The stench of burning flesh and blood still filled the air. Max's heart was beating hard. The Overseer's twisted body was on fire. Darion's blood was splattered across the stone floor, and Max could still hear the crunch of the Berserker's bones breaking under the creature's attack.
Merlin didn't offer any comforting words this time. His eyes were cold, he was thinking. They had just lost one of their strongest members. The dungeon was not done with them yet.
Lyra emerged from the shadows. "This is why I don't trust people," she spat, wiping the blood off her Shadow Dagger. "He was supposed to be the muscle, and now he's just meat."
Kael looked at Darion's remains and then back at Max. "You screwed up, kid. You think a little shield is gonna save someone in a place like this? This isn't a game. You either do your job, or people die."
Max's hands were shaking. He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it wouldn't go away. "I-I didn't mean to…"
"Meaning doesn't matter here," Lyra cut in. "Results do. You're a liability, and if you keep screwing up, you're going to get the rest of us killed."
Merlin shot them a look that shut them up both. "Enough. We can point fingers later. For now, we keep moving. This dungeon won't let us just walk out."
Max clenched his fists, feeling the burn in his palm, the curse reminding him that he was already marked for death.
The group moved on, the tension thick. They were no longer a team—just a group of individuals trying to survive.
They entered another chamber, this one smaller. There were cages hanging from the walls, each one holding the remains of prisoners long dead. Some were skeletal, others had rotting flesh hanging from their bones. It was difficult to breathe in there.
"This place… it is worse than the last one," Max muttered.
"No shit," Lyra snapped, her eyes scanning the room for any signs of movement. "If you don't want to end up in one of those cages, I suggest you keep it together."
As if on command, the cages began shaking. The bones inside began to move, the dead rising, their eyes glowing with green light. The air grew colder, and Max felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
"Undead," Kael said. "Don't let them touch you. They'll drain your life before you even realize it."
Max started to panic once again. These things were once human—people who had suffered and died in this hellhole. Now they were cursed to haunt it forever, just like he might be if he died in here.
The first of the undead lunged at Merlin, its bony fingers reaching out, but Merlin was faster. His sword moved fast through the air, severing the creature's head from its body. The thing crumpled to the ground, lifeless once more, but more were coming.
"Fireball!" Max shouted. The flames hit the closest target, but the creature kept coming, barely slowed by the fire.
"Use ice, you idiot!" Kael barked, launching his own spell. A blast of fire turned another undead into ash, but the room was filling with them.
Max switched to Ice Lance, the cold spear piercing through an undead's chest. It froze solid, its movements slowing before it shattered into pieces. But for every one they destroyed, two more seemed to take its place.
Lyra moved so fast that she became just a blur. Her draggers sliced through tendons and bone, but even she was starting to get overwhelmed. "We need to get out of here! There's too many of them!"
Max felt the panic grip him again. His mana was running low, and he could feel the exhaustion. "We need to run! There's no way we can take all of them!"
"Run? Where? We're trapped!" Kael yelled at Max while casting another Inferno, turning the undead into cooked meat. But even as they burned, more kept coming.
Max tried to think of something, something that could get them out of this. Then he remembered the cages—the iron bars, the way the undead were locked inside until something triggered them.
"The cages! We need to close the cages!" Max shouted, hoping someone would listen.
Merlin nodded in response, smashing the nearest undead before turning to the cages. He grabbed one of the iron doors and slammed it shut, locking the undead back inside. Lyra and Kael started doing the same, each of them closing as many cages as they could, but there were too many, and the undead kept coming.
Max felt weak, his mana almost gone. He could barely keep up the pace, his spells growing weaker with each cast. Then, just as he was about to give up, the remaining undead suddenly stopped. The room grew silent, the only sound of their heavy breathing and the faint crackling of dying flames.
"They stopped," Lyra whispered, her eyes wide in disbelief.
"Why did they stop?" Kael asked, his voice trembling.
Merlin didn't answer immediately. Then he pointed to the far end, where a massive iron door stood. "That's why. They're guarding something."
Whatever was behind that door, Max didn't want to face it. But they didn't have a choice. The only way out was forward.
In an instant, a huge fireball, something Max never saw before, destroyed all the remaining undead in one hit. Eyes wide, both Lyra and Kael looked at Max. They didn't say anything, but they thought he did that. Merlin avoided eye contact with him, only Max knew that Merlin did that.
They approached the iron door, Max felt the temperature drop even further. His breath came out in visible puffs.
Lyra hesitated her hand on the door. "This… this feels wrong," she whispered, almost as if she feared whatever was on the other side might hear her. "We shouldn't be here."
"Do we have a choice?" Merlin asked.
Kael looked back at the undead, still standing motionless in their cages, their eyes glowing green. They're waiting for us to fail," he said. "Whatever's in there… it's their master."
Max didn't want to open that door. Every instinct screamed at him to turn back, to run, to find some way to escape this dungeon. But there was no escape.
"Open it," Merlin commanded.
With a deep breath, Lyra pushed the door open, the heavy iron groaning as it opened. The room beyond was pitch black, the darkness swallowed every light.
"Stay close," Merlin said. He stepped into the darkness, and the rest followed him.
As soon as they made a few steps inside, the door behind them shut closed with a deafening crash. Max jumped, his breath catching in his throat.
"What the hell is this?" Kael asked. "I can't see anything!"
"Silence," Merlin ordered. "Something's here."
Max strained his ears, trying to hear anything beyond the pounding of his own heart. For a moment, there was nothing but silence—then, a low, rumbling growl, vibrating through the stone walls and into their bodies.
A heavy, wet sound followed, like something massive and slimy dragging itself across the floor. Max's blood ran cold. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it—something huge, something ancient and hungry.
Suddenly, Lyra screamed, a sound that sent a shock of terror through Max. He turned fast toward her voice, but he couldn't see anything, just the darkness, endless and suffocating.
"Lyra!" he shouted. "Where are you?"
Her scream was cut off, replaced by a horrible gurgling noise. The darkness seemed to shift, and Max realized with horror that it wasn't just the absence of light—it was alive, a living, breathing entity that was slowly consuming them.
"She's gone," Merlin said, emotionless. "We need to move."
"Gone?" Kael asked. "What do you mean gone? We can't just leave her!"
"If we stay, we'll all be gone," Merlin snapped. "Move, now!"
Max felt Merlin's hand on his shoulder, guiding him forward through the pitch-black room. The growling grew louder and closer, and Max felt something brush against his leg—something cold and wet, like a dead hand reaching out of the grave.
"What the hell was that?" Max jumped.
"Don't stop," Merlin said, his grip tightening. "Keep moving. Don't think, just move."
They moved as fast as they could. Max could hear Kael muttering under his breath, a prayer to whatever gods might be listening, but it was drowned out by the sound of the creature, whatever it was, it was closing in on them.
Then, without a warning, the darkness seemed to split open, and they were blinded by a sudden light. Max felt as if his eyes were burning. When he could see again, he found himself standing in the center of a vast, blood-soaked chamber.
The walls were covered with bones—thousands of them, human and otherwise, twisted into different shapes. Pools of dark blood covered the floor, and in the center of the room stood a massive altar made of skulls.
But it was the creature that Max concentrated on, his blood turning to ice. It was enormous. Its body was a mass of tentacles, each one ending with a mouth filled with teeth. Its eyes were empty voids, blacker than the darkness that swallowed Lyra.
"By the gods…" Kael whispered. "What is that?"
"This is where it ends," Merlin said. "Either we kill it, or it kills us."
Max gathered what little mana he had left. Kael stood frozen. "It's impossible," he trembled. "We can't… we can't fight that."
One of the beast's tentacles shot forward, wrapping around Kael's body with bone-crushing force. The sound of ribs snapping echoed through the chamber, followed by Kael's agonized scream.
Kael looked at Max, his eyes wide with terror and pleading for help, but there was nothing Max could do.
With a sickening crunch, the creature's jaws closed around Kael, severing his body in half. Blood sprayed across the room, staining the bones that lined the walls. The rest of Kael's body was dragged into the beast's maw, disappearing into the black void.
Max's mind screamed at him to run, to escape this nightmare, but where to go?
"Merlin do something!" Max turned to Merlin, desperate.
Max's hand began burning once again, he was the next target. He wanted to run away, but he couldn't. He was paralyzed by fear, by the realization that he was next. The creature's void-like eyes turned facing him, its many mouths opening wide.
Just as the creature reached to grab Max, a blinding light filled the chamber. Merlin, in his robes now, raised his staff. A wave of arcane energy hit the creature with the force of a storm. The monster screamed, its body twisting violently as the blast ripped through it.
In an instant, the creature was defeated, reduced to nothing more than a smoking crater.
Max collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath.
Merlin approached him. "The demons must have tampered with this dungeon," he said. "They've made it more difficult, more extreme. This wasn't just a random encounter. This was a trap, designed to kill anyone who enters it."
Max swallowed hard. The curse on his right hand slowly stopped burning.
"I have something to tell you," Max said.
"It can wait, let's get out of here first," Merlin pointed with his finger in the distance. "There's the loot and the exit right behind it."
"I have to survive. I have to fight. And I have to win—no matter what," Max kept repeating the same words over and over again.