Chapter 319: 319: The Predator in the Dark
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The single word left Kai’s mouth like the edge of a blade, quiet but final. The tunnel beyond the egg chamber mouth did not answer. Stone held its breath. The warm light of the chamber fell in a clean line across the floor and died against the dark, as if the shadow had teeth.
A sound rose that was not quite a footstep and not quite a growl. It was the careful hush of a hunter easing its weight from one claw to the next. Kai did not move. He let the sense work through him. Antenna Sensory Boost flared awake. The rock spoke in tiny tremors. Air currents curled around something large, dense, close. Predator’s Instinct tightened his focus until the tunnel became a single narrow truth. There was a presence at the bend. It did not smell like the mountain. It smelled like old nests ripped open and left to steam in the cold.
The system touched his mind, voice level and cold.
[Ding! System Notification: Threat detected. Species: Egg Maw Stalker.
Rank: six star.
Height: seven feet.
Mass: heavy class burrower.
Primary diet: ant eggs and larvae.
Abilities: Acidic saliva. Rapid burrow. Resonance bellow. Carapace guard. Egg sense within five kilometers.
Weak points: lower jaw hinge. Soft membrane behind the forelimb plates.
Recommendation: intercept before it reaches the brood.]
Kai’s mandibles clicked once. No one else heard the system. No one else needed to. He shifted one step to the right, setting his body between the chamber and the bend. Behind him, Naaro moved two paces back into the warmth, her four legs steady, her human hands resting low over the fading glow in her abdomen. He could feel her eyes on his back. He could feel her trust. He breathed slowly and kept his voice even.
"Stay behind me," he said.
"Always," she answered, quiet and firm.
The thing in the dark came on without hurry. It was confident. A shape like a shovel cut through the shadow first, wide and blunt and scaled in black plates. Then came the eyes, two sickly green orbs that sat far apart on the skull, blinking once with a nictitating membrane that scraped like a window being cleaned by a knife. The mouth opened on the wrong axis. Plates unfolded sideways and kept unfolding until the maw became a crescent lined with serrated ridges that pulsed, greedy and wet. Saliva hung in ropes and fell in fat drops that hissed when they hit the floor. Steam lifted in thin threads where the stone softened.
It spoke. Its voice was the scrape of bone against hollow rock.
"I smell eggs."
"You smell your last meal," Kai said.
The creature’s forelimbs ended in digging scythes. It set them into the floor and drew itself forward. The stench of acid and rot thickened. The sound of its tongue, long and muscular, sliding free and tasting the air, was obscene in the quiet. It tilted its head. It saw the glow of the cradle runes beyond Kai. The plates around its maw quivered with hunger.
"Crack the shell," it rasped. "Drink the children. Clean the nest."
A wall deep in Kai’s body locked into place. There are fights you take for rage and there are fights you take for rule. He did not bother to answer. The decision was already made.
"Apex form."
Heat rolled into his limbs. Chitin plates slid and clapped into new positions along his shoulders and spine, black and lacquer bright under the chamber light. His mandibles lengthened and curved. The exoskeleton along his abdomen layered up and hardened. The simple posture of his body shifted from guard to hunt. The change took one breath. Then he moved.
Reflex Mode lit him. The tunnel narrowed to a clear lane. He crossed the gap before the Stalker’s maw finished opening. His left claw hooked the lower jaw plate and dragged it down while his right hand smashed up into the soft notch the system had already shown him. The beast’s bellow hit the walls and came back hard enough to shake the cradles, but the arc of Kai’s body turned the force aside. Tiny Tank thickened his chest as the Stalker’s other claw crashed into him. The blow shoved him a half step. It did not break him.
Acid sprayed. He moved his head just enough. Beads spattered across the joint of his neck and smoked. Adaptive Armor pushed to meet it. The burn clawed and then dulled to a sting. He shoved forward again.
"Out," he said to the beast, voice flat. "Now."
Whether it understood words did not matter. It understood weight and angle. He took its jaw and shoulder and turned them both. The floor carved a groove under its claws. The stone cracked. He drove it into the main corridor with a grunt and did not let go. The Stalker tore loose with a wrench that would have opened a bull. Kai took a rake of the claw across his side for payment and answered with a headbutt. Plate slammed plate. The predator reeled.
He heard Naaro behind him. Not a word. A breath. The sound of someone who had finished a holy work and would fight anyone who tried to spill it. He set his stance between her and the tunnel and pressed the attack.
The main corridor gave them more room and the sound grew teeth. The Stalker pivoted and tried to rush past him on four legs. Kai was faster. Reflex Mode flashed again. He took the inside line, slammed his shoulder into its hip, and pinned it to the wall. The plates along its back rasped. The smell of hot metal and acid puffed out like a breath from a forge. It gathered itself to spit. He did not give it the angle. His mandibles sank toward the jaw hinge and met a hard plate. He felt the give beneath. He bit down.
Essence Eater lit in his blood the way old wine lights in the gut. For a heartbeat he tasted the creature’s aura, cold and slick and full of the memory of stolen nurseries.