, the heat so intense it blistered the air. The Cinder Cost was immense, a screaming fire in his veins, but he held it, his focus absolute.
Nyra leapt onto the creature's sinking flank, her daggers finding purchase in the gaps between the crystal plates. She ran up its side, a defiant figure against the leviathan's hide, her goal to keep the wound open, to distract it from Soren's final, desperate gambit.
The worm felt her. It twisted, trying to shake her off, its movements growing more frantic as it sank deeper. The gash from Kestrel's arrow was now a foot from the ground, then six inches.
"Now, Soren!" Nyra screamed, her voice strained.
Soren thrust his hand forward. The ash lance shot from his palm, not as a projectile, but as a focused beam of incandescent energy. It struck the wound dead center.
The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic. The energy didn't just cut; it detonated. The creature's own internal magic, the volatile energy of the Bloom that sustained it, reacted violently to Soren's power. A chain reaction erupted down the length of its body. The glowing veins in its belly flared with a blinding white light before shattering, one by one. The creature let out a final, silent scream, a psychic wave of pure agony that knocked everyone off their feet.
Soren collapsed to his knees, his body trembling, his Cinder-Tattoos now a dark, sooty black. He'd given everything. He'd pushed himself past every limit he'd ever known.
The Crystal Worm was dead. Its body, a shattered ruin of crystal and flesh, gave one last, massive convulsion. Then, in its death throes, it did what Soren had predicted. It burrowed. But its uncontrolled, spasmodic descent was not a clean retreat. It was a collapse. The ground, already weakened by the creature's emergence and the violent battle, could no longer hold. The plaza floor cracked and groaned, a spiderweb of fractures spreading out from the sinking corpse.
"Soren!" Nyra yelled, scrambling off the creature's back as it disappeared into the chasm it was creating.
The world fell apart. The ground beneath Soren's feet gave way. He reached out, his fingers scrabbling for purchase on the crumbling edge, but there was nothing to hold. He fell into darkness, the roar of collapsing stone and the terrified shouts of his friends echoing from above. Then, a final, deafening crash, and silence. He was alone, trapped deep within the ruins of the Sunken City.