Damian felt it then.
The pull.
A pulse that ran along his ribs.
A pressure in his lungs that wasn't the toxin.
A faint rhythm beating behind the flesh of the beast—
too deliberate to be random,
too alive to belong to the creature.
Adrian.
Somewhere deeper.
Somewhere close.
Damian's vision narrowed to a single patch of membrane half-hidden behind a trembling fold of tissue.
"There," he said, the word scraping out of him like instinct more than speech.
No one questioned him.
They moved.
The creature reacted first—
a massive exhale building in the walls,
breath sacs ballooning with toxic steam.
"Down!" Marcus barked, dropping into a crouch with Neol.
The blast hit.
A hurricane of poison erupted outward.
Caleb threw what little cold he had left into the air—
a final surge that crystallized the incoming wave enough to blunt it.
Ice shattered across their backs.
Steam rolled over them.
Marcus's earthen coating cracked under the force but held.
It gave them one second.
One impossible second.
Damian took it.
Fire roared from his arms, carving heat into the membrane he'd chosen.
The tissue recoiled, blistering under the assault.
Caleb's lingering cold weakened the fibers.
Marcus's earlier spikes wedged into the seams, holding them open.
Ethan reached in with a grunt—
and ripped.
The breach split open in a violent burst of steam and shredded flesh.
Air rushed through the tear,
cooler and thinner—
an escape route.