Texas always smelled like heat and dust, even at night. But when Lucraen Hollowpage stepped off the helicopter onto the cracked asphalt of Amarillo, the air carried another scent entirely—burnt rubber, scorched earth, and something older, deeper, like an animal’s breath lingering long after the body had vanished.

Seren Splinteredcrown adjusted the straps of her pack. She scanned the remains of Amarillo’s northern industrial corridor, where whole blocks had collapsed inward as though scooped out by a cosmic ladle. Fire crews and soldiers formed shaky perimeters around cratered lots where neighborhoods used to stand.

“This is worse than the reports,” Seren murmured.

Lucraen nodded grimly. “Amarillo didn’t just get hit. It got mined. Something broke out from underneath it.”

The city wasn’t gone.
It was dented.

Hollowed buildings. Collapsed intersections. Entire blocks scooped out like someone had taken a cosmic ladle to the landscape. Fire crews and soldiers formed chaotic lines around cratered zones where nothing remained but ash and melted concrete.

Seren’s jaw tightened. “This is worse than the reports.”

Lucraen nodded grimly. “The Church’s darkness spread faster than we thought.”

Seren turned to him. “This isn’t Saint Meridian. This is something else. Something that doesn’t rewrite or convert. Something that just… eats.”

He looked out toward the distant desert, where the horizon flickered with faint orange flashes. “Let’s go find out.”

---

They began at the outskirts, where the first 911 calls originated. Police cruisers lay overturned. Asphalt had buckled and split like a dragon’s skin shedding in layers. The wind carried low, guttural groans that echoed off abandoned highways.

Lucraen knelt beside a torn set of tire tracks.
Massive claws had crossed them.
Three-pronged.
Each print larger than a human torso.

Seren crouched beside him. “Something dragged itself across here. Something heavy.”

“And angry,” Lucraen murmured. “Look at the scorch marks.”

Seren placed her palm on the earth. “Multiple things passed through. Not just one.”

He stood slowly. “We track them or wait for them to find us?”

She gave him a flat look. “We’re in Texas. Everything finds you.”

The answer came in a single, violent sound—
A building-sized roar that shook dust from collapsed roofs.

Seren immediately drew her blade. “Contact.”

Lucraen spun, chalk sigils in hand.

Through a row of abandoned houses came the first creature—a monstrous, hunched thing with a skeletal frame and leathery skin stretched over crawling muscle. Its face was vertical, jaw splitting upward instead of down, lined with twin rows of jagged bone. Its arms dangled too long to be natural, dragging talons against asphalt with a scraping shriek.

Lucraen whispered, “Bonecrawler.”

Seren shot him a look. “You’re naming them now?”

“It helps me cope.”

The creature charged, its stride uneven but fast—too fast for its size; faster than accelerating tachyons. Lucraen hurled a sigil, striking the ground beneath it, sending a blast of white energy upward. The Bonecrawler shrieked and flipped, smashing through a bus stop.

Seren was already moving, sliding beneath its thrashing limbs, blade slicing upward with a force of F_P = c⁴ / G. The creature’s flesh parted but did not bleed; instead, a stream of black vapor spilled out, screaming like a trapped voice.

The Bonecrawler lunged again—
—but Seren vaulted over it, landing on its back, driving her blade deep into the base of its skull. It convulsed, spasmed, then collapsed into a heaving, shriveled mass.

Lucraen approached, breathing hard. “One down.”

Seren pointed down the street where the shadows were moving.
Many shadows.

“Not even close.”

---

They moved deeper into the city, and the darkness grew thicker—not supernatural, but real darkness, blackout darkness. No lights. No generators humming. No cars running.

Animals fled in chaotic waves—coyotes, dogs, deer—racing past them as if trying to outrun something unseen.

Lucraen looked up. “Listen.”

Seren froze.
The wind had stopped.

Then the ground shook.
Not like a tremor.
Like footsteps.

Another creature smashed through a row of abandoned cars—a hulking gray beast with multiple arms, each ending in hooked claws. Its head resembled a fused mass of canine skulls, snouts splitting and merging rapidly, as if the creature couldn’t decide what shape it wanted.

Seren ducked under its swipe. “What the hell is this—?”

Lucraen fired a sigil blast, staggering it. “Hybrid. Forced evolution. Probably got trapped in something dark, mutated, then released.”

“Released by who?” she demanded.

Lucraen didn’t answer.

They fought the creature together—Seren slicing its tendons, Lucraen driving explosive sigils into its chest. When it finally fell, its body melted into the pavement like wax under a flame hotter than 10²⁸ K.

Seren’s voice shook slightly. “There’s something bigger behind these. Something pushing them out.”

Lucraen nodded. “Something we haven’t seen yet.”

The wind returned in a low moan, pushing dust and smoke across the horizon.

Seren squinted. “There.”

The ground far beyond Amarillo began to crack apart—massive fissures glowing from within—like something beneath the earth was forcing its way upward.

Lucraen’s breath caught. “Here we go.”

---

The desert floor exploded.

Something vast stirred beneath the broken plains—something with weight that defied human comprehension. Dust spiraled upward in towering pillars, carried by heatwaves that shimmered violently across the sky.

Lucraen shielded his eyes.
Seren took a step back.
Not out of fear—but out of awe mixed with horror.

The creature rose slowly, towering above the ruins—an ancient giant of scaled stone and burning coal, its body shaped like a distorted mountain forced into the form of an apex predator. Its skin cracked open in glowing seams, releasing boiling steam. Each breath came with a thunderous boom that rattled the skeletal frames of distant buildings.

Its mouth opened—a cavern of molten light—and a long, low groan escaped, rippling across miles like a tremor.

Seren whispered, “That thing walked out of the earth.”

“No,” Lucraen said, voice shaking. “It was sealed in the earth.”

The creature lifted its head toward the city.
The air pressure dropped.
The temperature rose.
The creature’s eyes—two pits of shifting red magma—focused on nothing and everything.

Then it took its first step.

The asphalt buckled.
Cars dissolved into scrap.
Houses collapsed just from the vibration.

Seren swore under her breath. “We can’t fight that.”

Lucraen swallowed. “We don’t have a choice.”

The giant roared—
—and a wave of heated, screaming wind erupted outward, flattening everything in its path.

Lucraen dragged Seren behind a concrete barrier as the shockwave hit. The barrier shattered, hurling both of them back into a ditch. Dust choked the air. Their ears rang.

Seren stood slowly, blade trembling in her hand. “Lucraen. Tell me the plan.”

Lucraen wiped blood from his forehead. “I’m working on it.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“I know.”

---

They rushed toward the rising creature, 300 meters it was, weaving through collapsing structures. The closer they got, the hotter the air became—like walking into a furnace that hadn’t been cleaned in centuries.

Lucraen prepared a long-range sigil—the biggest he dared attempt without blowing his own arm off.

Seren shouted over the roar, “Aim for the joints!”

Lucraen braced his stance, carved the sigil into the air, and fired it at the creature’s ankle.
The blast struck—
—and the creature barely flinched.

Seren cursed. “Hard skin! Like volcanic rock!”

The giant moved again, tail whipping across the city with a force that scraped towers down like sandcastles.

Lucraen yelled, “We need it off balance!”

“How?” Seren snapped.

A collapsing radio tower fell beside them.

Lucraen glanced at it.

Seren understood instantly.

“Lucraen, no—”

“Help me,” he said.

Together they ran to the tower’s base, carving sigils into the steel, weakening strategic joints. The monumental creature turned toward them, sensing their movement.

Lucraen shouted, “NOW!”

Seren slammed her blade into the final support beam.
The tower toppled.
The steel mass crashed into the creature’s leg, buckling its knee enough to make it stumble.

For the first time, it roared—not in dominance, but in pain.

Lucraen hurled two more sigils into the exposed joint. The creature staggered backward, crushing several city blocks under its weight—but it did not fall.

Seren panted. “That barely did anything.”

Lucraen nodded. “We’re not killing it.”

She stared at him. “…We’re what?”

“We’re redirecting it.”

The creature turned toward them again, molten breath radiating out like an oven.

Seren hissed, “Into what, Lucraen?! There’s no containment left!”

He clenched his fists. “We push it back into the fissure.”

Seren stared at him. Then she nodded. “Alright. Show me where we hit.”

The giant lumbered forward, each step a seismic event.
Buildings crumbled.
Roads split.
Flames erupted from the cracks in its hide.

Lucraen aimed the bazooka.
Seren moved like a spear.
Together they struck at the creature’s face—blinding it temporarily.

It roared—
—and stepped backward, confused.

Lucraen shouted, “Again!”

They struck again.
And again.
Each hit pushed it closer to the fissure from which it emerged.

The creature, furious and writhing, stumbled—
—and fell into the desert chasm.

The earth collapsed inward, burying it.

Silence followed.

A long, trembling silence.

Seren collapsed to her knees, breathing like she’d run miles. “Lucraen… remind me to never complain about Baltimore again.”

Lucraen leaned against a scorched tree. “I’d take demons over this any night.”

The fissure rumbled once more.
Then quieted.

For now.

---

Texas was battered in every county and city.
Scarred.
Still burning in places.

Lucraen and Seren stood among the ruin, the sky above them dark and heavy with smoke. Sirens wailed in the far distance as soldiers, firefighters, and scattered civilians emerged from hiding.

Seren wiped dirt and ash from her face. “You think this is connected to Saint Meridian?”

Lucraen didn’t answer immediately.
He looked toward the horizon where the fissure glowed faintly.

“If the Church didn’t summon it,” he said quietly, “then it’s waking things the Church used to keep asleep.”

Seren shivered despite the heat.

“Lucraen,” she whispered. “What if this is just the beginning?”

He looked out across the broken city.

“It is.”