The doors groaned as they opened.

  Not in a mechanical way.

  In the way of something alive. Something trying not to scream as it was forced apart.

  Malachai stepped into the boss chamber.

  And immediately wished he hadn’t.

  The air was thick. Each breath clung to his lungs, tasting of copper, placenta, and the musk of a thousand dying things. The walls were veined with blackened tissue. Massive umbilical cords pulsed in and out of gaping sockets, twitching as if reacting to his presence. The ground was damp. Uneven. Padded with layers of dried skin and knotted hair.

  Then the chamber breathed.

  A thunderous inhalation echoed through the room, pulling at his clothes, at his skin, like a newborn taking its first breath through the lungs of the damned.

  And it was.

  The boss emerged from a pit in the center of the chamber—rising like an infection erupting through a wound.

  ---

  The Cradle Mother.

  Half-woman, half-womb, this towering abomination dripped afterbirth from her sagging frame. Six arms writhed beneath a bloated belly distended to the size of a car. Veins and claws burst from her skin at random, twitching, pulsing, hungry. Her head was shrouded in a birthing veil—a stretched membrane slick with red fluid that pulsed with faces pressing from beneath.

  She screamed. A long, laboring moan that shook the chamber.

  Then she birthed.

  The ground split as malformed creatures spilled out—still slick with bile, their flesh not yet solid. Born mid-writhing, they crawled, hissed, charged.

  Malachai moved.

  Shade Step.

  He blinked through one creature, claws slicing through the umbilical cords still attached to its belly. Blood sprayed. The infant-like thing collapsed, gurgling.

  Another pounced.

  He let it latch onto his arm—then slammed it into the ground and crushed its head under his heel.

  Dread Pulse (Tier II) flared.

  The entire room shook. The newborns howled and flailed, blinded by hallucinations of death.

  Malachai dove at the Mother.

  ---

  Predatory Insight ignited—a network of red veins across her chest, her distended womb, her spine. He aimed for the arteries near the base.

  His claws plunged into soft flesh.

  She screamed and responded. Her hands caught him, twisted, hurled him into a wall. Bone shattered. Blood filled his mouth.

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  He stood again.

  Faster this time.

  She vomited a cone of bile and bone shards. He rolled beneath it, claws dragging through her legs. Tendons snapped.

  More newborns burst from her gut.

  One attached to his back.

  He tore it off, slammed it against the ground repeatedly until the skull gave way. He feasted.

  ---

  > Feast of the Slain activated.

  Blood and soul soaked into him. Wounds closed. Strength returned.

  Then he activated Crimson Hookstep.

  A spin. A dash. Claws like saws.

  He carved through three more spawn. Reached the Mother again.

  He leapt. Climbed.

  Slashed into her back—aiming for the cluster of spine and womb tissue pulsing like a tumor.

  She convulsed.

  Hands reached behind her.

  Caught his leg.

  Slammed him into herself. Tried to absorb him.

  He screamed, driving his claws deeper.

  He reached into the mass—felt something beating.

  He ripped it free.

  A sac. Glowing. Pulsing.

  She screamed.

  And began to collapse.

  The chamber wailed.

  > Essence Core Acquired: Core of the Cradle Mother A fused relic of corrupt creation. May be fused to unlock class evolution paths related to parasitic rebirth, summoning, or blood-born growth.

  > Mana Crystals Gained (6) Trait Fragment Acquired: Cradle Mother (1) You have absorbed corrupted memories of the birthing cycle. Future summon-type or parasitic evolution traits will cost less to develop.

  She died vomiting stillborn horrors.

  The world twisted.

  The flesh began to rot.

  Walls convulsed. The ceiling cracked. Organs burst like overripe fruit. The chamber howled, collapsing in on itself.

  Malachai ran.

  He stumbled through the pulsing corridor as it turned on itself—meat folding inward, dragging bone and stone into a singular point.

  The Veil screamed.

  Light bled from every wall.

  And then—

  He was ejected.

  Flung into the street.

  The portal behind him imploded, collapsing with a roar like a dying god. A shockwave of blood-mist washed over the street. The sky above the ruin pulsed once with red.

  Then silence.

  Malachai panted.

  Dripping.

  Alive.

  And then he felt it.

  He turned.

  There, in the shadow of a collapsed billboard, stood a figure.

  Small.

  Hunched.

  Childlike.

  Bandaged from head to toe, only its mouth uncovered. It smiled.

  A mouth too wide.

  No eyes.

  It didn’t move.

  It just spoke—not aloud, but into him.

  “You burn so bright... little Reaper. But my master will hush your world. His gate will not close. And soon... he will be remembered.”

  Malachai lunged.

  But the figure vanished.

  Only laughter remained.

  Wet.

  Childish.

  Hungry.