Adam's Hunter's Tri-Sense swept through the cold, dry tunnels, filtering out the mundane. Finally, he sensed it—a quick, skittering consciousness, observing them from a crack in the wall. It was a Shadow-Tail Gecko, a creature known for its mimicry and unusual intelligence for its size. It had large, observant eyes and a frilled neck, currently colored to match the grey stone.

"There," Adam pulsed. "That one. It's watching us. Capture it. Alive."

«On it, Boss!» Ignis chirped, and before anyone could strategize, she lunged with a playful Cinder Dash, more like an enthusiastic puppy than a predator.

The gecko, however, was fiendishly quick. It shot from its crevice, not in a blind panic, but in a zigzagging sprint towards a wall of stalagmites. Its claws found purchase on the vertical stone, and it began to scale it with astonishing speed.

«Going somewhere?» Alice's voice materialized right in front of it as she used Void Step, appearing on the wall above. The gecko froze, its frills flaring in alarm, before dropping straight down.

It landed only to find itself entangled in a web of near-invisible Sovereign Silk that hadn't been there a second before. Lilith lowered herself from the ceiling on a single strand, a crimson-eyed architect of the trap. «Fufu… such admirable agility. Now, let's have a… discussion.»

The gecko thrashed for a moment, then went utterly, completely limp. Its eyes glassed over, its tongue lolled out. It was a perfect performance of sudden death.

«Aww! It died!» Ignis whined, landing with a disappointed thump. «I didn't even get to scare it properly!»

«Don't be an idiot,» Alice sighed, padding closer. «It's pretending. Its heartbeat is still frantic. It's a defense mechanism.»

Lilith skittered right up to the "corpse," her hellish eyes glowing with delight. «Oh, this is promising. The capacity for such complex deception indicates a sophisticated neural structure. Information extraction should be… vividly detailed.» One of her spear-tipped legs rose, the point hovering millimeters from the gecko's frilled head.

The gecko's skin visibly paled several shades. A drop of cold, reptilian sweat dripped from its brow.

«Will it be useful?» Alice questioned, skeptical. «This thing is clever, but it's not ancient. It likely hasn't seen the serpent itself.»

"No harm in trying," Adam said, coiling closer. His massive shadow fell over the gecko. The combination of his Abyssal Majesty and Lilith's looming presence was too much. The gecko's act broke. It began to shiver violently, letting out a pathetic, high-pitched squeak.

"Lilith. Proceed."

«With pleasure~»

Lilith's voice was a silk-covered razor. Her leg-tip pressed forward, not with a violent stab, but with a slow, inexorable, and horribly precise pressure. The sharp point dimpled the gecko's tough scalp, then began to pierce it with a faint, gritty crunch.

'That's just torturing it slowly,' Adam thought, Seeing Lilith enjoying it made him shiver a little.

The gecko squealed, its body convulsing against the silk bonds. Lilith ignored its struggles, her focus absolute. The tip of her leg penetrated fully, making contact with the creature's brain. Her crimson eyes blazed.

«Show me,» she commanded psychically, the order flowing directly into the gecko's mind through her physical link. «The white shape in the deep dark. The cold coils that watch from stone. The silent hunter. Where does it dwell? What does it fear? Show me its paths.»

Images, smells, sensations and jumbled flooded into Lilith's mind from the dying gecko. She sorted them with terrible efficiency.

«I have it,» she announced after a moment, retracting her leg with a soft, wet sound. The gecko went truly limp, its brief life and knowledge consumed. «The serpent is a ghost story even among monsters. But this one… it once fled through a network of canyons made of pale, brittle stone. The air there smells of ozone and old acid. It saw shed scales, large enough to be shields, pure white and harder than steel, caught on sharp crystals. It heard sounds there—not strikes or hisses, but a low, rhythmic vibration, like stone grinding deep underground. The locals call the place the 'Bone-White Canyons.' They avoid it. Nothing that goes in is ever seen again… except as bones, picked clean and bleached white.»

She turned her burning gaze to Adam. «The gecko never saw the serpent itself. Only the signs. The territory. It is a place of absolute silence and sudden death. The description matches the diary. The White Serpent does not just hunt there… it cultivates its hunting grounds.»

Adam absorbed the information. A territory of silence and bleached bones. A predator that left its shed scales as warnings. It was perfect. A true apex. The essence he needed would be there.

"Good," he rumbled. "Then we go to the Bone-White Canyons."

Lilith observed the limp form of the gecko, her crimson gaze analytical. The precise psychic intrusion had severed vital neural pathways almost instantly. «It appears the performance has concluded. It served its purpose.»

A faint notification flickered in Adam's vision: [ Shadow-Tail Gecko Defeated. +5 EXP | +3 EP ].

A pittance, but the information was the true reward.

Ignis, however, stared at the small carcass with undisguised culinary interest. «But can't we eat it? It might be crunchy! Like a snack!»

«Must every thought in your head revolve around your stomach?» Alice snapped, giving the drake a firm, shoving nudge with her shoulder. «We do not have time to roast snacks. Move. Now.»

Ignis stumbled, grumbling. «But I'm hungry...»

Lilith glided closer to Ignis, her psychic voice dropping to a conspiratorial, soothing murmur. «Patience, Ignis. Meager flesh like that is hardly worth the effort. We are heading towards prey far grander, far more potent... which will undoubtedly provide a feast worthy of your palate once subdued. Trust me, it will be worth the wait.»

Ignis looked up, her fiery eyes reigniting. «Really? A big feast?»

"Really," Adam confirmed, already turning to lead them into the tunnel network Lilith's extracted memories indicated. "The biggest prey we've ever hunted."

«Are you certain this will work?» Alice's mental voice was laced with skepticism, echoing in the silent tunnel as they navigated towards the coordinates Lilith had extracted. «We are walking into the lair of a creature that has made itself a myth. It could be a trap. Or worse, a slaughter.»

Adam's galactic eyes glowed with steady resolve. "Worrying won't change the outcome. We will succeed. We have no other choice. Evolving here, defeating it, is the only way we survive what comes next."

Lilith, scouting ahead as a silent crimson shadow, added her analysis. «The creature will doubtlessly possess formidable defenses. If it is serpentine and of a tier comparable to you, Adam, its scales will be its primary armor. Our conventional attacks—my silk, Alice's bolts, Ignis's fire may glance off. We require a method of penetration. A surgical strike to a vital point.»

"That's already accounted for," Adam replied, his mind reviewing his upgraded arsenal. "Monarch's Pierce was designed to break the hardest armor. Tempest Fangs can strike with multiple points of concentrated force. And..." He felt the weight of the Crown of the Hollow Glutton on his brow, its hunger a quiet pulse. "We have other advantages now. We'll shatter its defenses, drain its will, and claim its essence."

Ignis, trotting alongside, cracked her neck, flames licking her teeth. «I'll melt its face off! No scale is fireproof if it's hot enough!»

«A simplistic but potentially valid supplementary tactic,» Lilith conceded. «Thermal shock could weaken the structural integrity of its scales for Adam's piercing strikes.»

«So the plan is: you tank, we debuff, you stab it in the brain,» Alice summarized, her tone dry but her posture shifting into a ready crouch as the tunnel began to widen. The air grew noticeably colder and carried a faint, acrid tang.

"Essentially," Adam agreed. "But be ready to adapt. It's lived this long by being smarter than its prey. We won't give it the chance to think."

They rounded a final bend, and the tunnel opened up. Before them stretched a breathtaking, terrifying vista—the Bone-White Canyons.

The name was brutally literal. The cavern was immense, its walls and jagged floor composed of a pale, porous stone that looked like petrified bone. Giant crystalline structures, sharp as needles and glowing with a faint internal light, jutted from the ground and ceiling.

The air was dead silent, and the scent was a mix of ozone, like after a lightning strike, and the dry, metallic smell of old acid pools. Scattered everywhere, gleaming against the pale stone, were bones. Massive ribs, shattered skulls of unknown beasts, all bleached to a perfect, deathly white.

And there, caught on a particularly large crystal spike like a macabre trophy, was a scale. It was as large as a knight's shield, thick, and pure, blinding white. It was unmarred, flawless, and radiated a faint, cold power.

It was a warning.

They had arrived.

Adam coiled at the entrance, his feathered wings tucked close. His voice was the barest whisper in their minds. "It's here."

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