Her voice was the only sound, a vibration that resonated in their souls rather than their ears.

Then, the change began.

Alice's form began to dissolve at the edges, bleeding into the surrounding darkness. She wasn't just growing; she was unfolding. Her sleek lynx-like body elongated, becoming more powerful and panther-like. Her star-filled fur darkened into an abyssal black so pure it hurt to look at, with the pinpricks of light within now swirling like distant, malevolent galaxies.

Her tail lengthened, lashing with an energy that left faint tears in the air itself. When the transformation settled, she was nearly half again her previous size, a creature of living, breathing void whose very presence seemed to consume the light and sound around her.

A new notification seared itself into Adam's mind.

[ Alice has evolved into: Voidweaver Panther ]

Her eyes, now pools of liquid obsidian, opened and fixed on Adam. The playful, sometimes jealous companion was still there, but now tempered and amplified by immense power. She radiated an aura of ancient, cold precision.

'The void speaks to me more clearly now,' she projected, her mental voice calm and layered with new depths. 'It offers more than just binding and stepping. It offers... projection.'

She turned her head towards the crystalline corpse of the Marsh Lurker. She didn't move, but the space between her and the corpse twisted. A shard of absolute darkness, sharper than any physical blade and silent as the grave, shot from the space in front of her.

It was not a beam or a bolt, but a lance of solidified nothingness. It crossed the distance instantly and struck the Lurker's body. There was no explosive impact, only a quiet, clean void where the crystal and flesh simply ceased to exist, leaving a perfectly spherical hole drilled through the monster's remains.

[ New Skill Acquired: Void Bolt (Active) - Cost: High Mana ]

Effect: Fires a projectile of concentrated void energy that pierces through targets, ignoring a significant portion of physical and magical defense.

Adam stared, a sense of awe cutting through his fatigue. Alice had not only grown in size and presence but had gained a devastating, precise ranged attack. Their party's combat potential had just skyrocketed.

Ignis, now mostly healed and watching with wide, impressed eyes, let out a soft chirp. 'Wow, Alice... you're... really scary now.'

Alice flicked her new, longer tail, a gesture that was both elegant and menacing. Her gaze softened slightly as she looked at the recovering Ignis.

'Good,' she replied, a hint of her old smugness returning, now backed by terrifying power. 'Now maybe you will listen to me the first time, little lizard.'

But before Ignis could retort, Adam's new Hunter's Tri-Sense spiked with a new, overwhelming signal. It wasn't from the lake. It was coming from the tunnel they had originally used to enter the Violet Abyss.

A psychic signature of immense, world-ending hunger. A seismic vibration of countless skittering legs. A scent of chitin and acid that dwarfed the swarm they had encountered before.

His head snapped towards the entrance. The collapsed tunnel they had sealed was now shuddering, dust and rock falling as something enormous began to force its way through.

"The Creeper Queen," Adam breathed, the realization turning his blood to ice. "Our meeting with Cavern Creeper Swarm.... it must have drawn her out. She's here."

The immense, skittering vibration from the tunnel entrance felt like a drill boring directly into Adam's skull. He let out a long, weary sigh, the sound heavy with exhaustion and frustration.

Just a moment. We just needed a moment of peace.

His gaze swept over his companions. Ignis was still limping, the miraculous healing of the Gleamdew Berry not yet complete, her body visibly trembling with residual pain. Alice stood transformed, a magnificent Voidweaver Panther radiating terrifying new power, but even she was breathing heavily from their last battle. They were hurt. They were spent.

And the Creeper Queen was coming.

His new Hunter's Tri-Sense painted a horrifyingly clear picture, a singular, colossal psychic signature of pure, gnawing hunger, carried on a tide of thousands of lesser minds. It was a force meant to overwhelm, to consume. They couldn't fight it here. Not in their current state.

A plan, desperate and reckless, formed in his mind. It was the only way.

"Alice," he said, his voice low and urgent. "Stay with Ignis. Protect her."

Alice's new, abyssal eyes widened. 'What are you going to do?'

"I'm going to draw it away. Lead it on a chase."

'No!' Her telepathic voice was sharp, laced with panic. 'That's unnecessary! We run together!'

"We can't," Adam insisted, his tone leaving no room for argument. "It knows we're here. My Tri-Sense... it's not just tracking prey. It's locked onto me. It's marked me as the primary threat. If we all run, it will follow my scent. It will never stop, and it will run you both down while you're weak."

'Then we fight it together! Like we always do!' Alice protested, stepping forward, her form flickering with void energy.

"It's too dangerous!" Adam's voice rose, a rare crack of fear for them showing through. "I can't... I won't watch you get hurt again. Just stay safe. I'll come back. I promise."

'Liar...' Alice's thought was a whisper, filled with a pain that had nothing to do with physical wounds.

Adam flinched.

'LIAR!' she screamed into his mind, the force of it making him stagger. 'You said we are a team! You said we stick together! You don't get to do this alone! Don't you dare—!'

"Phantom Onslaught!"

He didn't let her finish. He couldn't. If he heard another word, his resolve would shatter. His body vanished in a series of rapid, blinding dashes that carried him not away from the tunnel, but directly towards it.

He reappeared right before the crumbling entrance. The skittering was deafening now. He could smell the acidic breath of the Queen. He took a deep breath and unleashed a concentrated Fire Breath, not at the tunnel, but at the cavern ceiling above it. The rock, superheated, groaned and collapsed, sealing the entrance once more, but this time, with him on the outside, in the tunnel with the approaching horror.

«ADAM!» Alice's psychic scream was a desperate thing that echoed in the now-empty space he had left behind.

But Adam was already focused. He turned to face the sealed rubble, feeling the immense pressure from the other side. He let his own aura flare, his Draconic Affinity, his Volcanic Hide, his sheer presence as an Obsidian Monarch Serpent.

"Come here you damn insect, come to daddy"

He focused his Hunter's Tri-Sense on the other side of the rockfall. The colossal psychic signature shifted, its boundless hunger now mixed with sharp, focused aggression. The seismic vibrations re-oriented, zeroing in on his location.

The message was clear, a confirmation from the system itself that echoed in his soul.

It has marked you.

With a final, thunderous crash, the rubble exploded inward. Adam didn't wait to see the full horror of the Creeper Queen.

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