[First POV – Theo]
Morveth did not retreat.
It did not hesitate.
The fissure across its violet core widened, tar spilling like blackened blood, bone plates hanging at fractured angles, and yet the pressure in the cavern only intensified. The air grew heavier, thicker, as if the world itself refused to accept what was happening.
"You believe this is victory?" Morveth rasped, its layered voice vibrating through shattered stone. "I Morveth Kael'Zhyr do not lose."
The cavern trembled again. Not from us.
From it.
The tar-like substance that made up its internal matrix surged violently, abandoning measured regeneration. It stopped trying to stabilize cleanly. Instead, it flooded every fracture at once, reinforcing broken channels with brute force. Bone reassembled in grotesque shapes, thicker and more jagged than before.
It was giving everything.
Kyrene stepped forward without speaking.
