Smoke tasted of copper and burning hair. Heavy, suffocating fumes drifted over the shattered docks of Gresik, carrying the scent of pulverized iron and scorched earth. Awan knelt in the ruined mud, his knees sinking into the wet clay. His hands shook as he cradled Ratna's limp body, her blood staining his palms a brilliant, terrifying crimson. Every ragged breath she drew felt like a blade twisting in his chest. Blue light bled from the jagged fissures tearing through the harbor floor. His Commoner's Veil was shattered, and the raw, golden tempest of his spiritual energy had torn the earth wide open, exposing the ancient veins of the world beneath. Heavy, ancient air rushed up from the depths, carrying a smell of rotting vegetation and prehistoric mud. Something massive was stirring down there, awakened prematurely by the violent spike of his unsheathed soul. "Move!" Sekar screamed, her voice cracking as she dragged a dazed harbor worker away from a widening crevice. "Awan, we have to get back! The ground is collapsing!" Screams from the surviving dockworkers echoed through the rising dust. They scrambled over overturned carts and broken shipping crates, fleeing the glowing blue cracks that pulsed like dying hearts. Blood dripped from Awan's knuckles as he gently laid Ratna behind a stack of thick mahogany timber. His chest burned with a mixture of suffocating guilt and raw, unadulterated fury. He had failed to protect her, and now his shattered disguise had summoned something far worse than Gajah Wulung's iron colossi. Shoving his grief into a dark, locked corner of his mind, Awan stood up. His posture shifted, the lazy, mocking demeanor of the ordinary peasant vanishing entirely to reveal the cold, terrifying presence of an invincible warlord. Standing tall, Awan watched as the earth erupted. A colossal mound of wet silt, rotting river-reeds, and glowing blue crystalline stone burst from the harbor floor, towering over the warehouses. Giant, blind eyes bulged from a face of compressed river stone. It was a minor terrestrial deity, a primordial guardian of the deep alluvial layers, awakened in a state of blind, agonizing madness. It roared, a sound like grinding tectonic plates that shattered every glass window within a league. "Listen to me!" Awan's voice boomed over the din, carrying a heavy, commanding weight that forced the fleeing workers to freeze in their tracks. "If you run, it will crush you all. Stand and fight!" Dockworkers scattered in panic, but Sekar stood firm, her eyes wide as she looked at Awan. His skin faint with a golden sheen, his eyes burning with an ancient light—he was no longer the charming rogue she thought she knew. "Salt!" Awan yelled, his mind calculating at lightning speed as he observed the creature's dripping, mud-slicked hide. "It is a creature of the deep freshwater silt. Its skin is porous clay. Salt will dehydrate its core and split its stone armor!" Sekar blinked through the dust, her tactical mind catching up to his. "The Madura trade ships! They just unloaded ten tons of raw sea salt on the southern wharf!" "Get the men and tear those bags open!" Awan ordered, his voice leaving no room for argument. "Create a barrier around the central plaza and throw it directly into the creature's joints. I will keep its attention!" Swiftly, she rallied the trembling harbor workers, her fierce determination igniting a spark of hope in their terrified chests. They ran toward the southern wharf, grabbing iron hooks and shovels. Massive, mud-slicked tentacles of compressed stone lashed out from the deity's body, smashing a heavy wooden crane into splinters. The beast dragged its bloated, slug-like lower half across the docks, leaving a trail of boiling, blue-glowing slime that melted the wooden planks. Wood splintered into a thousand projectiles as another sweep of its massive arm demolished a warehouse. Awan moved like a streak of golden lightning, dodging the debris with effortless, lethal grace. Awan leaped over a falling beam, his eyes locked on the creature's central mass. He needed to draw it away from where Ratna lay unconscious, leading it toward the open plaza where Sekar was preparing the trap. Salt bags burst open across the plaza as Sekar and fifty screaming harbor workers created a thick, white line of coarse sea salt. They threw spadefuls of the white crystals into the air, creating a stinging cloud. White crystals rained down on the beast as it lunged into the plaza. The moment the sea salt touched its wet, muddy hide, a horrific hissing sound filled the air, followed by steam and the smell of burning sulfur. Roaring in agony, the deity thrashed wildly, its stone plates cracking and peeling away as the salt rapidly sucked the moisture from its primordial flesh. It screeched, a high-pitched vibration that made the workers drop their shovels and cover their ears. Mud and primordial blood poured from its wounds, but the beast's mindless hunger only intensified. It focused its massive, blind head directly on a group of trapped workers who had tripped near the salt barrier, raising a colossal fist of solid granite to crush them. "Keep throwing it!" Sekar yelled, trying to drag a heavy sack forward, her hands bleeding from the rough hemp. Crackling golden light enveloped Awan's boots as he launched himself off a crumbling stone wall. He closed the distance in a fraction of a second, his body slamming directly into the creature's raised arm, deflecting the blow into the dirt. Desperation drove him to push his physical limits, his muscles screaming as he fought without his sword. He needed to destroy the core deep inside its chest, but he had to get close enough to strike. Diving straight into the creature's wet, heavy torso, Awan grappled with the god. The moment his hands sank into the cold, mud-slicked flesh, a violent jolt of ancient energy surged through his arms and directly into his mind. Cold, wet flesh pressed against his face as he clawed his way upward, fighting the crushing weight of the deity's massive bulk. It was like trying to swim through a mountain of wet concrete. His hands dug deeper, seeking the glowing blue core, but the contact forced his mind open. He was suddenly flooded with the creature's ancient, mindless hunger—a vast, dark void of endless centuries spent sleeping in the cold dark, suddenly shattered by his own violent light. Mindless, endless void threatened to swallow Awan's consciousness, the creature's agony and hunger clawing at his own soul through the crack in his Commoner's Veil. He gasped, his vision blurring as he felt his own identity slipping into the primordial blackness. Awan gritted his teeth, his jaw clenching so hard a tooth cracked. He forced his mind back to reality, visualizing Ratna's bleeding face, Sekar's desperate shouts, and his own burning desire to survive. "Die, you miserable relic!" Awan roared, his voice echoing with a double-toned resonance that shook the very harbor. Pulling back his right arm, he gathered every ounce of his remaining golden spiritual energy, wrapping his fist in a dense, blazing aura of pure force. He drove his hand deep into the creature's central mass, shattering the outer layers of stone and reaching the giant, watery singular eye that served as its sensory core. Just as Awan prepares to strike the killing blow, the beast's single massive eye reflects a vision of Gajah Wulung holding a sacrificial blade over a bound captive who looks exactly like Sekar's missing father.

Chapter 11: The First Maw Opens