The lift chamber groaned as Kail and Lysa stepped toward the rusted machinery. Ancient chains hung from the ceiling, coated in grime and streaked with faint green veins that pulsed like infected arteries.
Lysa ran her fingers along one of the support beams. "If this thing collapses while we're on it, we're dead."
Kail eyed the platform in the center of the chamber. It was circular and cracked around the edges, barely suspended over a dark shaft by four thick chains.
"It still works?" he asked.
"It should." Lysa crouched near a control pillar—half-bone, half-metal—and wiped away dust. "The Maw re-grows the necessary parts… most of the time."
"That's not reassuring."
She shot him a tight smile. "Welcome to the Maw."
A low scrape echoed from the tunnel behind them. Kail tensed immediately.
"Is it the Sentinel?" she whispered.
Kail listened. The air felt thick with pressure, but not the crushing dominance the Sentinel had imposed.
"No," he said quietly. "Something smaller."
"Smaller is still deadly around here."
She pulled a lever on the pillar. The lift jerked violently, the chains rattling before slowly pulling the platform upward.
Kail stepped onto it first, testing its stability. It swayed but held.
Lysa joined him, spear ready.
The platform rose into the darkness.
The lift shaft was narrow, lit only by the glowing veins along the walls. Their ascent was slow—agonizingly so. Every creak of the machinery sounded like a death warning.
Lysa kept her voice low. "So. Kail. You going to tell me what that thing down there wanted with you?"
He kept his eyes on the darkness above them. "I don't know."
"Really?"
"Yes."
She studied him for a moment. "It called you a shard of something."
He didn't answer. He didn't have an answer—not one he understood, anyway.
A faint hum buzzed in his skull. A system notification flickered.
[Essence Echo activated][Scanning local environment…][Residual Essence Detected][Classification: Maw Predator — Type Obscured]
Kail frowned. The air above them trembled.
Lysa noticed his shift in posture. "What is it?"
"Something's here," Kail said. "Above us."
As the platform continued upward, he saw it—a shadow clinging to the wall of the shaft, barely visible against the stone. Long limbs. Multi-jointed. Eyes like faint embers.
A Maw Skulker.
Silent ambush predators.
The moment Kail spotted it, the creature coiled its limbs tightly and sprang toward the lift.
"Down!" Kail shouted.
The Skulker landed on the chain above them, claws scraping sparks as it descended toward the platform with frightening speed.
Kail leapt upward, grabbing onto the chain and swinging himself toward the creature. The Skulker lashed out with a bladed limb; Kail ducked and slammed his fist into its torso. His blow cracked its rib plating, but the creature barely slowed.
It screeched and lunged again.
Below, Lysa steadied her spear.
"Kail, drop!"
He let go of the chain.
Lysa hurled her spear upward with frightening accuracy. The weapon pierced the Skulker's neck, pinning it momentarily to the wall of the shaft. The creature writhed and screeched, then ripped itself free—black ichor spraying the platform.
Still alive.
Still coming.
Kail landed on the platform beside her. "That was too accurate to be luck."
"Not luck," she said sharply. "Training."
The Skulker dropped from the chain, aiming for Lysa's throat.
Kail intercepted it mid-fall, driving his knee into its abdomen. The creature folded around the impact. Kail grabbed its mandibles and forced its head back.
He felt a surge of hunger as the system reacted.
[Essence Available][Devour?]
The Skulker thrashed wildly. Lysa shouted, "Kail, you don't have to—"
But he was already deciding.
He met the creature's glowing eyes.
"Yes."
The Skulker dissolved into black essence, rushing into him like a shockwave. Kail gasped as pain and clarity flooded his senses simultaneously.
[Devour Successful][New Trait Acquired: Night Pulse][Essence Echo strengthened]
Kail steadied himself. His vision sharpened immediately—darkness receding, details forming where before there had been only shadow.
Lysa stared at him, breathing hard. "What… what did you just do?"
Kail looked at his hands, still trembling with residual energy.
"Survived," he said.
The platform reached the upper level with a metallic groan. The chains jolted, and the lift locked into place.
A new tunnel opened before them—wider, cleaner, with faint torch-like glow from crystallized veins embedded in the walls.
Lysa retrieved her spear and stepped forward.
"This is the Upper Maw," she said. "Different monsters. Different rules."
Kail's system flickered again.
[Warning: Hunger Resurgence][Stability Lowering][Mutation Pressure Increasing]
He clenched his jaw.
The deeper he went, the stronger the hunger pulled at him.
Lysa moved ahead, unaware of the internal battle taking place behind her.
Kail followed.
One step into the Upper Maw—
And a distant horn echoed through the tunnels.Not a monster.A signal.
Lysa froze.
"Kail," she whispered. "We're not alone up here."