The cave swallowed them whole.

  The entrance narrowed quickly, the stone closing in until their shoulders nearly brushed the walls. Lingering, thick and unmoving warmth wrapped around them as they walked.

  Naro led with his sword drawn low.

  Rami followed a few steps behind. Her staff was strapped across her back. The dagger sat in her hand.

  Each step echoed wrong. Sound didn't travel far here. It died a few meters ahead, swallowed by the darkness.

  They moved deeper.

  The tunnel split, then narrowed again, forcing them single file. Stone underfoot was brittle, cracked by heat creeping up from below.

  Naro raised a fist.

  He'd felt it first. A shift in the air. intent.

  The spear came out of the dark without warning.

  Naro twisted sideways, the tip scraping across his pauldron in a shower of sparks. He retaliated instantly, blade snapping forward, but the wielder pulled back just as fast.

  Another spear slid into view from the opposite side.

  Magma-knights stepped into the narrow corridor, armor fused into jagged shapes, spears leveled with disciplined precision. Their movements were rigid, practiced.

  Naro observed them, silently thanking evolution to make Gaonians' eyes able to see in the dark.

  'Those guys are not charging at all... Are they preventing me from flanking them ?'

  Naro exhaled and triggered the dash.

  His body slid sideways in a sharp burst, appearing past the spearpoint. He struck low, severing one shaft cleanly. The knight recoiled but didn't fall.

  The second spear thrust.

  Rami moved without thinking.

  She ducked under the point and slashed upward, cutting through the joint where stone met molten metal. The spear dropped, clattering uselessly against the rock.

  Naro finished it with a short thrust.

  The second knight advanced immediately, unfazed.

  Naro blocked, steel shrieking against hardened magma. The force drove him back a step. He countered, The runes of the blade flaring.

  'Storm Strike !'

  Thankfully it was enough to break through the knight's breastplate.

  It collapsed, cooling rapidly.

  Silence returned.

  Rami didn't look at the bodies and watched the tunnel ahead instead.

  They moved on.

  The cave widened briefly, then collapsed inward again. Heat pulsed through the walls irregularly.

  The next sound wasn't subtle.

  A heavy impact shook dust from the ceiling.

  An axe smashed into the tunnel wall ahead, stone exploding outward. A knight followed, dragging the weapon free with a grinding screech.

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  Then another.

  Axes rose and fell, but surprisingly not aimed at them...

  Naro rushed the first.

  The axe came down. He blocked high, the impact rattling his arms. The second knight swung from the side.

  Rami darted forward, low and fast, and drove her dagger into the back of its knee. The joint cracked. The knight stumbled, axe burying itself in the stone floor.

  Heat surged instantly.

  Rami staggered, breath hitching as the air burned her lungs. The staff's Rune of Life flared as a greenish glow hummed faintly beneath her skin and healed the internal wounds.

  Naro severed the fallen knight's arm and turned on the other, he used Storm Strike horizontally, cutting off its neck from a distance.

  The tunnel groaned.

  Cracks raced across the ceiling.

  "RUN !" Naro yelled.

  They ran.

  Stone collapsed behind them, dust and heat rolling forward like a wave. They burst into a wider chamber just as the passage caved in completely.

  For a moment, nothing followed.

  Then metal scraped against stone.

  Shapes emerged from the far side of the chamber.

  Not one. Not two.

  Shields formed a loose line. Spears angled between them. Axes waited behind.

  Rami tightened her grip on the dagger.

  The air pressed against her chest, heavy and uncooperative. Magic refused to answer the way it should.

  Naro stepped forward anyway.

  The runes on his sword flickered faintly, reacting to the pressure.

  They advanced together.

  And this time, there was no space to retreat.

  _____________________________________

  The line broke.

  Spears lunged first, probing, and disciplined. Shields advanced in short steps, magma veins glowing brighter with each movement.

  Naro met them head-on as the Runes on the sword ignited mid-step.

  'Storm Strike !'

  The sword elongated violently, cutting the air around it. then blade surged forward far beyond normal reach.

  The thrust punched through a shield, through the knight behind it, pinning molten armor to stone before Naro wrenched the blade free and swung wide.

  The horizontal arc tore through two more at chest level. Armor split. Magma sprayed and cooled as bodies hit the ground.

  But the line didn't stop.

  Axes came down from behind the shields.

  Naro blocked one. Another slammed into his side, driving him back a step.

  That was all it took for a spear to slip past him.

  Rami saw it too late.

  The point tore across her ribs, heat flaring white-hot as it carved through cloth and skin. She gasped, body locking up as pain surged all at once.

  Her legs buckled.

  For a split second, the world tilted.

  The Rune of Life on her staff flared instantly.

  Green light surged beneath her skin, flesh knit together even as the wound tried to deepen, the pain dulled just enough to keep her conscious.

  But it didn't give her strength.

  It didn't give speed.

  It just refused to let her die.

  Another knight stepped in, its axe already rising.

  Rami snarled on the inside.

  She forced her body to hold together, even as it screamed.

  She forced heat away from her organs, pulled her own blood flow tight, hardened muscle through sheer will. It felt wrong. Crude. Like forcing her body to obey without permission.

  Her dagger flashed.

  She drove it into the knight's throat joint and twisted hard.

  The magma knight collapsed... and nearly took her with it.

  She stumbled back, breath ragged, vision swimming.

  "Naro—"

  He heard it.

  The sound wasn't loud, it was painfully small and weak.

  But it was enough for him to hear it.

  Something inside him snapped tight.

  The sword roared.

  Storm Strike flared again, stronger, wider the blade expanded into a brutal arc of crackling steel.

  Naro stopped defending.

  He stopped positioning.

  The only thing that mattered was cutting them.

  'Die.'

  One swing took an axe arm.

  The follow-through split a shield, the backhand cleaved through a helmet and didn't slow.

  'DIE !'

  He used The Dash, reappearing inside their formation, blade already mid-swing.

  'All of you... DIE.'

  A spear came for Rami again.

  It never reached her.

  Naro's sword punched through the knight's torso from the side, Runes flaring outward as he tore it free and slammed the pommel into another's head, crushing stone and skull alike.

  He wasn't going give them time to recover.

  He won't give them time to regroup.

  He breathed fast and hard.

  Anger sharpened every movement.

  ---------------------------------------------------

  When the last knight fell, he was already moving toward her.

  Rami was still barely standing. Her dagger clenched tight, shoulders tense, jaw set in defiance rather than fear.

  Green light faded beneath her skin.

  She met his eyes.

  He saw it then.

  The blood. The tremor she was hiding.

  His grip tightened on the sword.

  Pay.

  He was... no. HE WILL make these creatures pay.

  'All of them.'

  Paro.

  Kill him.

  Take his Authority.

  Make everything stop.

  "Naro."

  Rami's voice cut through the thoughts.

  "Get it together."

  He was surprised by her cold tone, but forced himself to calm down.

  Only barely, though.

  They stood amid cooling bodies and cracked stone, heat pulsing through the chamber like a living thing.

  The cave wasn't done with them yet.

  And neither was he.