The creature moved first.
Not with the speed of the Deep Stalkers or the coordinated precision of the earlier monsters, but with something slower and considerably more absolute. The movement of something that had stopped needing to be fast because nothing it had ever encountered required it to be.
One of its upper limbs extended toward Damon across the chamber.
The pressure that radiated from the motion was purely physical, not an ability, just a consequence of its existence, the air around the limb compressing as it moved in a way that told him the impact would be nothing like anything the previous chambers had produced.
He stepped into the shadows.
The limb passed through where he'd been a second ago and struck the smooth stone floor.
It shattered it completely. It wasn't a simple crack or a small fracture line, but a crater-like impact that would've obliterated anything in its path.
Damon reappeared twenty meters to its left and reassessed the monster from afar.
