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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.

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And that was no trivial matter, because in every previous encounter, this enemy--whose name he still did not know--had used the splashing to conceal further attacks. The freshly melted gallium would be cool to the touch and largely harmless, but when they tossed some boiling hot gallium into the mix, too, it became much more difficult to simply ignore the splashing.

Not to mention, against Taj’s aluminum materialization--and many other metals for that matter--gallium had a corrosive effect. Normally, such corrosion required considerable time to take effect--days or weeks--but whoever was wielding it now was able to enhance its reactive properties, causing embrittlement to occur within seconds.

Taj knew they had to flee. These attacks were just from one of their pursuers, who’d apparently grown confident enough to not even bother waiting for their comrades to catch up. He could see the figure in the distance, surging toward them on a moving platform from far down the street.

Taj raised a large aluminum wall. It wouldn’t stop them, of course, but it would block their sight, at least. While there was only one enemy to worry about, their odds of escape were still good. He grabbed one of the others by the hand, shouted for everyone to follow, and began sprinting for the open tunnel.

Going in there was a risk. If it was a dead end, then they would be forced to fight their way back out again. So to help mitigate that danger, he raised more walls behind them as he ran, making sure to provide plenty of space between each one so as not to accidentally trap any of his kin.

He aimed to create a maze, to further obstruct the enemy’s vision. If it worked, then their pursuer might not even realize that they’d gone into the tunnel for quite some time, which was all they really needed, right now: time.

Great crashing sounds arrived from behind him, which was probably from his materialized walls getting destroyed. He thought he could hear even more than that, though, like that of buildings collapsing. He couldn’t afford to turn around and look, though. The walls were obscuring his vision, and even if something really important was going on back there, Orolix would warn him.

Before they could reach the tunnel, however, an alarm blared. Its ear-splitting pitch was enough to make Taj flinch and stagger, and he was not the only one. He could see his kin doing the same--and even the reapers, too, writhing in the air.

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And to that end, that big fortress in the middle of the city might’ve been their best bet.

After a while longer of letting his thoughts stew in his own mind, he decided to make clear his intentions to the others.

None argued with his reasoning, not even the reapers.

Now they just needed to find a way up there. A materialized platform would certainly do the trick, but that would also make quite the spectacle. Taj didn’t want to resort to that just yet. There had to be a method by which normal citizens could reach that palace.

Or maybe not.

Even as they began to near the base of the grand plateau on which their new objective sat, they still did not encounter a single soul. The overgrown streets had ample space for enormous crowds, yet they remained entirely empty.

It made him uneasy. Perhaps they really had evacuated. And if so, why? What in the world had happened here?

Finally, something caught his eye at the base of the massive plateau. A tunnel. It was narrower than the street but still large enough for vehicles to enter. Perhaps it would lead them to a lift or staircase, though he already wasn’t looking forward to making such a trek on foot. That had to be, what? Two hundred meters? He’d seen skyscrapers that weren’t as tall as this plateau.

Oh, man.

Nothing for it, though. They had to go.

Before they could reach the tunnel, however, Orolix’s urgent voice rang out publicly. ‘Behind us!’

Taj turned just in time to see a steaming, car-sized boulder clobber one of his companions. He didn’t have time to panic, either, because he could already see another one coming for him.

Rather than trying to dodge, he instantly dropped to the ground and slapped it with his right hand, materializing a metal slope for the boulder to launch off of.

Which it did. It sailed straight into the rock wall of the plateau behind them and bounced off, leaving only a scuff mark behind.

Taj had grown quite familiar with such boulders over the course of this long chase. It was composed of the element gallium, which had a low enough melting point that the boulder couldn’t hold its shape for long here in the Undercrust.

Which might’ve seemed like a good thing, but it made these fights extra messy the longer they drew out, with liquid gallium splashing all over the place.