A ragged cough tore from Lucian's lips, spraying a fine mist of blood onto the spongy floor. Every nerve screamed. The impact had left a deep, aching trauma in his back, and the venom from the earlier cut was a persistent fire spreading through his veins, making his thoughts hazy and his limbs feel heavy. He had lost the vulture talon, his only weapon, still embedded in the monster's ruined arm.
He was, for all intents and purposes, defenseless.
The Hive-Scythe's shriek echoed in the cavern, a sound of pure, unadulterated rage. It was no longer a calm executioner. Its movements were jerky, its three functional scythes slashing at the air erratically. It had been wounded, its perfection marred, and it wanted nothing more than to obliterate the source of its pain.
It charged, its many legs churning the ground, but its advance was no longer a graceful flow. It was a clumsy, furious stampede. Its attacks, once a complex and deadly dance, were now wild, telegraphed swings fueled by blind fury.
This was his only chance.
Lucian forced himself to his feet, ignoring the protest of his battered body. His eyes, sharp and desperate, darted around the chamber, seeking an advantage, a weapon, anything. His gaze fell on the large, pulsating sac hanging from the ceiling. It was the centerpiece of the chamber, the heart of the hive. It had to be important. And it was hanging directly over the center of the room.
A new plan, forged in the fires of agony and desperation, clicked into place. If he couldn't kill the monster, he would make it destroy its own home.
He pushed off the wall, his legs screaming in protest, and ran. Not away from the monster, but parallel to it, circling towards the center of the chamber.
"Hey!" he yelled, his voice raw and strained. The sound was pathetic, but it was enough.
The Hive-Scythe's featureless faceplate swiveled towards him. It changed direction, its enraged shrieks intensifying as it followed him. Lucian's run was more of a pained hobble, but fear was a powerful fuel. He stayed just ahead of the sweeping scythes, the wind of their passage ruffling his rags.
He was no longer just dodging. He was leading.
He circled the chamber, drawing the monster further and further from the tunnels and closer to the center. The Hive-Scythe, lost in its rage, didn't seem to notice or care. It just wanted him dead.
He was directly beneath the pulsating sac now. He stopped, turning to face his pursuer. He was exhausted, his vision blurring from the venom, but he planted his feet, a defiant statue in the path of an avalanche.
The Hive-Scythe saw him stop. It saw this as the end. It reared up, raising its two primary scythes high above its body for a final, overwhelming execution blow. It was putting all of its strength, all of its fury, into this one attack.
Lucian waited, his entire being focused on that one, critical moment. The world seemed to slow down. He could see the muscles in the creature's thorax tense, see the way the scythes trembled with contained power.
Now.
As the scythes began their downward plunge, he didn't dodge left or right. He threw himself backward, falling flat onto the spongy floor and kicking his legs out, sliding under the monster's attack in a desperate, last-ditch maneuver.
The Hive-Scythe couldn't stop its momentum. Its powerful, downward slash, meant to cleave Lucian in two, found only empty air where he had been standing. The two massive bone scythes continued their trajectory upward, their points aimed directly at the soft, vulnerable underbelly of the hive's heart hanging above.
With a wet, tearing sound, the scythes plunged deep into the pulsating sac.
For a moment, there was a dead silence. The Hive-Scythe froze, as if it had just realized its catastrophic mistake.
Then, the sac ruptured.
It didn't just leak; it exploded. A torrent of thick, corrosive, green fluid—the same venom that coated its scythes—rained down. It wasn't just venom, though. Mixed within the deluge were hundreds of small, writhing, maggot-like creatures—the hive's brood.
The Hive-Scythe was caught directly in the downpour. It shrieked, a sound completely different from its earlier cries of rage. This was a sound of pure, abject agony as its own venom drenched its body, sizzling and melting through the joints of its chitinous armor. The newly hatched maggots swarmed over it, instinctively burrowing into the cracks, their tiny bodies adding to the torment.
Lucian, who had slid several feet away, was only splashed by the venomous rain, but it was enough. The drops that landed on his skin felt like acid, burning him to the bone. He cried out, scrambling away from the toxic flood, his body a canvas of unimaginable pain.
The Hive-Scythe was dying. It thrashed wildly, its limbs flailing as it was consumed by its own progeny and poisoned by the very heart of its hive. It was a grotesque, horrifying spectacle of self-destruction.
Through a haze of pain, Lucian watched the monster collapse, its final, agonized shriek echoing through the ruined cavern. He had won. He had survived.
But as the monster fell silent, the burning of the venom in his veins intensified, and the world began to fade to black. His last conscious thought was not of victory, but of a single, chilling realization.
He was covered in the same poison that had just dissolved a monster of living stone.