After some more hours, Basil finally reached the summit of the waterfall. He got harassed by more of those tentacles, but he managed to fend them off with his spikes. He looked around the edge for any other creature that could hurt him.

He noticed some carcasses lingering by the side of the cavern's river. The majority were from Ceadcem; there were even some from different bugs and fish? Their bodies were long, giving a faint glow in the darkness of the cave; the majority of their body is composed of a giant eye, a mouth with small teeth, and a tail they should use as propulsion. They must come from where the Waterfall ends, some small lake or someplace below.

Basil continued analyzing for any creature and didn't find any. The Huayan bat had gone a long time ago from a disturbance in a cavern nearby, and it decided to flee and left its prizes behind. Basil didn't know this and just began to eat, to fill his belly as he didn't care.

In an adjacent Cavern, besides the Waterfall's cave, a Great Golemite was resting. It had a humanoid figure, with long and bulky arms made of marble as the rest of its body. It also had grey and luminescent markings along all his body, these coming from its chest, where a Mineral life-core lay.

An earthquake started near the Golemite, getting it active, as a prominent marking on what appeared to be his head turned up, looking like a Cyclops eye. The culprit of the earthquake was a Wurm entering the area where the Golem rested. A giant creature, similar to a worm with rugged orange plaques that covered the length of its body, a mouth that didn't close because of the massive rows of teeth inside moving unnaturally. Six hollow and black dots worked as eyes for the beast; all looked at the Golemite as prey.

Alarmed, The Golem got up, ready to defend the other crystals around him as they were little and still couldn't control the energy around them, except for one with a dark rose color on it. It was bigger than the others and was showing signs of psychic abilities.

The Wurm saw the crystals and felt the energy they emanated. With delight, it attacked to eat the minerals, but the Golemite stood in front with a height of 20 meters, lt stopped in its tracks the Wurm using its arms to grab the mouth and redirect it to another place. The giant managed to pull it in another direction, open a cave behind it, where the moss was covering the cavern's floor.

Basil didn't know what was happening, but a massive earthquake was occurring, and he needed to move, or the rocks were going to squash him. When he began to move, a giant rock blocked his path, almost making him jump in the river. Basil kept running to the inside of the cavern, but more rocks were falling.

Pebbles fell on the head of Basil, and rocks were getting in his way. The dust all this raised hurt his eyes, making it impossible to see clearly, but he kept pushing forward because if he stopped, the collapse was going to kill him. Nevertheless, he could see various holes going in different directions in all this mess. He needed to reach at least one of them.

Unfortunately, the tremors were getting out of control because the Golem tried to protect the new cores from the giant worm. The Wurm destroyed the arm of the Golemite with its mouth and hit it against one of the walls. With the decreased grip on the giant creature, the Golemite couldn't stop it entirely from eating various cores.

Maddened by the actions of the beast, a red glow began to radiate from the Golem. It gave a strike in the head of the Wurm with a lot of force, breaking many of the plaques protecting its body, making visible blue flesh and green blood painting the floor. The Wurm, angry by this defiance, began to use its body to curl around the Golemite.

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The Golemite Knowing the dangers of this situation, gave a strike on the ground in the direction of the remaining cores, detaching them from their sockets and getting launched in the hole the two combatants made. Some of the crystals got destroyed in the process, and fewer would survive the fall.

The Golemites don't have complex emotions beyond the need to protect the crystals around them because they look at them as their family. Knowing this place would become its grave as the Wurm coiled around its body, the Construct, acting to protect what's left of its species, began destroying the cavern's walls and floor with its remaining arm so that the Wurm couldn't eat the last cores.

The Wurm, surprised by the Golem's actions, tried to escape, but the Cavern's collapse was too advanced by this point. The Golemite put its arm around the creature and began striking with more force at the walls with his body. The Wurm was wiggling to avoid being crushed by the rocks that started to fall above his body, causing more damage to its plaques. The Golem squeezed the giant worm making it spurt green liquid from its wounds.

In the final moments of the two goliaths, with all the rocks falling and the screams the worm made, the Great Golemite radiated a teal light looking at the hole where its family got launched. The construct was wishing for them to be safe, as a giant rock destroyed its head and killed both creatures.

Basil was panicking and hard by this point. Many stones were blocking the paths he tried to take, almost smashing him to pieces. The tremors stopped, but the collapse did not, and Basil needed to find a safe place quickly. The gecko jumped, rolled, ran, and evaded the better he could, but some rocks still reached him and broke some of his bones in his back.

The raining debris got worse, and when Basil was about to enter one of the holes, he got covered in the rubble, making him unable to move. Basil tried to escape moving without control in a rage, but this only caused the rocks above him to increase the pressure on him, squashing him slowly.

Basil stopped, tired and hurt. His situation was not the best because tons of rock could kill him instantly if he weren't careful in his little space. The pressure was squeezing his body, and Basil needed to be harder to stop the rocks from moving. His spikes wouldn't work well in this situation at all, and he needed something else.

His scales were too frail to be a good defense, but this gave Basil an idea, "what if he could reinforce his scales with bone?" The scales, nails, and teeth are parts of a lizard's body that are hard but don't have any bones' components to give them their hardness and resilience.

Basil, in his awkward position, began experimenting with one of the scales on his head. He tried to inject bones inside of it from the connection it has with its skin. He injected too much bone, and the plate got destroyed from inside; Basil needed to be more careful with how he did this process.

He kept practicing, and as a way to avoid broken limbs, he held them by his side so the rocks couldn't do damage or worse. After seeing this could only upgrade his defense but not get him out of here, Basil decided to try something different, "what if he tried to make supports for the rocks with his bones?" It was a good plan, but it would use many of his resources, and eating rocks was not part of his diet.

Basil slowly created spikes around his body and tried to push the rocks with them. It didn't work that well because of the angle he extended them. The gecko attempted to make something like his scales but made bone to push him outside of this predicament; It worked somewhat with constant pushing and pulling the bones. The other problem was that his head wasn't that hard, so he extended plates made of bone to the front so it could protect his head and neck.

By now, Basil looked like a drill and was pushing himself outside of the rubble little by little. After some time, Basil could finally visualize a dim light between the crevices of the debris. His control over his ability increased after an hour of repeating the process. He even found ways to do it better, but what mattered to him was getting out.

When Basil finally managed to get his head out of the rubble, he could see a floor filled with moss, and many crystals were broken on the floor, each with a rich gray color. Basil got entirely out of the debris and analyzed the collapse. There was no way back.