Permanent Death.
The two words on the system screen were colder than any tomb. This wasn't a political debate where the worst outcome was a loss of face or a ruined career. This was existence versus oblivion. For the first time since waking, a genuine, primal fear cut through Arthur's calculated composure.
The ground trembled, not with the scuttling of many legs, but with a deep, rhythmic weight. Dust and pebbles rained down from the cavern ceiling. The soldiers, who had just begun to feel a flicker of hope, fell back, their faces ashen. Borin stood before them, a bulwark of defiance, but even his massive frame seemed small against the growing dread.
From the blackness of the tunnel, the Broodmother emerged.
It was a nightmare of chitin and flesh. Easily the size of a carriage, its body was a bloated, obscene teardrop of dark, glistening armor plating, scarred and pitted from centuries spent grinding through rock. Its head was a horrifying wedge of sharp angles and clustered, unblinking eyes, with a pair of massive, serrated mandibles that dripped a viscous, acidic saliva. But the true horror was the pulsating, membranous sac on its underbelly. Even as it dragged itself into the cavern, the sac convulsed and tore open, spilling three new, shrieking Sand-Reavers onto the floor.
They were an army that replenished its ranks as it fought. A war of attrition was impossible. They would drown in bodies long before the beast tired.
"Gods preserve us," one of the soldiers whispered, stumbling backward.
Gideon's face, which had been a mask of fury, was now alight with a grim, triumphant satisfaction. "So much for your grand strategy, 'Hero'," he spat. "Your words cannot stop this."
Borin let out a battle cry that was more fury than courage and charged. He met the beast with the force of a battering ram, his twin axes swinging like meteors. The sound of steel on chitin was a deafening shriek of protest. He struck again and again, but his legendary axes, which had cleaved lesser Reavers in two, merely skittered off the Broodmother's thickest plates, leaving shallow, insignificant scratches.
The monster ignored him, its multi-faceted eyes scanning the defenders, assessing the food supply.
This was it. The moment of failure. The moment Gideon had been waiting for.
Just then, more footsteps echoed from the corridor. Queen Elara arrived, flanked by two of her personal guards, her face a pale mask of horror. Her eyes darted from the monstrous creature to Arthur, her expression unreadable.
Arthur didn't look at her. He wasn't looking at Gideon or even at Borin's futile assault. His gaze was sweeping across the cavern, up the walls, to the high, vaulted ceiling. His mind, honed by years of finding leverage in impossible situations, was not processing a monster. It was processing a structural problem.
The cavern was a cistern. Ancient. Crumbling. High above the breached tunnel, a massive, stone-carved aqueduct ran along the wall, cracked and dry with age. The very breach the creatures had created had weakened the surrounding rock. The objective wasn't "Kill the Broodmother." It was "Survive" and "Seal the breach."
The system wasn't telling him to win the fight. It was telling him to end it.
A plan, audacious and utterly insane, bloomed in his mind.
"Borin!" Arthur's voice boomed with the full, system-enhanced power of his Heart of a Tyrant trait. It was not a request. It was an unbreakable command that cut through the chaos. "DISENGAGE! Your target is not the beast! It's the northern aqueduct support! Break it! NOW!"
Borin, thrown back by a sweep of the Broodmother's massive leg, stared at Arthur as if he'd lost his mind. "The support? That could bring the whole ceiling down on us!"
"He's lost it!" Gideon shrieked, his voice cracking with a mixture of fear and vindictive glee. "He will bury us all! Seize him!"
The Queen's guards hesitated, looking to her for guidance. Elara herself looked at Arthur, her eyes wide with conflict. She was seeing not a hero of legend, but a cold, ruthless gambler playing with all their lives.
Arthur ignored them all, his entire focus a burning point aimed at Borin. "Is that an objection, soldier? Look at that thing! It will birth an army within the hour! We will be overrun, and this fortress, your Queen, everything you protect, will be devoured! Do you have a better plan? Or will you follow the one command that will save us all? MOVE!"
The sheer, unadulterated certainty in his voice, the terrifying logic of his words, washed over Borin. He looked at the monster, then back at Arthur. With a roar of desperation and newfound faith, he turned from the Broodmother and sprinted towards the massive, pillar-like support on the far side of the cavern.
"Spearmen!" Arthur commanded, pointing with the sword he still held but had no intention of using. "You are the bait! Draw its attention away from Borin! Do not engage! Just keep it angry! Keep it focused!"
The soldiers, terrified but caught in the grip of his authority, banged their spears on the stone floor, shouting and taunting the beast. The Broodmother, seeing these smaller, annoying prey, turned its immense bulk toward them, its mandibles snapping hungrily.
Borin reached the aqueduct support. He raised his axes. "For the Queen!" he bellowed, and brought them down on the ancient, load-bearing stone.
CRACK.
The sound was sharp and final. A spiderweb of fractures appeared on the pillar. He struck again. And again.
A deep groan shuddered through the entire cavern. A fine dust began to fall from the ceiling. The crack on the support widened into a chasm. The massive stone aqueduct above it sagged, shedding rocks.
Then, with a sound like the world tearing in half, the support shattered.
The aqueduct, tons upon tons of ancient, carved stone, broke free from the wall and plunged downwards. The Broodmother, distracted by the spearmen, looked up just in time to see its doom descending. It let out a piercing shriek of fury a moment before the massive structure slammed down directly onto it and the tunnel entrance behind it.
The impact threw everyone off their feet. The ground shook violently. A tidal wave of dust and displaced air blasted through the cavern.
For a moment, there was a stunned, victorious silence.
Then the groaning from above didn't stop. It intensified.
The single crack from the collapse snaked across the entire ceiling. The pulsing red emergency crystals flickered and died as rock shifted around them. The whole cistern was shaking, the deep rumble of failing rock echoing from all around.
Gideon, picking himself up, looked at the ceiling, his face white with terror. "You fool," he whispered. "You magnificent fool. You've killed us all."
The soldiers looked up, their brief moment of triumph turning to absolute horror as the cavern began to collapse in on itself. Arthur Sterling stood perfectly still amidst the rising panic, his face an unreadable mask, watching the ceiling begin to crumble.