Misato’s eyes narrowed. "Agreed. But it’s the only way forward."

"There’s always another way."

"Not with forty minutes left and a boss to clear." She jabbed her finger toward the opening. "Tight formation. Single file. Naomi takes point, I’m second, Belle third, Jace fourth, Jordan guards rear. Move fast. No stops."

We reorganized ourselves into the formation.

The passage yawned ahead—thirty meters at most before opening into another chamber. The walls crushed inward until my shoulders brushed rough stone on both sides. Water dripped somewhere overhead, each drop bouncing off rock like a pistol crack in the dead silence.

"I really don’t like this," Jordan muttered from his position behind me.

"Nobody asked," Belle shot back.

"Just stating facts."

"State them quieter."

We pushed forward into the narrow corridor.

Ten meters in, my Treasure Sense exploded into chaos.

The signal wasn’t registering from the walls around us. It pulsed from directly above our heads.

"Contact!" I yelled. "Ceiling!"

The stone overhead detonated.

Not with an explosion. With something worse.

Movement.

Dozens of shapes plummeted down, all pale exoskeletons and clicking mandibles and far too many jointed legs. They slammed into the ground around us, blocades forming instantly at both our front and rear positions. Cutting off any chance of escape or advance in one calculated ambush.

Stalkers. At least twenty of them. Maybe more. Thirty minimum.

And they were bigger than the first group.

Misato’s clone materialized and immediately engaged the nearest three, buying us seconds. "Break formation! Scatter pattern! Belle, find us an exit!"

"Working on it!"

The Stalkers closed in.

I raised my spear as one lunged, its pincers snapping. I caught it through the thorax, but two more came from my left. I fired Wave Motion, the spiral catching one and sending it flying. The other got through, its stinger whipping toward my face.

Jordan’s shadow caught it mid-strike, yanking the tail back. "I got you!"

I drove my spear through its head.

Naomi was a storm of blue-white energy ahead of me, her Wave Motion carving through Stalkers with brutal efficiency. But I could see the strain in her posture. She was burning through stamina fast.

Belle fired, reloaded, fired again. "Exit! Thirty meters ahead! Narrow opening!"

"Can we fit?" Misato demanded.

"Better be, or we’re picking through your corpse later!"

A Stalker came at Belle from her flank. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

No time to shout. I just reacted.

Wave Motion flared beneath my boots. The distance closed in under a heartbeat and my shoulder crashed into Belle’s ribs. We tumbled together across the stone floor while the Stalker’s pincers scissored through empty air where her skull had been a fraction of a second earlier.

"Get up!" I hauled her to her feet with one hand.

She fired point-blank into the monster’s face. It collapsed in a heap of twitching limbs.

"Thanks for that."

"Forget it."

"No, really. I hate when people save my ass."

"I’ll send you an invoice later."

Misato’s shout ripped across the battle. "Jace! Naomi’s at thirty percent! Cover her!"

I turned. Naomi stood frozen halfway across the chamber, chest heaving with exhaustion, her staff raised but trembling. Three Stalkers prowled in slow circles around her, mandibles clicking in anticipation while they probed for weak spots.

I kicked off again, sailing across open space in two bursts of controlled propulsion. The Bronze upgrade let me pivot mid-flight now, adjusting trajectory on instinct instead of hoping I’d calculated right. I came down hard between Naomi and the closest Stalker, my spear lashing out in a wide horizontal slash that split its face clean open.

"Behind me!"

"I’m fine! I can still—"

"You’re running on fumes and we’ve got a boss waiting!" I fired at the second Stalker and the spiral tore straight through its thorax. "Fall back to Belle! Now!"

She wanted to argue. Her jaw set, her eyes burned with frustration. But her legs were shaking.

"Move!"

She moved.

The third Stalker charged.

I activated Sensory Hijack again as I touched it, this time focusing on sight. The creature’s cluster eyes saw multiple versions of me suddenly, each one moving in different directions. It hesitated, confused, trying to track which target was real.

I drove my spear through its actual skull.

"Clear!" Misato’s voice cut through the chamber. "Exit! Now! Before more drop!"

We ran.

The narrow passage yawned ahead, maybe two feet wide at most. Naomi went first, turning sideways to squeeze through the gap. Belle followed, then Jordan, his shadows collapsing inward as he lost sight of the chamber behind us.

I went next.

The tactical suit scraped against stone as I forced myself into the passage. My spear snagged on a ridge and I had to wrench it free, the metal shrieking against rock. The clicking behind me grew louder, more frantic. More Stalkers. Dropping from the ceiling like spiders from a web.

"Move faster!" Misato’s shout echoed down the passage.

I shoved harder. The walls pressed in on both sides, tight enough that each breath took effort. My shoulders ground against the stone, every inch forward bought through brute force. The passage seemed to narrow further with each step, as if the rock itself was trying to hold me back.

Then suddenly I was through.

I stumbled into open space, gulping air, and Misato burst out behind me a second later. The passage sealed itself with a wet grinding sound. Not a collapse. A seal. The stone just flowed together like water and became solid wall, smooth as if it had never been anything else.

"What the fuck?" Jordan stared at where we’d emerged. His voice echoed strangely in this new chamber.

"Trap passage," Misato said, her breath still coming hard. "The gate wanted us here."

"Here" was a circular chamber maybe forty meters across. The walls curved upward into a dome, and every surface glowed with those blue-white veins. In the center of the chamber, a crystal formation rose from the floor like a frozen tree, its branches spreading fifteen feet in every direction.

And embedded in the crystal, perfectly preserved, was something that looked almost human.

Almost.

But not quite.

"Boss room," Belle whispered.

The figure’s eyes opened.

They glowed red.

And the real fight began.