Boyan stood relaxed, shifting his weight slightly as if this fight was just another passing moment in his day. His blue eyes, sharp and knowing, watched Benjamin with something close to amusement.
Then, he chuckled.
"Kid," he said, rolling his neck, "you're unlucky."
Benjamin exhaled slowly, trying to keep his breathing steady. "Oh? Just realizing that now?"
Boyan grinned, his mustache twitching. "I mean it. You could've gone up against another Warden. Maybe one of those ambitious, reckless types looking to climb the ranks." He flexed his fingers, the scaled gauntlets creaking like ancient leather stretched too far.
"If that were the case, maybe… just maybe, you could have won."
Benjamin didn't respond. He was listening.
"You think Wardens are the same everywhere?" Boyan shook his head. "You have no idea how the Black Flame operates."
Benjamin stayed quiet. He wanted him to keep talking.
Because every extra second of this conversation was a second he could think.
And right now, he had no idea how to win this fight.
Boyan exhaled through his nose, shifting his gaze briefly toward the chaos around them.
"The Black Flame isn't some mindless gang, boy. People think we're all just violent thugs, but we're structured—organized in ways you wouldn't imagine."
Benjamin raised an eyebrow. "Oh? A criminal empire with structure. What an accomplishment."
Boyan laughed. Genuinely.
"I like you, kid." He tilted his head. "That's why I'll help you understand just how screwed you are."
He lifted a hand, gesturing around them.
"This mine? This whole area?" His voice lowered slightly, taking on an almost casual, reflective tone. "It falls under one Protector of the Black Flame. One Hamiyim. The Protector, who oversees every single operation within this territory—the city, the forest, the mines, and every hidden camp in between."
Benjamin felt his chest tighten.
A single Protector controlled all of it.
He read that the Black Flame operated not in fragmented groups, but regional commanders.
Then they weren't just an underground network.
They are really like a shadow government. Benjamin thought.
Boyan continued.
"A lot of Wardens? They're disposable. Just glorified enforcers keeping order in small camps, nothing more. But here?" He grinned, tapping his gauntlets together. "Here, we don't have the luxury of being weak."
Dab growled from the side, crossbow still in hand, eyes darting between Boyan and Benjamin. "You're saying the Academy's too close, so your officers have to be stronger to survive."
Boyan snapped his fingers. "Bingo."
He spread his arms slightly, like a man revealing his cards in a game he knew he was winning.
"I could've been a Hamiyim, you know," Boyan mused. "Had the skills, the reputation, the backing. But I chose this. I chose to be a Warden."
Benjamin frowned, watching him carefully. "Why?"
Boyan's smile faded slightly. He shrugged.
"I like peace."
For a moment, silence.
The flickering torches overhead made the cavern walls glow eerily, shadows dancing as if alive.
Benjamin narrowed his eyes. "Peace? You mean power."
Boyan smirked, rubbing his mustache between two fingers. "Not quite. Power is exhausting. The higher you go, the more blood you have to spill to stay there. I just wanted a position where no one would bother me, where I could keep order without some idiot rival breathing down my neck."
Benjamin's fingers curled into fists. "And that order involves enslaving people?"
Boyan gave him a long, measured look.
Then, with a slow, exasperated sigh, he said:
"Kid, you think the world works on good and evil? Let me guess—you grew up somewhere nice. Somewhere safe. Somewhere that lied to you."
Benjamin's jaw clenched, but Boyan continued before he could reply.
"This world isn't kind, boy. If you don't have a leash on it, it eats you alive. That's what the Black Flame is. We aren't some mindless cult—we're the chain that keeps the world from falling apart."
He flexed his gauntleted hands.
"We control the chaos, so it doesn't control us."
---
The words hung in the air.
For a moment, all that could be heard was the distant screams of dying men, the crackling of torches, and the slow, rhythmic clicking of insectoid legs against stone.
Benjamin's stomach twisted.
Boyan's casual, confident voice had created a false sense of pause in the battlefield.
And because of that, they had forgotten.
The Dawads had not stopped.
A horrific, piercing shriek cut through the cavern as the beasts, sensing the lapse in movement, surged forward again.
The defensive formations broke instantly.
The men who had been keeping the creatures at bay were now overwhelmed, their ranks collapsing as the wave of monstrous centipedes crushed into them.
Boyan barely reacted.
He exhaled, tilting his head. "Tch. Should've expected that."
Dab cursed under her breath, stepping back. "Ben, this is getting worse."
No. It was worse already.
They had lost the upper hand in every possible way.
The beasts were swarming.
Boyan was unharmed, completely unfazed.
And Benjamin—
Benjamin had no ideas left.
Dab looked at him, her expression urgent. "You gotta end this now."
Benjamin didn't answer.
Because for the first time since this fight began—
He had no idea how.
--
Boyan closed his piercing blue eyes, his head tilting slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear.
The torchlight flickered violently, casting shifting shadows over his bearded face. His mustache barely twitched, his jaw relaxed, yet the air around him grew heavy.
And then—his eyes snapped open.
With a deep, primal shout, the air itself howled.
A sudden shockwave of wind exploded outward, a force so violent it sent everything crashing away—
Dawads were flung like dead leaves, their hard shells splitting against cavern walls, grotesque bodies pulverized on impact.
Slaves and Black Flame thugs alike were caught in the storm, their screams lost in the gale as they were thrown back, tumbling over rocks, skidding across the cavern floor like discarded dolls.
Benjamin and Dab barely resisted the blast, their feet skidding back, arms shielding their faces.
The deep underground should have had no wind.
Yet here it was, a storm with no sky, roaring in the depths of Khial.
The air settled just enough for them to see the terrified survivors scrambling away.
"GO!" One of the Black Flame lackeys screamed, shoving his comrades away. "HE'S GOING ALL OUT!". The Dawaad, slaves, and thugs close to Boyan and Benjamin were tossed like ragdolls and smashed on the nearby rocks and platforms splattering violently.
Benjamin's stomach sank at the disgusting spectacle. He wanted to throw up.
It was at this moment that he knew.
They would never defeat Boyan.
---
He glanced at Dab. "Give me the bow."
She hesitated only for a second before tossing it to him. "What are you thinking?"
Benjamin caught it, pulling back his hood with a slow exhale. "I have an idea."
Dab narrowed her eyes. "And?"
Benjamin forced a smile.
"I need you to go above him. Find an opening to strike."
Dab studied him for a moment, then nodded. She moved quickly, leaping onto the side scaffolding, climbing up to the ruined platform above Boyan's position.
But Benjamin knew.
He knew exactly what Dab was thinking.
She thought this was a plan to counterattack.
She was wrong.
The only victory Benjamin could claim here…
Was ensuring that at least Dab got out alive.
---
Boyan didn't announce his Law like a fool.
He respected Benjamin enough to be serious.
And that meant letting his actions speak for him.
The air coiled and twisted, gathering around him like a living force.
Then he moved.
The moment he did, Benjamin understood.
It wasn't just speed.
It wasn't simple wind manipulation.
It was something worse.
Benjamin tried to step back, but his body was yanked forward.
Wind.
Boyan's Law wasn't just about moving himself.
It commanded the air around others, controlling the battlefield like invisible threads pulling a puppet.
Benjamin gritted his teeth.
Then fine. I have to forego safety. Benjamin decided.
If retreating wasn't an option, then he'd attack recklessly.
---
Boyan smashed into him, an elbow driving into his side, a gauntleted fist slamming against his ribs.
Benjamin pushed back, his body absorbing the pain.
His gold-silver eyes glowed, his instincts sharpening beyond thought.
His bow, useless in melee combat, was still in his hands—
So he used it.
He twisted, whipping the bow like a staff, aiming for Boyan's knee.
The Warden blocked it not totally effortlessly, laughing.
"What kind of idiot fights with a bow in close quarters?"
Benjamin grinned through bloody teeth.
"The kind who wins."
He kicked upward, aiming for Boyan's jaw—
Blocked.
A knee-strike to his ribs—countered with a crushing blow to his back.
The fight raged, violent and raw, but it was clear.
Boyan wasn't struggling.
Yet Benjamin refused to fall and continued relentlessly.
The wind howled louder, turning into a dome-like barrier, sealing him and Boyan inside screaming like a hundred banshees.
Dab, from above, tried to move down, but the air itself repelled her.
She shouted, voice muffled by the storm.
Benjamin couldn't hear her.
But he knew what she was saying.
He turned his head, smiling softly.
"Run."
Dab's expression froze as her Hayawa senses allowed her to clearly read his lips.
Benjamin exhaled.
"Find Yu and Atty…" His voice was steady, even as his body wobbled from exhaustion.
He smiled. "And give them a hug."
---
Boyan moved.
The wind collapsed inward, forcing Benjamin downward with a crushing force, intended to slam him into the stone floor.
But Benjamin stepped forward instead.
And with the last reserves of his strength—
He gambled everything.
His fingers flashed over the librarian's ring.
Boom.
Kareya's ring stored charges unleashed in a concentrated blast, the force colliding with Boyan point-blank, shoving him off balance for the first time with a dangerous strength, capable of crushing the bones of any normal person.
The air around them shuddered violently.
And in that moment, Benjamin funneled all his remaining Law energy into his bow.
The weapon pulsed, his energy and the energy from Kareya's ring merging into a volatile mass of raw force.
He fired.
Not at Boyan.
But above him.
---
The platforms above—the scaffolding, the interwoven rock formations holding the structure together—
They shattered.
The bow, overcharged beyond its limit, unleashed multiple shots in rapid succession, tearing through the stone like a barrage of artillery fire.
The cavern groaned, then screamed.
The ceiling cracked apart, boulders and debris raining down in an unstoppable avalanche.
Dab screamed something.
Maybe his name.
Maybe something else.
But Benjamin never heard it.
Because as the world crumbled around him, he saw nothing but black.
No miracles would happen this time.