[Oliver’s POV]

  I know this place.

  This was no ordinary ruin. This was the city from his vision, the town where the Chaotic had been bound.

  Six had already started walking, but Oliver remained still, his eyes fixed on the abyss sprawling before them.

  “Don’t move yet,” Oliver said flatly, his voice carrying no emotion. He was still too stunned.

  The city stretched below them like a corpse left to rot.

  Once, it had been alive. In his vision, it was an endless cavern crowned with roots. It had thousands of dark stone houses stacked and carved into the rock, stretching downward into the cavern.

  Now it was a mausoleum.

  The streets below were covered in shadow, broken only by the faint glow of torches that bobbed and flickered in the distance. Not the light of the city’s people, those were long gone. These were intruders, opponents, other “guards” moving through the dark.

  Bridges that had once spanned the chasms between districts were shattered, their remains hanging. Stone arches lay in ruin, some having collapsed during the battle, while others had crumbled over centuries of erosion.

  Oliver and Six stood in what remained of a tower, high above the city. The vantage point gave them the breadth of its scale, but also its emptiness. The cavern’s ceiling loomed closer now than it had in Oliver’s vision, as though the city itself had sunk deeper into the earth, crushed by time and weight.

  And yet he remembered.

  It’s down there. The deepest place. A temple. That’s where the Chaotic was sealed.

  His hands gripped the stone parapet as he leaned forward, scanning the abyss. From here, the city stretched downward into darkness, where faint shapes hinted at massive structures buried in shadow.

  “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of jumping,” Six said, his voice filled with unease.

  Oliver didn’t answer at first. His silence was enough to make Six’s throat tighten. He was considering it.

  If I had my Ranger Armor, I might have tried. He thought.

  In the end, Oliver shook his head. “No chance. We don’t know the depth or what’s waiting down there.”

  Six exhaled in relief, shoulders sagging. “Can’t believe my brothers got any missions harder than this,” he muttered bitterly as he moved forward.

  The path they followed wound steeply downward. The narrow road, carved in stone, was slick with age and dust. It led them toward the city center.

  It opened into a plaza.

  The square was vast, its edges choked with broken houses and crumbling facades. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the faint hiss of their own breathing. From the plaza, multiple roads split off, some climbing higher into the ruins, others plunging deeper into the city’s abyss.

  “Any ideas?” Six asked, his voice tight, his eyes flicking between the paths.

  Oliver stepped into the plaza’s center. A single iron post jutted upward, crooked and half-buried in the stone. It held a torch that burned with a weak flame. Its light was feeble, but in the suffocating dark it commanded the space like a beacon.

  It would take decades to explore this place, Oliver thought grimly, his gaze tracing the countless paths. There was no order, no logic, only chaos carved into stone.

  He closed his eyes and drew in a breath. Energy surged through him as he expanded his senses outward, probing the labyrinth. For a moment, he felt the echoes of the city around him, a faint pulse of walls, foundations, broken streets. However, it was like trying to map the ocean with a candle. His reach extended only a few meters in each direction before dissolving into nothingness.

  When he opened his eyes again, his jaw tightened.

  They designed this city to be a prison. A labyrinth meant to consume intruders.

  He turned toward one of the descending roads, its slope vanishing into shadow.

  “This way,” Oliver said.

  Six followed without argument, though his muttering never stopped.

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  The two began their descent along the street. The houses that flanked the road were mostly destroyed. Some had collapsed walls, others had shattered windows, and roofs caved in. Only a handful still stood intact enough to grant shelter, though even those seemed to watch them with hollow eyes.

  The deeper they went, the heavier the silence became.

  Every shadow seemed to lean closer. Every ruined doorway felt like a mouth, waiting to swallow them whole.

  And though nothing happened, Oliver could not shake the feeling that the city was alive. It was a matter of watching, listening, and waiting.

  The deeper they descended, the darker the world became. The air grew heavy, damp, and so thick with shadow that even the ground beneath their boots was difficult to see.

  Then, light.

  Dozens of torches flared to life around them, bursting into existence as if triggered by their presence. The sudden glow revealed the place they had stumbled into. They were in an intersection, a hollowed square where several broken streets converged.

  At its heart stood what had once been a chapel or small temple. Its roof was intact, yet one of its towers collapsed into rubble. Around it, the skeletal remains of houses leaned inward, their walls torn open, their stones blackened with age.

  And from those ruins, shadows moved.

  They emerged in silence, dragging themselves from the hollow shells of homes and the shattered doorways. At first glance, they resembled reptilian humanoids. Scaled bodies, elongated limbs, eyes that glowed in the torchlight. But their scales were not the bright, gleaming silver of the dragon above. These were corroded, tarnished, like rusted iron.

  Their bodies were scarred, riddled with open sores and festering wounds. Some limped, others twitched with unnatural spasms, their movements jerky and wrong. Their faces, once perhaps regal, were warped with hunger and madness, their jaws lined with broken fangs.

  They were tall, taller than Oliver or Six, and broad. Some carried crude weapons, clubs fashioned from stone and bone, jagged shards of metal. Others bore only their claws dripping with venom.

  Six exhaled sharply, his nerves manifesting as sarcasm. “Seriously? How many are there? One, three, six… nine. Nine of them. Would you all mind standing still for a headcount?”

  The creatures did not listen or oblige.

  With a guttural hiss, they charged.

  It was not the disciplined strike of soldiers, nor the overwhelming presence of the dragon above. This was desperation. Starvation. They lunged like predators who had not tasted flesh in centuries, each one scrambling to be the first to sink their jaws into prey.

  Oliver braced himself. He had expected something greater, something like the nightmare he had fought on the surface. But as the first one lunged, he realized something.

  They’re… slow.

  The reptilian’s strike was clumsy, its claws swiping wide. Oliver sidestepped easily, his fist snapping forward into its ribs. Bone cracked, and the creature was flung aside with a screech.

  They came at him with broken clubs, jagged claws, and desperate jaws. Some leapt, screeching, others swung wildly, but it took only a sidestep or a single strike from Oliver to send them sprawling. His fists cracked bones, his boots shattered ribs.

  “This is pathetic,” he muttered, watching another one collapse with a single blow.

  They’re not even shadows of what they once were. Was it the Chaotic that left them like this?

  Even Six, who had never been trained for advanced combat, was dispatching the creatures with ease.

  For a brief time, the fight was almost effortless.

  But then Oliver noticed it.

  At first, ten. Then twenty. Then forty.

  The longer they fought, the louder the echoes of battle spread, the more torches flickered to life in the distance. And with that came more dragonoids crawling from broken homes, staggering out of alleyways, pouring down from shattered bridges. Their hissing cries multiplied, building into a chorus of hunger.

  “They’re multiplying,” Oliver growled, striking another down. “We need to get out of here.”

  Six nodded quickly, his face pale, sweat glistening on his forehead. Together, they broke through the line of enemies, forcing their way toward a narrow slope.

  They had only descended a few steps when the ground began to tremble.

  It was subtle at first, a faint vibration, then stronger, until dust cascaded from the cavern ceiling. Oliver froze, narrowing his eyes, scanning the blackness below.

  Then he heard it.

  A sound that grew and grew until it was a storm. They heard the pounding of countless feet, the guttural shrieks of a tide of beasts.

  Shapes broke through the dark.

  Three figures running with everything they had. Katherine, her shoulder still bleeding. Alan, gasping raggedly. Adrian, his fists gleaming with Energy as he pushed himself forward.

  And behind them the flood.

  Hundreds of dragonoids pouring like a wave through the streets, their rusted scales gleaming in the torchlight, their cries shaking the cavern.

  “Inside!” Oliver barked, shoving Six toward the half-ruined temple at the plaza’s edge. They stumbled through the doorway.

  Katherine was the first to reach him, her eyes wide with panic. Oliver seized her arm, yanking her inside. Alan stumbled past, nearly collapsing, and Adrian threw himself through the threshold just as Oliver slammed his hands against the massive stone door.

  The hinges screamed. Dust rained down as the slab ground shut, sealing with a final, echoing boom.

  Outside, the horde crashed against the sealed entrance, their claws scraping stone, their roars reverberating through the walls.

  They were trapped.

  But for now, they were alive.