The golem’s arms came down.

  Cal saw the motion start and knew—instantly, absolutely—that Jordan was already too late.

  Beacon flared anyway.

  The glow around Jordan’s staff flared, a desperate spike latching onto the Guardian’s attention. For half a heartbeat, the molten slit in the golem’s head jerked, tracking the pull instinctively. The glow pulled at the basin, coiling dust into slow, luminous spirals, as if the air itself strained to listen.

  Then it corrected.

  The Guardian committed fully to attacking Cal.

  The double-fist slam landed.

  Stone met shield with a sound like a mountain snapping its own spine.

  The riot shield didn’t just fail—it disintegrated.

  Metal screamed. The faceplate bowed, tore. The composite backing delaminated. The edge reinforcements sheared away. Straps snapped, whipping Cal’s forearm hard enough to sting through dust and adrenaline. The shield's weight vanished from his arm, leaving nothing to take the next hit.

  Shards exploded outward.

  A flurry of metal splinters and rock fragments sprayed the basin in a widening cone. A piece of broken brace skipped off the floor and pinged high into the canyon wall. Another fragment—hot from friction—grazed Cal’s cheek and carved a thin, wet line across his skin. He barely felt it. Pain had bigger claims.

  Anchor held.

  Anchor did what it always had. Instead of being hurled into open air, the force drove down through his body, into his boots, his legs, his spine, and into the stone beneath, which groaned under the sudden demand.

  There was nowhere for it to go.

  It didn’t feel like blocking.

  It felt like being used as a conduit.

  The shock punched through him. His teeth clacked. His knees tried to collapse. His vision stuttered—dust, stone, the golem’s looming mass. Then nothing at all. It was as if the world blinked out of existence for an instant and forgot to warn him.

  A wet, cracking sensation ripped through his left side.

  Pain detonated under his ribs—hot, sharp, intimate. Not a bruise. Not a strain. Breaks.

  Plural.

  Cal’s lungs refused the next breath. His body tried to inhale and found a wall halfway down, a hard stop that turned air into knives. White flared across his vision so completely that the canyon vanished, replaced by a blank field that pulsed in time with his heart.

  He heard himself make a sound that wasn’t a word.

  Anchor dragged him down instead of letting him fly.

  His boots scraped stone. He staggered, caught by gravity’s leash, slammed shoulder-first into the basin floor, and stayed upright—half-crouched, shaking, head dipped as if pain could be avoided by shrinking. Every nerve screamed at once, chaotic and merciless.

  The world snapped back in jagged pieces.

  Broken shield fragments clattered across the basin like hail. Dust boiled up around his legs, coating his shins, sticking to sweat and blood. The Guardian’s fists lifted again, already resetting, already ready to repeat the verdict with the same inhuman patience.

  Jordan was shouting his name.

  “Cal!”

  The sound reached him as if through water, rock, and pain. It took effort to recognize it as a voice worth caring about.

  Cal tried to turn his head and almost blacked out from the motion. The simple act sent a spike of agony through his ribs, stealing what little breath he’d managed to claw back.

  He saw Jordan sprint from the basin’s edge, Beacon blazing, staff angled as if to challenge a god. Jordan’s face was taut—no grin, no showmanship. Humor stripped away, fear and resolve stark in his eyes.

  Jordan was too far.

  The Guardian took a step.

  Cal’s ribs felt wrong—like a cage with bars bent inward, pressing against organs that weren’t meant to be touched.

  Don’t fall, he thought dimly. Don’t go over.

  His right hand slapped the ground, fingers splaying against gritty stone that bit into his skin.

  “Stone Shape.”

  The word came out in a rasp, barely more than a whisper. Saying it hurt. Everything hurt.

  The pressure behind his sternum answered sluggishly, thick and resistant—like moving stone through syrup. The barrier that rose was thin, rushed, badly formed: a chest-high slab, already cracking.

  Jordan saw it and winced.

  “Too light, Cal—!”

  The golem smashed through it as if it wasn’t there.

  Stone burst apart. The slab disintegrated into fragments that tore past Cal’s face and arms. He threw up his bracer-wrapped forearm on instinct and felt shards glance off it hard enough to ring his bones. A chunk clipped his shoulder and spun him half a step, the impact sending lightning down his arm and into his neck.

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  Cal’s stomach lurched.

  The aether he’d spent came back as nausea and a deeper ache behind his eyes. Pressure made the world feel too bright. Too close. His hands shook, betraying him.

  He couldn’t afford the pause.

  The Guardian’s second strike came in from the side, a slab-forearm sweeping like a collapsing wall, displacing air with enough force to howl.

  Cal tried to raise his broken shield arm out of habit, only to find only empty straps and useless weight. The reflex died hard, leaving him exposed and off-balance.

  He ducked.

  It was ugly.

  His boots slid on dust and grit. Anchor grabbed him, yanking him down into the stone, turning a fall into a brutal, bone-deep jolt. Pain shot through his knees and hips. Vision swam with stars at the edges.

  The forearm scraped over him close enough that the wind of it tore dust from the floor and slapped it into his eyes. Pebbles rattled across his back like thrown gravel.

  He blinked hard and coughed.

  Blood flecked his lips, dark against the pale dust.

  Jordan pulsed Beacon again—short, sharp, timed.

  The Guardian’s head twitched toward the pull, its follow-through stuttering for a fraction of a second like a machine catching a conflicting command. The glow dragged at its attention without truly holding it, like fingers slipping on smooth stone.

  That fraction kept Cal alive.

  Barely.

  Cal lunged on the stolen moment, movement driven more by stubborn muscle memory than conscious plan.

  He drove the spear forward out of habit, aiming for the knee seam he’d punished before. The spearhead struck, skidded, then caught just enough to bite. The vibration jarred his arms all the way to the shoulder.

  He felt the contact through his hands.

  He also felt the golem’s answer.

  The Guardian shifted its weight—not stumbling, not lurching, just adjusting with deliberate, controlled force. The shaft twisted violently in Cal’s grip. Pain flared through his already-damaged wrist, white-hot and electric, tearing a hoarse sound from his throat.

  His fingers tried to let go.

  He didn’t.

  Skin tore from his palms as the spear nearly ripped free, friction burning raw lines into his hands.

  “Cal!” Jordan shouted, voice cracking. “Let it—!”

  The golem rolled its leg again.

  The spear jerked sideways.

  Cal’s shoulder wrenched. His ribs screamed, the world washed out in light and noise.

  He had one stupid, stubborn thought: If I let go, it wins.

  Then his grip failed anyway.

  The spear tore out of his hands and clattered across the basin floor, skipping end over end before vanishing under drifting dust and rubble.

  Cal stumbled backward.

  His left side seized with fresh pain. He pressed his hand to his ribs and felt heat, his body burning inside out. Something shifted unpleasantly, and he bit down to avoid screaming.

  He couldn’t out-tank this.

  The realization hit him with brutal clarity.

  Another clean hit would kill him.

  The warnings he’d brushed aside crashed back into him, sharp and unwelcome, stacking up until they crowded out everything else.

  Anya, arms crossed, voice tight with worry instead of doubt. You don’t have the training for this yet.

  The clerk on Floor 4, barely looking up. Group entry recommended.

  Elias in the swamp, voice flat as he hauled Cal out of the mud. Leverage keeps you alive. Endurance just delays the bill.

  Cal had heard all of it.

  He’d come anyway.

  He’d let the early success become a story in his head: Cal Ward, the guy who could clear a group floor if he just fought smart enough.

  The Guardian’s fists rose again.

  Reality didn’t care about his story.

  Jordan reached him, skidding to a stop just outside the Guardian’s reach. Beacon still burned, but its glow was strained, flickering—less a dawn than a lamp held in a storm.

  Jordan didn’t touch Cal at first.

  He looked at Cal’s face—at the pallor under the dust, the blood at his mouth, the way Cal’s breath kept stalling halfway down. He took it in with a medic’s efficiency, and whatever he saw there tightened his jaw.

  Then Jordan’s voice dropped into something quiet and furious.

  “You’re breaking yourself.”

  Cal tried to shake his head, regretting it instantly, pain flaring so bright it dimmed his vision again.

  “I—just—one more—” he managed, the words cutting off in a cough that bent him double.

  Jordan stepped in anyway, staff planted, Beacon flaring again in a tight pulse aimed at the Guardian’s head, trying to claw seconds out of inevitability.

  “No,” Jordan snapped. “This isn’t working. Not like this.”

  The Guardian advanced.

  Cal’s legs moved before his brain finished deciding.

  Run.

  Not fast. Not clean.

  He juked toward the narrow ledge he’d marked earlier, boots slipping on dust as pain knifed through his side. Each breath felt like drawing air through broken glass, shallow and insufficient.

  The basin here pinched into a choke—stone wall on his left, open air on his right, the edge falling away into jagged teeth far below.

  Jordan mirrored the movement without being asked.

  He stayed close enough that Cal could feel him there without turning, close enough to be in danger, because Jordan didn’t do distant loyalty.

  “Jordan, stay wide,” Cal rasped.

  “Yeah, I heard you,” Jordan said, breathless, and then lied through his teeth. “I’m totally wide. Vast. Expansive. Like a horizon.”

  He wasn’t.

  He was two steps from Cal, staff angled between them and the Guardian.

  Beacon pulsed again—stronger, more desperate, the light flaring so bright it painted the canyon walls in pale gold.

  The Guardian’s head twitched toward it.

  Then kept coming.

  Area denial beats misdirection.

  The floor here still bore the aftershocks from the earlier ground slams—fractures, loosened plates, grit that wanted to slide. Every step threatened to become a misstep.

  Cal slammed his right palm down.

  “Stone Shape.”

  He didn’t try for anything clever.

  Just a low lip along the canyon edge—ankle-high, uneven, barely enough to catch a boot and keep him from stepping into nothing.

  The stone answered reluctantly, a rough ridge swelling out of the wall in fits and starts, like the canyon itself was tired of being asked.

  The cost hit immediately.

  His vision tunneled. His hands shook. Pressure built behind his eyes until it throbbed in time with his heartbeat. The world felt distant, unreal.

  He swallowed bile and forced himself to stay upright.

  Jordan saw the sway in Cal’s posture and tightened his jaw.

  “Hey,” Jordan said, voice tight but trying for something lighter. “You’re doing great. You’re doing… you’re doing the exact amount of great that says we should stop doing this right now.”

  Cal gave him a look that would have been a glare if his eyes weren’t watering.

  Jordan didn’t flinch.

  He shifted his body—subtle, deliberate—between Cal and open air.

  Not to block the golem.

  Just to make sure Cal didn’t die falling.

  The Guardian charged.

  The movement wasn’t a sprint; it didn’t need to be. It was relentless momentum, weight, and intent packed into a few decisive steps that shook the ledge with every footfall.

  Cal saw the angle as soon as it moved.

  No line of retreat.

  No spear.

  No shield.

  Anchor would keep him rooted while the Guardian finished the job.

  There was no surviving this one.

  Cal’s mind threw images at him like desperate bargaining chips.

  The Guardian’s fist drew back.

  Jordan’s Beacon flared instinctively, bright enough to bleach dust into silver.

  The Guardian didn’t care.

  Jordan met Cal’s eyes.

  There was no humor left there. No deflection.

  Just resolve.

  “Cal,” Jordan said. “We leave. Together. Now.”

  Cal’s throat worked.

  Leaving felt like failure.

  It felt like admitting the Tower had been right, that he’d been arrogant for thinking his kit made him an exception.

  It felt like stepping back from the only path that could buy his mother time.

  Jordan didn’t let him drown in it.

  Jordan’s hand clamped on Cal’s shoulder—hard enough to hurt.

  “Say it,” Jordan demanded. “Or I drag you, and we both die.”

  Cal’s breath hitched.

  He tasted blood. He tasted dust. He tasted pride, and it was bitter.

  He looked past Jordan at the onrushing stone and made the only choice that mattered.

  “Emergency extraction,” Cal croaked.

  The Tower answered instantly.

  [ EMERGENCY EXTRACTION — CONFIRM ]

  Jordan didn’t wait for Cal to process the prompt.

  “Confirm,” Jordan snapped, voice like a command he’d used on himself a hundred times.

  Cal swallowed and forced the word out through broken ribs and a burning throat.

  “Confirm.”

  The golem’s fist became an onrushing wall of stone. Beacon flared uselessly as the world tore sideways into white light.