---
Mia yelled, "Form a Line! Spears out! Shale, anchor center!"
Warriors spread in a crooked arc along the gypsum shelf, better footing than the pan. Shale planted himself, hammer axe raised. Kai took position left of Mia, tightening grip on his hooked spear.
Needle and Ash reached the line; healers dragged Ash aside a spike fragment jutted from his thigh, hissing with electrical heat.
The ripple beneath the pan halted in silence and swallowed the heat haze then the surface exploded. Salt shards rained as a colossal head rose: a translucent bulb of quartz armor with mandibles like mirrored scythes. Its body was half-worm, half-centipede remained buried, but one could sense weight stretching fifty yards underground.
It shrieked the sound of glaciers shattering glass. Kai system ding on his mind.
[Ding! System notifications:
Boss Class beast detected.
Name: Glass-Crawler Matriarch (4★).
Optional Quest auto registered: Slay or Repel the Matriarch.
