Amalaga felt Archon Alundenaer lock onto him. He sighed. "Who are you?"
"I am Alundenaer."
"Ridiculous..."
The cysts on his back fired high-speed flesh spines. Pale, hard, and sharp, they swept toward Archon Alundenaer.
A dull sound of something piercing the ground rang out. Amalaga did not even turn around. Instead, eyes and faces grew from his back, and joints modified into universal joints had no need to consider which way was forward.
Watching Archon Alundenaer charge toward him, Amalaga flexed his fingers as though activating something. "You should know this is Commorragh... and I have lived in this district for more than tens of thousands of years..."
"I have infiltrated this district... as though it were my own body..."
Amalaga raised a hand. The ground before him writhed according to his will. The internal structures of the construction materials that built Commorragh had long been contaminated by assimilation cells Amalaga had mixed into them.
Those cells had lain dormant for so long, waiting for their master's summons. Now, Amalaga was calling upon these servants he had planted long ago.
The assimilation cells were not picky in the slightest. They flourished from within the materials, then burst through the ground.
Amalaga controlled the assimilation cells within those buildings as though wielding divine authority. The entire district moved with his thoughts.
Wave after wave of buildings surged toward Archon Alundenaer as if they had come alive. Dark fissures rapidly opened beneath his feet, seeking to swallow him whole.
But Archon Alundenaer displayed strength he should not have possessed, along with agility that was excessive even by Drukhari standards.
The spear in his hand carved tunnels and openings through the towering waves of stone. Each time, before the fissures could fully open, he relied on his speed to leap away from the