The obsidian corridor had once been a road. Now it was a grave.
Collapsed buildings showed through cracks in the dungeon walls, while rusted vehicles hung upside down in the darkness above. Ash drifted through the air like dead snow.
Mei stopped.
Six monsters had boxed her in.
Three skin-stealers blocked the passage ahead, their stolen faces twitching beneath strips of rotting flesh. Two chitin-armored gargoyles crouched on the broken arch overhead, while a dread-stalker emerged from the smoke behind her.
Her hand closed around the soul-stone beneath her coat.
Emerald light pulsed against her palm.
Fifty-seven seconds.
Her target was already descending toward the lower vault.
Too late, and the Boss would reach the surface.
If that happened, another city would fall.
Mei knew what came next.
She had seen it before.
Not in this life.
In the last one.
She remembered the towers burning, the evacuation sirens, and millions running beneath a red sky while dungeon gates opened across the city. She remembered dying with a knife in her hand.
Then she'd awakened three years earlier, alive and given another chance.
Rebirth hadn't made her stronger.
It had taught her never to die stupidly twice.
Stone groaned overhead.
Mei looked up.
One of the gargoyles shoved a massive funeral slab from the broken arch.
She lunged aside as it crashed into the corridor, blasting the passage with dust and shattered stone.
The monsters lost sight of her.
Mei hadn't lost sight of them.
A skin-stealer burst through the cloud, bone blade aimed at her throat. She stepped inside its reach, caught its wrist, and redirected the strike into the creature charging from her left. Before either could recover, she drove her shoulder into them, sending both into the third skin-stealer.
All three disappeared beneath falling rubble.
Mei moved before the dust settled.
The dread-stalker tore through the cloud behind her.
She ducked beneath its claws, drove an elbow into its throat, and swept its legs. It crashed onto the stone.
Heavy footsteps followed.
One of the gargoyles dropped from the arch.
Its claws closed around Mei's head, but she slipped beneath them, cut through its knee, and used its sudden collapse to redirect its weight into the wall. Chitin shattered across the stone.
The final creature emerged from the dust, reaching for a fallen soul-blade.
Mei kicked the weapon into the darkness.
Its head snapped toward it.
That was all she needed.
She drove her knee into its ribs and buried her dagger beneath its jaw. The creature folded and dissolved into ash.
Behind her, something scraped against the floor.
One of the buried skin-stealers was still alive, crawling toward its axe.
Mei stepped on its hand.
Bone cracked.
She left it there.
Her eyes went to the soul-stone.
The emerald light had vanished.
Then the crystal flared crimson.
BLAZE.
Mei's expression hardened.
The monsters hadn't been guarding the vault.
They had been buying time.
For someone else.
She ran.
The corridor descended beneath the ruined city, water rushing over the floor and carrying streaks of ash through the darkness. Broken emergency lights flickered beneath layers of dungeon growth.
An explosion shook the passage.
Red fire flashed across the walls.
Then Blaze's voice echoed through the tunnels.
"GET BACK!"
Mei rounded the final bend and entered a flooded crypt.
Blaze was pinned against a rune-covered wall. Three void-wraiths surrounded him, one pressing a shadow-blade against his throat while another blocked the only clear path out.
Mei crossed the room before they could react.
Her dagger struck the first wraith's spine.
She ripped it free and turned as the second lunged. Her heel smashed into its knee, bending the joint backward. She caught its skull and drove it into the stone until its body collapsed into black ash.
The third tightened its grip on Blaze.
"One more step."
Mei stopped.
Not from fear.
She was studying the reflection in the flooded floor.
The wraith's weight sat too far back. Its shoulder was raised, and its blade arm was overextended.
Mei noticed a loose bone beside her boot.
She kicked it across the water.
The wraith's eye flicked toward the sound.
Mei moved.
Her dagger struck its wrist, knocking the shadow-blade free. Blaze reacted immediately, driving a flaming elbow into the creature's ribs.
Mei seized its throat and hurled it into the rune-wall.
The runes ignited.
The wraith screamed once before the wall consumed it.
Ash settled across the water.
Blaze staggered against the wall, breathing hard.
"You almost died," Mei said.
"I noticed."
An iron gate slammed somewhere beneath them.
The sound rolled through the crypt.
Then came another noise.
Footsteps.
Slow and heavy.
Approaching from the lower vault.
Mei's soul-stone pulsed emerald.
Her target was moving again.
Blaze looked toward the darkness.
"You were tracking the Boss."
"Yes."
"Then go."
Mei glanced at the three piles of ash surrounding him.
The wraiths hadn't been trying to kill Blaze.
They had been keeping him alive.
Visible.
Waiting.
Bait.
Her gaze shifted to the rune-wall.
The dungeon wasn't protecting its Boss.
It was herding them toward him.
Mei drew her second blade.
For an instant, the memory of her first death returned—the burning city, the red sky, the screams.
Not again.
She stepped into the darkness.
"Stay behind me."
Blaze followed.
Behind them, the ruined crypt lights died one after another.
Ahead, something vast moved beneath the dungeon.
Mei tightened her grip.
The apocalypse had already begun.
This time, she intended to survive it.