The creature moved.
One mont it was on the throne. The next, it covered sixty ters in a blur of chitinous death. The Eclipse Matriarch barely raised her legs defensively before Maw’Thoraxis’s claws raked across her carapace.
The sound—tearing tal. Four of her legs severed clean, dropping before the abomination’s claws even finished their arc. The Matriarch shrieked and stumbled.
Maw’Thoraxis didn’t pause. Its jaws split four ways, impossibly wide, and clamped down on her thorax. Black saliva hissed and bubbled. The bite drained her blood at a horrifying rate.
The Eclipse Matriarch thrashed, frost and shadow erupting wild. She managed to stab two legs into Maw’Thoraxis’s exposed underbelly. The impact should have pierced through.
The chitinous plates shifted, flowed like liquid, reinforced the strike point. Her legs cracked against suddenly impenetrable armor.
Maw’Thoraxis’s tail whipped around, the twelve-ter length coiling around the Matriarch’s body. It constricted. Chitin cracked. Her abdon ruptured, spilling half-ford eggs and essence across the bone floor.
She tried to deploy Twilight Weave. The webs ford—frost and shadow threads shooting toward Maw’Thoraxis. But the mont they touched its armor, the domain itself intervened. Gravity reversed, localized around each strand, pulling them away, dispersing them harmlessly.
The Matriarch’s eight eyes dimd. Her mandibles twitched.
"Mas—"
Maw’Thoraxis bit down harder. The four-way jaws closed completely. The Eclipse Matriarch’s head separated from her body.
[Eclipse Matriarch has been defeated]
The massive corpse dissolved into motes of frost and shadow, pulled back into the Soul Forge automatically upon death.
The entire exchange had lasted eleven seconds.
Northern stood perfectly still on his observation platform. Stone-faced.
Maw’Thoraxis turned its eyeless skull toward him. Black saliva dripped from its jaws. The tail uncoiled, swaying serpent-like.
A WEAK BELIAL. HOW UNINTERESTING. STEP FORWARD, HUMAN. LET US PLAY BITE AND CHEW.
Northern’s eyes tracked the movent, analyzed the speed, catalogued the adaptive armor response, noted the domain interference patterns. Easy to defeat the Apex Belial himself, but what good would that do?
Maybe it was the pride of a Master. But he wanted a different result this ti. He didn’t want to have to do it. He wanted the Matriarch to grow.
"Aoi. Resummon."
[That entity just suffered catastrophic—]
"Resummon."
[You’re using Echo Summoning]
The Eclipse Matriarch reford. Whole. Undamaged. But her eyes held sothing they hadn’t before—mory of death.
Maw’Thoraxis’s head tilted. Interest flickered through the domain.
AGAIN?
"Again."
This ti the Matriarch attacked first. She’d learned—don’t let it close the distance. Twilight Weave deployed in layers, creating a three-dinsional maze between her and Maw’Thoraxis.
Maw’Thoraxis’s body changed mid-charge. Its sharp, angled, lithe fra suddenly swelled, bulk increasing, durability maximizing. It crashed through the webs like cobwebs, black armor plates shedding the frost-shadow threads.
The Matriarch tried a different approach. Dual-Nature Manifestation—splitting into Frost Weaver and Shadow Spinner, attacking from two angles simultaneously.
Maw’Thoraxis’s response was imdiate. Its body phased—beca intangible for five seconds. Both attacks passed through harmlessly. When it solidified, it was already moving, claws raking through the Frost Weaver’s legs.
The Shadow Spinner tried to capitalize, wrapping shadow-threads around Maw’Thoraxis’s arms. For a mont, the restraint held.
Then Maw’Thoraxis pulled. The domain’s gravity shifted, amplifying its physical strength tenfold. The Shadow Spinner was yanked forward, directly into those waiting jaws.
The bite was surgical. One snap—the Shadow Spinner’s head crushed.
Both forms collapsed simultaneously.
[Eclipse Matriarch has been defeated]
"Again."
[You’re using Echo Summoning]
OH, HUMAN. HOW ARROGANT.
***
The Matriarch had learned not to split against the phase shift. Had learned to anticipate the gravity manipulation. But Maw’Thoraxis adapted faster.
The battle intensified. From eleven seconds to twenty whole seconds—both masses slamming against each other at horrifying speed. Twilight Matriarch was matching the creature’s pace now. Surprisingly.
Northern sat lotus-style on one of the massive skulls, watching the battle carefully. Calculating just how intelligent echoes could be. He watched to see if Twilight Matriarch noted her mistakes and fixed them the next ti she was summoned.
The battle stretched and intensified until Maw’Thoraxis itself seed to reach so threshold. It tore away from Twilight Matriarch and unleashed a hollow, terrifying roar.
The roar enveloped everything for one heavy beat, then fell into absolute silence.
Northern’s brow furrowed.
’Why does that sound like a call for backup...’
[Because it is. However, all the monsters in the upper rings have been destroyed.]
He exhaled.
’Good thing I descended layer after layer instead of just jumping down.’
Maw’Thoraxis’s skull turned, scanning the empty passages. For the first ti, sothing like surprise rippled through the domain.
Northern’s voice echoed from his platform. "Dead. Every last one. No one’s coming to save you, buddy."
...YOU.
"."
Maw’Thoraxis’s attention shifted fully to Northern for the first ti. Really looked at him. Not just prey—a threat.
The domain contracted. The walls closed in. Gravity intensified. The essence drain tripled.
And Maw’Thoraxis attacked with genuine killing intent.
The Matriarch lasted forty-seven seconds.
[Eclipse Matriarch has been defeated]
"Again."
***
The Matriarch was learning language. Between resurrections, between deaths, sothing was building in her consciousness.
She deployed Twilight Weave not as barriers, but as sensors. The threads spread across the entire chamber, vibrating with each movent, feeding her information about spatial distortions, gravity shifts, essence flows.
When Maw’Thoraxis phased, she felt the essence expenditure before it happened. When it shifted forms, she sensed the restructuring of soul cores.
She lasted four minutes.
[Eclipse Matriarch has been defeated]
Maw’Thoraxis stood over the dissolving corpse. Its head tilted.
LEARNING? INTERESTING.
"Again."
***
Twilight Matriarch took another approach. This ti, she stopped trying to overpower it. Instead, she danced. Eight legs carrying her across walls, ceiling, floor. She wove webs not to trap, but to create terrain advantages. She split and rged her forms not as attacks, but as feints.
Maw’Thoraxis pursued relentlessly. But for the first ti, it couldn’t land an imdiately fatal blow.
The Matriarch managed to wound it—frost threads finally penetrating between armor plates, shadow-essence corroding the exposed underbelly.
Maw’Thoraxis’s regeneration activated instantly. The wounds sealed. But it had felt pain.
Its form shifted again. A body manufactured for one purpose—pure speed. It blurred across the chamber and drove its claws through all eight of the Matriarch’s eyes simultaneously.
[Eclipse Matriarch has been defeated]
"Again."
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