The ceiling bulged.
It wasn't stone. Not anymore. It swelled like diseased flesh, veined with pulsing black lines. Chunks of old brick cracked and fell, crashing onto the floor of the ruined chamber.
Then came the sound again. The low erratic sound.
Click.
Click-click.
CRACK.
The ceiling ruptured, and something dropped through.
A writhing mass of limbs and muscle slammed into the center of their camp with a roar of shattered rock and howling air. Dust exploded outward. The runes dimmed. The light died.
And in that chaos, the thing stood.
It was not a beast, not a demon.
It was an amalgamation of suffering and disgust.
It unfolded from the impact crater, dragging itself into full height with a grinding wave of snapping joints and splitting bone. Its skin was not skin but warped sinew, fused black muscle, twisted cords of matter that moved like something still forming.
Limbs extended from its back, too many limbs. Some twitched. Others hung limp. One scraped the ground like a hooked spear. Another ended in a fist full of teeth.
The entire body breathed like a bellows, exhaling black mist into the room.
And the faces.
There were four of them.
Each fused into its upper body like grotesque masks disfigured horribly.
The first had its eyes sewn shut, mouth agape, endlessly weeping black fluid.
The second was upside down, lips constantly twitching in muttered fragments of speech, words with no grammar, no time and no sense.
The third was grinning. Its mouth was far too wide, filled with serrated, growing teeth that shifted as it smiled.
The fourth was hollow-cheeked and open-eyed, screaming without sound, jaw trembling like it had forgotten how to stop.
When the creature spoke, all four mouths moved.
And all four voices came at once.
"You were not meant to reach this place."
A sound like rusted bells and shattered glass speaking in harmony. The air vibrated. Felix flinched and nearly dropped his rune-scroll.
Tris backed toward the wall, bow half-raised, hands shaking. "That's… that's not one of them. It's all of them."
"We are the echoes left in your blind gods' silence."
"We are the hunger they buried beneath your legends."
"And now we are awake."
It stepped forward with one leg, if it could be called that, as it was made of smaller limbs fused together, some ending in claws, some in twitching fingers that clawed at the ground beneath it.
The amalgam left a trail of slime, sizzling where it touched Felix's protective wards.
Ari stirred behind Nola, trying to rise from her sleep.
The weeping face turned to her, tears still falling like oil.
"The hollow one hears us first."
"We sang to her through sleep. Through blood."
Ari shuddered and moaned in her sleep.
"Get it out of my head… get it out."
Nola stepped in front of her, katana leveled, eyes like steel. "You touch her and I'll carve your faces off one by one."
The creature laughed.
All four mouths.
All different tempos.
"We would like to see you try."
It lunged.
Nola had less than a second. She dove sideways, pulling Ari with her, just as a talon the size of a car engine smashed down where they had stood. The impact blasted a crater in the floor. Splinters of stone flew.
"Spread!" Vera shouted, blades glowing as she launched herself toward the creature's flank. "Do not fight it alone!"
Felix dropped to one knee, runes flaring under his palms. "Barrier array, now!"
A dome of light formed around Ari just before another limb struck toward her, bouncing off the glowing barrier with a hiss and shriek.
Tris took to the higher ground, climbing broken pillars and letting loose a barrage of arrows. Each one was tipped with spectral fire, runes borrowed from Ari's earlier work.
Three struck the grinning face.
It bled smoke.
But it smiled wider.
"Your arrows are memories. We are what comes after."
Nola blurred forward, her katana slicing in golden arcs. One arm fell from the amalgam, severed at the joint. It hit the ground and twitched, trying to crawl away.
"I don't care what you are," Nola snarled. "You bleed, you break."
The upside-down face whispered:
"You should care."
And the room twisted.
Reality buckled around them.
The walls seemed farther away, then closer. The floor flexed under their feet like wet paper. Felix gasped, faltering mid-cast.
"Don't let it break your focus!" Vera roared, slamming both blades into the amalgam's ribcage, if it had ribs. Black acidic goo burst outward, searing the floor like acid.
The screaming face let loose a howl, not from pain.
It was from joy.
"We have not danced in centuries."
The creature swept a tendril across the chamber, slamming Tris from his perch. He hit the ground hard, coughing blood.
"Tris!" Nola shouted, but she couldn't move to help, not without exposing Ari.
The amalgam surged again.
Felix summoned a flash-freeze glyph, ice burst across the creature's feet, locking it in place.
"Now!"
Vera and Nola moved in unison.
Two arcs.
One golden, one blinding white.
They struck at once, slicing clean through the amalgam's midsection.
Black liquid rained down, and the creature reeled back.
The weeping face spasmed.
The smiling one cracked.
It wasn't dead.
But it was wounded.
And now, for the first time…
It looked surprised.
All four mouths whispered together.
"Interesting."
Then they all grinned.
The creature reeled from the dual strike, ichor spraying from its split midsection, hissing as it hit the floor. For a heartbeat, it faltered.
Then it began to laugh.
All four mouths.
Low at first. Then rising into overlapping, discordant shrieks of joy.
"You cut us."
"You woke us."
"You gave us a name again."
The black wound that split its chest began to close.
Not with healing, but with hunger.
Muscles crawled back together. Bone reknit itself like wet rope. The creature's body rippled, shuddering, and then it began to grow.
Veins bulged across its chest. Its limbs stretched longer, thicker. The dangling arms multiplied, some splitting at the elbows, others fusing into jagged, weapon-like shapes. The four faces distorted as they rose higher, climbing up the length of its now-elongated torso.
It doubled in height within seconds.
The ceiling cracked from its size.
Then it turned, slowly toward the back of the chamber.
Toward Saren's body.
Nola's eyes widened. "No."
The creature moved, dragging itself across the floor in a crawling, lurching sprint. Its limbs dragging, tendrils slapping stone with the sound of wet meat. It reached Saren's broken form, still lying at the edge of the ruin where they had left him.
It paused.
And all four mouths spoke at once.
"You feared us most. You begged for our power. You tasted the price."
The smiling face stretched lower. Its jaws opened impossibly wide.
It consumed Saren whole.
The corpse didn't vanish in a flash or get torn apart. It sank, slowly and horribly, into the creature's chest like mud swallowing a body.
Saren's limbs twitched as they were absorbed. His face surfaced briefly in the mass, eyes blank, mouth open. Then it disappeared beneath the writhing flesh.
The amalgam arched its back.
And changed.
Its lower body reformed. The crawling limbs retracted into itself, replaced by legs. Long, powerful, almost human legs except each ended in massive, blackened hooves that struck the ground with enough force to shake the walls.
It stood.
Fully upright now.
Its silhouette more humanoid but no less horrifying.
The four faces had shifted to form a grotesque ring around its head, each oriented in a different direction, screaming, smiling, whispering, and weeping.
Its torso flexed with too many muscles. Its arms… they remained countless. A forest of limbs, some ending in weapons, others in fingers, claws, or nothing at all.
The weeping face lifted first.
"We are reborn."
The whispering one followed.
"No more cages."
Then the smiling one.
"No more Saren."
And finally the screaming one.
"Now, only us."
It took one step forward.
The sound of its hooves echoed like war drums through the ruin.
Vera's grip tightened on her blades. "Now it begins for real."
Nola whispered, "Then we make it bleed again."