The Mantis Variant - Book One - 29. Chapter 29 - Stone

Agrell turned to the wall and smashed out another enormous section of stone to pile on top of the first. She knew the effort was futile, but she was determined to provide the others with as much time to escape as she possibly could. Multiple slabs of bedrock were ripped from the walls of the chamber by her empowered hands, and each impeded the progress of the magma, as it slowly melted them.

Agrell stepped out into the hall and saw that everyone else was out of sight, but then her makeshift blockade crumbled. She looked all around her, and up the short flight of stairs to the cave-in by the narrow crack that now led to Dozi’s home.

The magma was going to rise up and penetrate the gap. It was going to destroy the place where Agrell now knew she belonged, and if Dozi was in her basement, it was going to kill her, too.

Agrell leapt up against the stones of the cave-in, again clinging to them like a bat, but this time she pulled. A gargantuan piece of bedrock dislodged, and she held it above her head. With all the strength that she now possessed, Agrell brought the thing crashing down in the path of the oncoming river of molten rock. She gripped the stone and screamed down the hall towards the others again, "Run!"

The massive boulder served its purpose and held back the flow. Agrell dug her heels in and pushed against it.

However, the stone did not have time to melt before the raging heat began to crack it. She held the pieces together for as long as possible, with the radiant energy starting to scorch even her almost invulnerable body.

Agrell growled wordless syllables through her gritted teeth and kept the crumbling pieces together with her bare hands.

Then the compromised walls all around gave way, and the ceiling above her head began to collapse, burying the terrible fire in a mountain of smothering stone.

The remaining chunks of the boulder that she still held ruptured from the heat, and Agrell closed her eyes.

She thought to herself, I saved them, and the wave of magma engulfed and consumed her★