The wings opened and Aaron went down.
Not from a hit. Just the sound. The air pressure. His knees hit the wet floor before he told them to and the boom of it went through his chest and his back teeth and somewhere behind his eyes all at once.
Then the acid came.
Aaron threw himself sideways and it hit where he'd been standing and that part of the wall just ceased to exist. No drama. No explosion. Just — gone.
He lay on the floor staring at that.
*Don't get hit by that*, he thought. *That's the only rule. Just don't get hit by that.*
The creature turned toward him.
The size of it kept hitting him wrong. Every time he looked directly at it something in his brain said that's not right, things don't get that big, and then he looked again and it was still that big and still moving toward him and his brain just had to deal with that.
He got up.
"Okay," he said out loud. Just to hear something. "Okay."
It opened its mouth.
Aaron ran straight at it.
Low and fast and the acid came and he slid under it on the wet floor and the heat passed over the back of his neck close enough that he felt it in his skin and he came up right underneath the creature and swung at its belly with everything he had.
The impact went up both arms like he'd hit solid rock and his hands went numb and he nearly lost his grip.
Armored.
*Of course*, he thought. *Obviously. Why would it not be armored.*
The head came down fast.
Aaron dropped flat.
The mouth snapped shut right above him and the wind from it hit his face and he pressed himself to the floor and the wing came down anyway and hit him across the back and the barrier took it and it still felt like something had made a decision about his spine and Aaron left the floor and hit the far wall and dropped.
He lay there.
The Moth walked toward him. Slow. Patient. Like it had already written the ending and was just completing the process.
*This is going to kill me*, he thought. Not dramatically. Just as a fact sitting in his chest. *I'm going to die in here. Nobody knows I'm here. Nobody is coming.*
The shake started in his hands.
Then his legs.
*Get up*, he thought.
Nothing moved.
*Aaron. Get up right now.*
He got up.
Right side screaming. Hands bleeding from somewhere he still hadn't identified. The floor between him and the creature getting smaller with every step it took toward him.
He looked at it.
*Find the thing*, he thought. *There's always a thing. You found the airflow in the archways. You built the map. You figured out the herding. Find the thing right now.*
The neck.
Where the head met the body. Left side. The armor had to stop there because the joint had to move and where things moved there were always gaps and right there, barely visible, there was one.
*There*, he thought. *That's it. That's the thing.*
The Moth was close.
Aaron moved.
Straight at it and the Moth pulled its head back to release and Aaron dropped low and slid under the stream on the wet floor and came up right against the creature and drove everything he had into that gap in the neck.
Everything. Both arms. All his weight. Every bit of it.
SCREEEEEEEE.
The sound went through his skull like something physical. His vision shook. His ears stopped working and became one single high tone and he held on and drove deeper and the creature's legs buckled and the wing caught him and he yanked out as he went tumbling and hit the floor and rolled and came up already moving back.
*Same spot*, he thought. *Same spot again.*
The Moth was bleeding now. Dark and slow running down its neck. Its movements were getting wrong. Off.
Something shifted in Aaron's chest. Not confidence. Just — the tiniest space between *this is going to kill me* and *maybe it isn't.*
He went back in.
Hit the same spot and the Moth lurched and made a sound that wasn't the scream. Something lower. Something almost like surprise.
"Yeah," Aaron said through his teeth. "Yeah."
He hit it again.
The creature swung its head down fast, mouth open, going directly for him and Aaron dropped flat and drove straight up through the underside of its jaw with both hands and felt it go deep and felt the whole thing shudder through his arms and the weight of it started coming down.
*Move*, he thought. *Right now move.*
He rolled.
BOOOOM.
The floor cracked in every direction. The wings spread once. Shuddered.
Went still.
The chamber went quiet.
Aaron sat across the room from it breathing. Just breathing. His hands were both bleeding properly now. The shake in them wasn't stopping. His right side was a conversation he'd have with himself later in private.
He looked at the Moth.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Okay."
A sound came out of him that was almost a laugh. The kind of sound that came when the body needed to let something out and laughing was the closest available option.
His screen came up on its own.
[BOSS DEFEATED]
[STAGE ENHANCED — 2ND STAGE ADAPTED PLAYER LVL 2]
[Skills and stats updated.]
[New Skill Unlocked: STEALTH — Complete concealment from detection. Duration: 30 minutes.]
[Item Processing—]
The screen held on that word.
Longer than screens held on anything.
Then the chamber did something.
The Moth's body started breaking apart. Not decomposing. Something faster than that. The dark material of it pulling inward and compressing and the acid evaporating off the floor around it and from the center of that process something was left behind.
A scythe.
Long. Dark. The blade curved like something natural, like it had grown that way rather than been made. The handle wrapped in something Aaron didn't have a name for. He picked it up and the weight of it settled into his grip and he understood immediately that this had come from the creature. That whatever the Moth had been made of was now this.
Next to it on the floor, three items. Small stones each one glowing faint. He picked them up and held them and his screen flickered once.
[Item Obtained: VOID SCYTHE — Carries the remnant ability of its origin. Grows with each defeat.]
[Item Obtained: ACID CORE x3 — Concentrated remnant. Use unknown.]
Aaron looked at the scythe in his hand.
Then at the Moth.
*Carries the remnant ability of its origin*, he thought.
He looked at where the acid had been eating through the floor.
*Oh*, he thought quietly. *Oh.*
Then from somewhere deeper in the portal, further than he'd gone, further than this place should go, a sound came.
Low. Multiple. Getting closer.
Aaron sat on the floor with bleeding hands and ringing ears and a scythe that hadn't existed ten minutes ago and listened to whatever was coming toward him from the dark.
"Of course," he said.
He stood up.
Gripped the scythe.
Walked toward it.