Franklin raised his oak staff overhead. Harmony surged from his Core to his Spirit Chain, the air above him warping with rippling heat, as though the sky itself had been struck by fever. The warmth sparked into a bolt of cremating fire, hanging above the battlefield like the vengeful eye of a merciless demon.

A symphonic resonance of chimes, strings, and wind instruments reverberated through the mountain passage, vibrating Franklin's bones and setting his teeth on edge. He channelled the power into his flame, intensifying the inferno until it roared with destructive might.

As the Dungeon-Spawn closed in, its eight legs skittering across the barren ground, Franklin waited for the earth to collapse beneath it, casting the foul creature into a pit where he would unleash his noble power.

The moment never came. Nimble on its eight gracile legs, the creature—a bare-chested man fused from the waist into a spider's body—leapt to one side as the ground crumbled beneath it. While in mid-air, it drew back the string of its longbow and loosed a green-tinged arrow. The projectile hissed through the air, hurtling past the spot Franklin had occupied only a heartbeat earlier—before his former attendant tackled him to the ground.

His heart hammered against his ribs, fear gripping him like a vice. Unable to maintain his hold over his power, the fire burst forth like an enraged predator unleashed too soon, the sky roaring like a ravenous beast denied its prey.

He was meant to be safe. Concealed behind the bootless rabble, the perils of these battles were never supposed to reach him. His noble household might have been brought to ruin, their treasures handed out to ruffians and brutes like the ones he begrudgingly called allies, but that did nothing to change one simple truth—he was above them. He was their better, their leader by natural right. Theirs was not to question why, theirs was to do and die. Yet he was meant for greater things: the restoration of the noble house of Everquill, to ascend the path of power, and to take vengeance against the Skull's Rebellion—the allegiance of seven dark guilds that had ravished his household when he was but a child.

I will not perish in this place! he resolved, gritting his teeth as he shoved Myra from atop him and rose to his feet.

The eight-legged spawn scurried closer, releasing bolt after bolt from its bow—the length of a man fully grown—only for each arrow's momentum to be arrested by shimmering barriers of light.

Where was that defence when I almost lost my head, he sneered, barely noticing the slow trickle of Harmony refilling his tapering reserves.

'I can hardly blame Aaron for wanting that mutt done away with,' Franklin muttered beneath his breath.

'What was that, sir?' Myra asked, her tone formal and direct, like the good, little subordinate she had been before that brutish woman started whispering into her ear.

'Never mind that,' Franklin hissed. 'Just focus on your job! I need more Harmony. Drain the limpers dry if you must—They're only good for that now.'

'As our lady wills it' Myra replied, her nerve-grating drone a perfect mirror, reflecting the mindless fawner she had become.

'Yes, yes! Our lady is with us,' Franklin dismissively replied.

He could not fault the knuckle draggers and bootlickers for their admiration of the Seer's power. Even he could admit her show of force against the ravager-spawn in the midst of its evolution had been a sight to behold. Small wonder that lesser minds mistook it for divine intervention. But he hailed from the house of Everquill, a lineage steeped in reason and discernment—qualities those sycophants sorely lacked. To Franklin, who could peer behind her curtain, her show—impressive as it was—was nothing more than chicanery and showmanship.

A Sequence—nothing more. A complex synergy of Remnants, Fragments, potions, and conditions designed to invoke the Dungeon's favour. With the right knowledge and components, anyone skilled enough could perform it. He could admit Annalise's Sequence was especially potent—to slay a Champion-ranked spawn, even in its infancy, was not to be looked down upon—but as for being an act of the divine, it was as far removed as the sea from the bordered heavens.

He had no intentions of exposing the Seer's deception—it would not profit him to do so. Before she arrived—bringing with her the noble purse, his fiancée, that most exotic healer, and the admittedly skilled ruffian boy—the spirits of the group were low. Even he had begun to wonder whether the forest would be his grave. But as Shar, with her unwavering zeal, spread the faith of her lady, and that faith spouted firm, nurtured by the waters of the Seer's miraculous display, even the most despondent among their ranks started to swell with hope anew.

It galled him to rely on such trifles, but he could not deny their utility. Hope gave one the strength to keep fighting, and he needed them to fight, to break everything that stood against him so that when they too were broken, he could scale their corpses to safety.

As Harmony continued to swell in his core, Franklin peered across the battlefield, watching as the frontline engaged the Dungeon-Spawn. In a clash of razored claw and bladed feet, Aaron led the charge. The clang of steel meeting stone rang out as Aaron's scaled talons blurred in a flurry of precise strikes and hasty deflections.

The spawn scuttled across the passage wall, then leapt—its sharpened legs arched like the reaper's scythe, cleaving a lethal arc to carve the purse into bloodied segments. But before the spawn's legs clamped down like the insatiable jaw of a half-starved beast, Aaron threw himself backward, beating his leathery wings with tempestuous force. The gust scattered loose stone beneath him, granting him not just distance but an opening to counter.

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Franklin's lips curled into a sneer. Precision, yes, but it was base—undignified—far beneath the ideal of a great household. That the scrappers and brawlers of the Crest household continued to rise while the vaulted scholarship of his noble house faded from mention was an insult to good reason.

From its inception, the house of Everquill had dedicated itself not just to brute strength, but to the machinations behind the inner workings of Harmony's laws. Gathering Remnants centred around the arcane, they delved deep, grasping wisdom that, left to mature, could have placed their house at the pinnacle of might.

To see Crest blood so effortlessly wield strength, while Everquill's scholars had been reduced to whispers, was a cruel irony he could barely stomach.

That I need rely on this pretender to escape this place is the greatest insult, Franklin scolded, the bitter sharp of envy waxing his tongue.

Still, he would pucker his lips and kiss the ring if he must—at least for now. One day, Crest's shadow would bow beneath Everquill's light. But for now, submission would serve as the stepping stone.

Aaron had divulged the secret of the Cell in which they stood: the Forest of Desire. Franklin now knew that only four could ever leave, and he was determined to be among that number. To secure his place, he need do only one thing…

His gaze fixed on Havoc as the runt threw himself into the air, somersaulting backward as the Spawn lashed its legs in vicious sweeps, frantically cleaving the spaces the boy had been moments before. They continued their deadly chase, Havoc mere inches from death, only to dive to safety at the last moment.

He makes a fine asset on the battlefield, but I am a man of my word, Franklin thought. His lips curled into a thin smile as a bolt of fire burst before his staff, its warmth prickling his skin. Stretching out his arm, he guided the flame—not toward the Spawn, but toward Havoc.

****

In the blink of an eye, a bolt of fire raced toward Havoc, and in the same instant, the Dungeon-Spawn's sharpened legs cleaved down upon him. There was no time to dodge. Mid-somersault, he could neither evade nor conjure a barrier, having just left the limited range of the Stone Guardsman.

The heat hit first, prickling his skin like a warning before the bolt's full, incinerating wrath engulfed him. Pain erupted—an all-consuming inferno that burned away the world. But the agony was not finished. A heartbeat later, the vivisecting lash of the Spawn's bladed legs tore through him, slicing downward with unrelenting precision, cutting through flesh and bone as easily as a knife through water.

He was dead—at least, he should have been. But at the last moment, he flared Harmony to his core, calling on the borrowed power of Anton's golden armour. It did not function as Havoc had imagined. He believed the Remnant to grant burst of neigh-invulnerability—that was not true. Instead, it mended all injuries in an instant, leaving him exposed to the full, excruciating agony of the fatal strikes. The wounds closed as they were dealt, but the pain lingered, raw and unremitting, as though deaths retribution upon those who would deny its rightful claim.

There was no time to reflect on the moment. Though alive, lain between the Spawn's closing feet, he would not be for long. With the Flesh Weave Needle already buried deep in his thigh, he surged Harmony into its Link, unravelling the muscles in his arm. His body withered as his mass travelled to his lengthening limb, the grotesque contortion pulling him toward a nearby boulder. Every fibre of his being screamed against the unnatural motion, but desperation drove him onward. As his arm coiled around the rock, he pulled himself between the narrow slits of the Spawn's razored legs, escaping death by a breath's width.

The spawn would not relent, charging toward Havoc as his body writhed, muscles contorting to regain their form. Just as the creature bore down, a flaming whip snapped around its throat, searing the flesh with blistering heat. Its six airborne limbs thrashed above him, unable to cleave down and carve him apart. A crackling slosh of clicks and snaps, brimming with rage, reverberated through the air as the spawn spun on its tips and lunged toward the man who had denied it its kill.

'Now? You do this now?' Havoc roared, pulling himself to his feet, his legs trembling beneath him. His glare burned toward Aaron, who barely spared him a glance.

'This is neither the time nor the place for your baseless conspiracies!' Aaron shouted back, his scaled talons flashing as he re-engaged the spawn.

'He's right!' Anton interjected, diving to the left as the creature's legs scraped his heel.

The spawn screeched, its limbs a blur of razored strikes tearing through the air, forcing the group to scatter.

'If you can still fight, then fight,' Anton huffed, his breath laboured. 'Settle your disputes later!'

Later? Havoc thought, his mind racing from one conclusion to the next. The Dungeon-Spawn was the more immediate threat, but though he did not take action directly, there was no question Aaron was behind the attempt on his life. He'll try again…

Havoc's fists clenched, his nails digging into his palms as his eyes cut toward Aaron. But there was nothing he could do now. The Spawn was dire enough a threat as it was. Though every fibre of his being screamed for retaliation—instant and unyielding—doing so now would damn them both.

He would settle the score. Not now—but later. And when he did, there would be no mercy.

The battle drew Havoc back within range of The Stone Guardsman. Keeping his distance as Lucia's wolves leapt through the air, carving bloodied lines across the monster's chest, Havoc crafted a falchion of ethereal light in his grip and rushed toward the fiend.

But then he halted. A beam of light reflected into his eye, and his breath caught. As if emerging from nowhere, a storm of glass and depraved intent loomed nearer, engulfing the horizon. It zigzagged through the seams of reality, vanishing and reappearing closer with every burst from the nether.

The fractured Abomination—that unstoppable force. It was still a distance away, but moving rapidly closer. The air itself seemed to warp around the storm, the faint sound of shattering heralding its approach.

It would soon be upon them, and when it arrived, no flesh would survive.

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