The Guardian System: The strongest Summoner's quest to save his family

The ground trembled. Two giants emerged from the Crystal Grotto. Stone scraped against stone as their massive bodies moved through the passage.

The barrier of thorns, trees, and monsters that kept them separated from the wider valley was finally destroyed. The creatures preventing them from escaping the grotto were gone. They were free.

The first Behemoth halted at the grotto's edge, its massive head turning slowly to take in the world outside. It towered three stories high, a walking mountain of layered stone plates that scraped and shifted with every movement.

The second Behemoth lumbered forward, smaller than its twin but no less imposing. It raised its head and inhaled deeply through vents in its neck, sampling the air. Something burned nearby. The scent of smoke drifted across the valley, carried by the wind.

The larger Behemoth took its first step outside of the grotto. The earth buckled beneath its weight, leaving a crater in the soft soil.

The valley spread before them; it was vast and inviting. Prey existed here. Territories waited to be claimed.

They walked toward the smoke.

The Crimson Briar Patch burned. Flames consumed the thorny vegetation, sending pillars of black smoke into the sky.

The Behemoths entered the burning forest without hesitation. Fire licked at their stone hides but did nothing.

The flames might as well have been wind for all the harm they caused. The creatures waded through the conflagration.

Movement flickered between the burning trees ahead.

The larger Behemoth stopped, its head lowering as it focused on the shapes darting through the flames. Dozens of creatures fled the fire, driven from their territories by the advancing inferno. They scattered in all directions, desperate and panicked.

Six of them ran in a tight group, with eyes wild with fear. They saw the Behemoths and veered, trying to circle around the stone giants.

The smaller Behemoth moved with surprising speed. Its foot slammed down on the monsters, crushing them instantly. The creatures' bodies disappeared beneath tons of living rock, reduced to pulp and fragments.

There were more creatures around, though, and the giants noticed them, although most of them fled into the deeper flames and vanished from their sight.

The Behemoths kept moving. More monsters burst from the flames, all running from the fire. One of the giants opened its mouth and let out a grinding roar. The sound vibrated through the stone plates of its body, growing stronger until it became a physical force.

A monster heard it and froze from the pain in its ears, its instincts screaming to leave, but it was unable to. The Behemoth's jaws snapped shut around it. Stone teeth ground together, and the Stalker's body crumpled like parchment.

Another pack of monsters was spotted next, their fur already alight with small flames. They tried to flank the smallest Behemoth while it fed on a corpse. The creatures darted in, seeking gaps in the creature's stone armor.

They found none.

The Behemoth's stone hide shrugged off the monsters' attacks like rain. Teeth scraped against rock, useless. One wolf lunged, its jaws snapping shut. The creature's fangs shattered, making the creature yelp in pain and stumble back.

The giant took its time, moving deliberately. It didn't need haste. With a slow, unstoppable force, it raised one massive foot, then brought it crashing down like a falling mountain, crushing two more monsters beneath tons of living rock. Their screams of terror cut off abruptly.

The surviving ones broke and ran.

More creatures poured from the flames as the fire spread. None succeeded.

The Behemoths killed. They crushed, trampled, and devoured everything that crossed their path.

Their movements created devastation; each step flattened burning vegetation, and each swing of their tails cleared entire swaths of forest. Bodies littered the ground behind them.

Then they ate. Once the beasts were done. They raised their heads. There was a burning forest below them, with monsters fleeing, and they were going toward the valley. It was there they were going to head next.

***

The Alpha Mire-Crawler descended into the Chittering Tunnels.

Darkness swallowed the creature as it moved deeper, but its eyes adjusted. Corpses littered the passages. Razorwing Skitterers were crushed beneath collapsed stone or torn apart by whatever force had destroyed this place.

The Alpha's nostrils flared. Living prey existed deeper in the tunnels. The scent of fear and confusion saturated the air. The creature moved forward.

A group of Razorwing Skitterers huddled in a side chamber. Twenty of them clustered around a pile of debris. They searched for direction from a hive mind that no longer existed. The Alpha's shadow fell across the entrance, and they turned as one.

The Mire-Crawler attacked before they could run. It snapped its enormous jaws shut on the closest Skitterer, crushing its hard shell and insides. Its tail swung through the room, slamming three more against the walls.

The ones still alive tried to escape, but the tunnel gave them no way out. The Alpha moved fast, killing each one in seconds. Guts splattered the chamber walls. Broken shells crunched under its feet.

The Alpha continued deeper.

More Skitterers appeared around each bend. Some tried to fight. Others attempted to flee, scuttling up the walls or deeper into the tunnels. None escaped. The Alpha hunted them through chamber after chamber, leaving trails of shattered corpses behind.

The creature's body changed as it fed. Power surged through its muscles with each kill. Its hide grew thicker and darker. The scars covering its body began to fade, replaced by tougher scales.

The Alpha reached the deepest chamber.

The Queen's corpse lay in the center, her massive body crushed and broken. Around her, scattered across the floor, sat dozens of eggs. Most had been abandoned. Some showed cracks where desperate workers had tried and failed to move them. Most likely, a good chunk of them had been brought outside.

The last group of Razorwing Skitterers surrounded the eggs. Thirty workers formed a protective ring to guard what remained of their hive's future. They clicked and scraped their mandibles together when the Alpha appeared, creating a sound like rattling chains.

The Alpha let out a guttural roar.

The sound shook loose stones from the ceiling, rattling down around them. The Razorwing Skitterers held their ground for three seconds. Then, instinct took over. They scattered, desperate to escape.

The Alpha hunted them down. Within minutes, the last of them lay dead. Silence settled over the deepest chamber of the Chittering Tunnels.

The Alpha loomed over the scattered eggs. Most were dull, their surfaces cracked and lifeless. But one caught its eye — a single queen egg, pulsing with a weak, flickering glow. The last queen egg, the only one the other Razorwing Skitterers didn't bring out.

With a heavy step, the Alpha brought its massive foot down. The egg burst with a soft crack, the shell splintering like glass. It lowered its head and licked the remnants from the floor, swallowing the last spark of the Razorwing Skitterers' future.

Power exploded through the Alpha's body.

Its muscles seized and swelled, bulging with raw power. Bones snapped and shifted, stretching into longer, thicker forms. The creature's hide turned to iron, scales spreading like armor over every inch of skin. Its spine arched as jagged ridges of bone erupted along its back, jutting upward like a natural shield.

The Alpha tilted its head toward the cavern roof. It kept growing, swelling to dominate the chamber. What was already huge became monstrous. Its legs thickened into pillars of muscle and bone. Its tail stretched longer, the tip forming a heavy, spiked club.

The entire exchange took maybe five minutes. When it was done, the Alpha stood half again its old size. Its eyes glowed amber in the dark, full of a new, chilling light. The creature's level had jumped by twenty, crossing a line from powerful beast into something far beyond.

The Alpha turned and stalked back through the tunnels, leaving the ruined hive behind. Its pack waited up above—they needed to see what their leader had become.