Maul crashed into the Broodmother with the force of a meteor strike.

"Bang!'

The sound exploded across the cavern like a firecracker trapped in a bottle. A shockwave ripped outward, shaking the chamber's stone walls.

Dust and shards of rock rained down from the ceiling like rainfalls. The entire mine seemed to reel from the force of that one, brutal impact.

The clash between Maul and the Broodmother was like a war between titans. No, gods.

Maul's raw power was absolutely intense.

He was a creature of pure, focused rage, its every movement a hammer blow. It drove its massive shoulder into the Broodmother's core, trying to bulldoze the larger creature backward.

But the Broodmother was a being born of ancient strength and horrific science. It was larger, with multiple, whip-fast limbs that lashed out, stabbing and tearing at Maul's runic-hardened hide.

The attacks bounced off the metallic sheen of the Runic Stone-Form with showers of sparks, but the sheer force of the blows made Maul stagger. The Broodmother was like a strong castle, and Maul was the great machine trying to break its walls.

The rest of the team could only watch, a stunned audience to a battle of gods and monsters. They held their ground against the remaining drones, but their fight was a sideshow.

The main event was the clash of creators' children.

Through his link, Jonah felt the strain on Maul. He could feel the time limit on Runic Stone-Form ticking down, a psychic countdown. The blue runes on Maul's body began to flicker, and the unbreakable glow on its skin started to fade. Its invulnerability was about to expire.

If that happened, Maul would be torn to shreds in seconds.

The Broodmother sensed it, too. It wrapped two of its limbs around Maul's torso, its grip like tightening bands of steel.

It was waiting, biding its time until Maul's ultimate defense failed.

He suddenly saw an opening, a desperate one. It was a crazy gamble. But it was their only way.

He pushed his will through the link,a clear and final command. It wasn't just an order; it was a plea.

Maul! Drop the shield! Put it all into the tusks!

Maul, in its primal rage, understood. It didn't hesitate. It obeyed.

It released the energy sustaining the Runic Stone-Form. The brilliant, metallic sheen that covered its body vanished in an instant. The glowing blue runes faded back to a soft, ambient hum.

Its tough, stone-hide skin was now vulnerable, exposed to the Broodmother's many sharp limbs.

But the power didn't just disappear. It was channeled.

All the defensive energy, all the magic of Vanessa's Runic Collar, was forced into a single point. Maul's thick, curved tusks, which were dangerous, began to glow with a very white-hot light. They blazed like a small sun, so bright it hurt the eyes.

The Broodmother, caught off guard by the sudden drop in defense, tightened its grip, its sharp limbs digging deep into Maul's now-vulnerable shoulders.

Dark blood flowed from the wounds, but Maul showed no reaction.

It had one purpose.

Maul gave a final roar of pain and victory. Then, it drove its super-charged tusks forward.

It wasn't a piercing attack. It was an explosive one. The tusks sank deep into the Broodmother's central nerve. This was where its spider and dragon parts all joined.

The blow was fatal.

A psychic scream erupted from the Broodmother. It was a wave of pure pain that covered the whole cave. The drones stopped moving right away. Their link to their group mind was broken. They fell where they stood, like dead bodies.

The battle was over.

The Broodmother's massive body slumped, its limbs going limp. As it died, its psychic voice returned to Jonah's mind. It was no longer a roar of rage or a plea of sorrow. It was soft and filled with a strange peace.

[You are strong… and so is your child… A good creator…]

Maul, heavily wounded, tried to pull back, but it was held fast in the dying creature's grip.

[Take my memory… Do not let it be for nothing… Create… a better future…]

Jonah felt a sudden surge of power rush towards him. It wasn't forced. It wasn't an attack. It was a willing gift, an inheritance passed from one creator to another.

He instinctively opened his mind to it, and the essence of the Broodmother flooded into his Beast Space.

[Alpha Broodmother Essence Acquired]

Its essence was a Nexus type. It held a huge amount of information, like a spinning galaxy. It was so vast it took his breath away. It contained the stable, genetic data of every creature the lab had used, plus the Broodmother's own unique lineage.

It was the most valuable, most powerful prize a Beast Weaver could ever obtain.

But the psychic feedback was catastrophic.

It was too much. The essence contained not just genetic information, but a thousand years of life, decades of unimaginable torture, and the overwhelming sorrow of a mother watching her children die.

It felt like a bomb going off inside Jonah's head.

The world dissolved into a storm of white noise and searing pain. He let out a choked gasp and collapsed, his body hitting the stone floor with a heavy thud.

"Jonah!"

He barely heard Vanessa's desperate yell. Before he lost consciousness, the last thing he saw was two people rushing to his side.

Benita was there in an instant her hands glowing with a bright, emerald light as she urgently worked to steady his body, which was shaking uncontrollably from the psychic shock.

Vanessa was right beside her. She didn't know how to heal a body, but she understood magical overload. Her own hands lit up with a cool, blue light as she began to trace complex runes in the air around Jonah's head, creating a stabilizing field to soothe the raging storm in his mind.

What they did together, right away, proved without words how important they both were to keeping him alive. One fixed his body, the other guarded his mind. They were his shield.