Ethan's expression changed with everyone else's.
He opened the system instantly and rescanned the spot Lily was staring at.
Sure enough—beneath that region, there was a strange, brutal power signature hiding down there.
But what grabbed Ethan's attention wasn't the power itself.
It was the other detail—
He'd scanned that place before.
And back then, the system had found nothing.
Which meant whatever was hiding underground could, at least to some extent, slip past the system's scan.
That realization tightened something in Ethan's chest more than the creature's raw strength did.
And while everyone was still locked on that patch of ground—
It blew.
No warning. A violent surge of force punched up from the depths, and the earth detonated. The ground split and burst outward in a roaring collapse.
Then a howl of laughter rolled up from the fissure.
A moment later, a massive body rose slowly from the crack and lifted into the sky.
It was huge.
