Date: February 12, 542 years since the Fall of Zanra the Dishonored.
The green glow finally died, leaving behind a thick, ozone-smelling darkness. As soon as the protective circuit ceased to pulse, Kaedan felt the world around him shudder. It wasn't an earthquake; the very space of the Pyramid of Scales, deprived of the "Node's" containing factor, began to rapidly restructure itself.
The corridor, which a moment ago had seemed an endless plain, suddenly constricted. Obsidian slabs scraped against each other, raising clouds of ancient dust. Kaedan straightened to his full height, relieved to feel his body had retained its normal proportions. His hand in its stone vambrace rested on his sword's hilt—the familiar weight of the weapon and the density of his own defense restored his confidence.
"Move," Iskon's voice rang out sharply. The young man stood ahead, enveloped in a barely perceptible haze of his Spirit. Despite the return to his usual size, he seemed even paler than before. "The Pyramid is done playing hide and seek with us. It's putting up a barrier."
They walked through a hall where columns would soar to unattainable heights, then shorten, turning into squat plinths. Bert and Olaf moved behind Kaedan, trying not to lag. The inner energy of each knight was strained to the limit; in this place, even silence seemed a threat. Kaedan felt his Vessel vibrate, reacting to powerful flows of power circulating somewhere deep in the temple's foundation.
Suddenly, the corridor ended, opening into a grand amphitheater. Its vaults were lost in blackness, and in the center, on a grey granite elevation, something was frozen that made even Iskon slow his pace.
"That's not a mechanism," Olaf whispered, raising his shield. "It's... alive."
The creature dozing on the pedestal slowly began to awaken. First came a dry crackling, as if thousands of stones had simultaneously cracked under the weight of ice. Then, in the twilight, two amber eyes, devoid of pupils, flared open.
Before the detachment stood a Stone Chimera—a nightmare creation of ancient masters, whose form defied all natural logic. The creature's body was that of a giant scorpion, composed of segmented plates of dark obsidian. Each of the chimera's legs ended in a razor-sharp blade, and on its broad back, overgrown with strange crystals, were folded two powerful wings, resembling those of a bat, but made of flexible, scaled stone.
Instead of the scorpion's usual tail, a massive stone serpent writhed behind the beast. Its scales scraped against the chimera's carapace with a metallic ring, and the serpent's head, crowned with a pair of curved fangs, constantly moved, scanning the space.
The Chimera slowly rose, and its true scale struck the knights. In its current state, it was the size of a two-story house, and its Pillar-level presence crashed down on the Order's Warriors like an avalanche. The air in the hall became viscous; Kaedan felt his Armor respond to this pressure with a low, anxious hum.
Iskon gripped his sword tighter. His Scaling Spirit, in the presence of such a powerful energy source, began to behave unstably—space around the young man rippled with fine folds. The Chimera turned its head, which bore the features of a predatory cat, and stared at the uninvited guests.
"Kaedan," Iskon said quietly, not taking his eyes off the monster. "Get ready. This is not an enemy you can simply block."
The next second, the Chimera opened its maw.
It wasn't the cry of a beast, nor the scrape of stone. It was a wild, inhuman howl, embodying the hum of the void and the fury of shattered mountains. The sound was so powerful that the shockwave stripped the dust from the ancient bas-reliefs and sent cracks through the stones under the knights' feet. The howl rolled through the hall, disappearing deep into the pyramid's corridors, alerting all living things that the guardian had awakened.
Kaedan barely kept his feet, shielding his face with his basalt-vambraced arm. His energy within his Vessel surged, trying to protect his hearing and mind from this sonic assault.
The Chimera spread its obsidian wings, and their shadow fell upon the detachment, plunging the knights into absolute, cold darkness. The battle that would decide their fate in the Pyramid of Scales was about to begin, but at that moment, time itself seemed to freeze before the first blow.