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And before anyone could recover, an earthquake arrived.

From there, Taj lost track of what was happening. His feet no longer touched the ground. Rocks flew up around him. Something passed by his vision. A hulking thing, the size of a bus. And there was a loud voice in the air, but it was distorted as through a bullhorn, and he couldn’t make out what it was saying in the slightest. Whether that was because of said distortion or because the voice was simply speaking an entirely foreign language, he also could not tell.

But he did get plenty of time to think about it, because he abruptly found himself stuck fast, suspended in midair and unable to move any of his limbs.

He didn’t understand. Was this Abolish’s doing? It took a few more moments of futile struggling before he realized that he wasn’t merely stuck: there was something wrapped around him. Something huge and serpentine.

Something breathing.

It made a low noise, too. An almost clicking sound. Repeating, too.

Where had the alarm gone? He didn’t hear it, anymore. A new voice arrived, however. This one was much crisper, though he still could not understand what it was saying.

It was coming from above, which made him look up to see a Hun’Kui man there, sitting atop whatever this... hulking thing was. The man was shouting at him, and Taj had no idea how to respond, so he merely said nothing.

Then the aluminum maze that Taj had been building came crashing down as another gallium boulder flew through multiple walls.

Another hulking serpent appeared in Taj’s vision and blocked the flying boulder before it got any closer.

Taj still didn’t understand. It had blocked it with its body--and been no worse for wear, seemingly.

Then, finally, as he saw the boulder be quickly absorbed into the monster’s body, he realized that these were not serpents at all.

These were worms.

He’d never seen one before, but he’d certainly heard the stories. There were countless different types of them. The more infamous and terrifying ones were supposedly like gargantuan mountains of sludge, but these ones here, while still quite large, seemed much more normal. He could feel its coarse flesh against his own. It did feel rather sticky and gross, but it certainly wasn’t sludge.

The worm holding him began to move, and so he went along for the ride.