My head was pounding like someone was trying to hammer their way out of my skull.

  The first thing I became aware of was a flashing interface symbol and with my eyes barely open I tapped it.

  Child of the Deep Path Level 4 achieved.

  Hidden Growth Increase: For pushing yourself to the brink of death while holding back endless dungeon mobs for over a week your trait capacity is permanently increased by one.

  Current Traits 6 of 8 at current path level:

  Tremor Sense

  Regeneration

  Lithocurrent

  Gravity

  Detailed Map

  Bond Interface

  Available options based on shard integrations at current path level:

  Poisonous Touch

  Scaled Skin

  Piercing Fang

  Molten Blood

  Immovable

  Tremor Sense+

  Regeneration+

  Lithocurrent+

  Gravity+

  Available options based on bonded equipment at current path level:

  Predator’s Vector

  Raptor Leap

  Starbound Momentum

  Available interface options at current path level:

  Harvest

  Detailed Map+

  Quest Reward System

  Party Interface

  Two new options stood out.

  The first was Immovable. It anchored my center of gravity, making it far more difficult to move me against my will. According to the description, even midair impacts would have trouble knocking me off my projected course. When standing still, displacement would become nearly impossible.

  The second was Party Interface.

  It would allow me to link a limited number of people to a shared interface page. Short-range communication. Live health, aether, and stamina readouts. A clear picture of how everyone was holding up in real time.

  After the last week, that felt less like a convenience and more like a necessity.

  Too many moments had come down to guessing if we would make it.

  That locked in one of my available trait slots. I needed more time to think about the rest.

  Unfortunately, my head felt like it was splitting in two.

  I selected Party Interface and closed the screen.

  I focused on my breathing. Slow. Inhale… Exhale… After several minutes, the pain receded enough for me to sit up.

  The room was unfamiliar.

  Checking my interface map a moment later, confirmed I was in the settlement we had stayed in the night before we went searching for the dungeon. My pulse quickened at the thought of being this close to the hive after the break.

  I swung my legs over the side of the bed just as the door to my room opened.

  Sirius stepped in carrying a small tray with a couple of eggs, a biscuit, and a mug of coffee. He set it on the table beside me and let out a breath.

  “I can’t believe we survived that.”

  There was a weariness in his voice I had never heard before.

  “It’s been two days since Asher pulled us out,” he continued. “I got a brief update. It’s not good. He wanted to wait until you were awake to go over everything. He’s been holding the dungeon break back with just him and his oreowls.”

  I blinked. “Two days?”

  “You fought for over seven days straight,” Sirius said quietly. “Little food. Almost no sleep. You held the line while Milo and I rested when we had to. You pushed your regeneration until your body started tearing itself apart.”

  He met my eyes.

  “By the time the dungeon broke and the shockwave tossed us across the ground, your body didn’t shut down because it was injured. It shut down because it had nothing left. You didn’t wake up until now.”

  I leaned back against the bedframe.

  “When you put it like that,” I said slowly, “it doesn’t make me feel quite as bad.”

  I exhaled. “Still… two days is the longest I’ve ever slept. Ever. I’ve never needed more than three or four hours a day since I was five.”

  My gaze drifted to where the interface had been.

  “My interface did say I gained a Hidden Growth Increase. One permanent trait slot. So I guess I pushed myself pretty far.” I paused. “Probably too far.”

  The thought hit me a heartbeat later.

  “Milo!” I shot to my feet. “Is Milo okay?”

  Sirius stepped in front of me and caught my shoulder before I could reach the door.

  “He’s fine,” he said firmly. “Asher had a potion that killed the fungal mutation and healed his wounds. He’s still recovering in the room next door.”

  He sighed.

  “He’s drifted in and out of consciousness a few times. Mostly to ask for food.” A brief pause. “Or his pipe.” He rolled his eyes at that.

  I chuckled, some of the rising tension finally easing.

  “Do you know when Asher will be back? I’m starting to feel better by the second. Should I go try to find him?” I asked.

  “He said he’d come back tonight,” Sirius replied. “Oreowls are nocturnal and prefer to work then as you know. That’s the best time for him to take a break since he gives them more rest during the day.”

  I nodded. “I’m going to run through some stretches and think about my next trait choice. Maybe get some light exercise in and see how I’m actually feeling. I won’t be far if you need me.”

  As I turned, I remembered the Party Interface.

  I sent Sirius an invitation.

  He jumped as a translucent screen flared into existence in front of him, glowing with his aetheric affinity colors. A brief overview of the interface followed, then settled into place. In the corner of my vision, two small panels appeared, one for each of us. Health, aether, and stamina displayed as three narrow bars. Red. Blue. Green.

  Next to each name was a small symbol that looked like a soundwave.

  I focused on Sirius’s name.

  “Can you hear me?”

  He jumped again, eyes darting around the room before locking onto me.

  “Did you just speak directly into my mind?” he asked.

  “Yeah. You can do it too. Focus on my name and think what you want to say.”

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  He hesitated. “Uh… hello?”

  The sensation was strange. Familiar, but different. It reminded me of how Dusk and I communicated, except this was cleaner. Actual words instead of impressions, images, and emotions bleeding together.

  We tested it back and forth for a while, getting used to the feel of it and talking through how useful it would be for the team.

  When we were done, I headed out to run through my daily routines.

  This time, knowing we could reach each other instantly if something happened.

  —

  It had been a few hours since I’d spoken with Sirius when an interface notification appeared, alerting me that a known party member had entered party range.

  At first, I assumed it was Asher.

  When I sent the invite, Malorn’s name filled the slot beneath Sirius’s.

  “Malorn?” I asked immediately.

  There was a brief delay. I assumed what happened with Sirius was happening now for him.

  Then his voice reached me.

  “I don’t know what this is or what’s happening,” Malorn said, “but it’s good to hear your voice, Bryn. Even if it is in my head.”

  Relief washed through me. “It’s good to hear from you too. What happened? We thought it would only take a few days for you to get there and back.”

  “It’s not good,” he replied. “From that question alone, I can tell Asher hasn’t had the chance to give you an update on how bad things are.”

  He paused.

  “This is something that should wait until we’re face to face. I’ll be there soon.”

  The connection went silent.

  —

  The sun was setting by the time Asher returned to the small inn we were staying in. Malorn chose to let him fill us in when he arrive earlier.

  It was the first time I had ever seen Asher look stressed. This was not an exhausted in the way soldiers usually were after a hard fight. This was something deeper. A weariness that sat behind his eyes, dulling the sharp certainty I had always associated with him in all the years I’d known him.

  We were seated around a table with bowls of stew between us. The smell was rich, comforting — and completely ignored. None of us had more than a few bites.

  “Gone?” Sirius said finally, disbelief sharpening his voice. “They’re all gone?”

  “Yes,” Asher replied.

  His tone was subdued. Flat. As if he’d already spent whatever energy he had left recounting the news.

  “These cursed dungeon–rift amalgamations started appearing all across the eastern territories,” he continued. “At first, they were isolated. We sent scouting teams and planned containment fortifications. Standard procedure.”

  He shook his head slowly.

  “It didn’t take long for that to fall apart. A few major breaks were all it took. Once those happened, everything unraveled.”

  I felt my stomach sink.

  “They overran the region,” Asher said. “Settlements. Outposts. Supply routes. Entire cities.”

  Silence settled over the table.

  “They’re spreading now,” he went on. “North and south from the eastern front. The Empire has called a full retreat back toward the capital to any who can make it. The plan is to fortify a central stronghold and build a resistance from there with the hope that if we stabilize, we can try and push back.”

  Sirius clenched his jaw. “Everyone? Is that even possible. That’s thousands and thousands of people. That is abandoning so many cities to this...” he waved his hand in the air. “Whatever this plague is.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Asher said quietly. “We’re spread too thin. Too many breaks. Too many fronts to defend all at once. This was clearly planned somehow. It is too organized and timed too precisely. Holding ground everywhere means losing everything.”

  His gaze flicked to me, then to the others.

  “When word reached me that you’d been sent to investigate a new potential dungeon just after this all started, I knew I had to get here as fast as I could,” he said. “I honestly didn’t expect to find any of you still alive.”

  That landed harder than anything else he’d said.

  “I’m surprised you held as long as you did.”

  My hands tightened around the edge of the table.

  “Malorn was delayed at Bastion as you now know,” Asher continued. “Two separate dungeon breaks occurred east of the city before he could leave. He stayed to help repel them.”

  “And Bastion?” Sirius asked.

  “They held fine,” Asher said. “They will build additional fortifications. Bastion will be prepared as a secondary fallback point. There are only a handful of places in the Empire capable of withstanding sustained pressure like this. The Bastion is one that would require few men to hold due.”

  He exhaled slowly.

  “But the capital is the focus now. It’s becoming the central hub for coordination, research, and defense against this. Given the scale of what we’re facing, it’s the only move that makes sense.”

  No one spoke.

  The implications were too large. It was all happening to fast.

  The dungeon we’d held for a week wasn’t an anomaly.

  It was one among many.

  —

  Milo watched us go from the edge of the clearing, propped against a tree with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and a scowl on his face. He was still pale and weak.

  “I’ll rig the fallback traps while you’re gone,” he said. “Try not to die without me.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Sirius replied.

  Asher didn’t waste words. He was already moving, bow in hand, steps soundless against the forest floor.

  “This one’s been thinned,” he said as we followed. “I spent the last few days culling patrols and luring clusters away from the hive. It’s still dangerous, but it should be manageable now.”

  That coming from Asher meant a lot.

  Dusk slid beneath the ground ahead of us, her presence a steady pressure through our bond. My map bloomed outward, hostile red dots clustered thickest around the hive and thinning as Asher had promised.

  “Same layout as the others you told us about?” I asked quietly.

  Asher nodded once. “So far they have all had the same flaw.”

  “The cores,” Sirius said.

  “Just inside the entrance,” Asher confirmed. “Destroy the cores and the whole thing collapses. Rift included. There have been anywhere from one to four in each I’ve destroyed so far.”

  “How long do we have once its broken?” I asked.

  “As soon as the core breaks, we’ll have minutes. Maybe less. It has been different every time, but it should be enough for us to get out.”

  We reached the edge of the corrupted ground.

  The forest here looked wrong. Trees leaned inward as if exhausted. Leaves hung dull and brittle. Pale fungal growth threaded through roots and soil like veins, pulsing faintly in time with the hive’s rhythm.

  The sickly presence pressed against my senses immediately.

  Red dots shifted.

  “They know we’re here,” Sirius murmured.

  Asher was already drawing.

  The first arrow flew before the warning finished leaving his mouth. It punched through a nidus that had begun to unfold from the hive wall, pinning it mid-emergence. A second arrow followed, then a third, each strike precise, each kill immediate.

  “Move,” Asher said.

  We did.

  Sirius surged forward beside me, stone and vine tearing free from the ground at his command. He slammed into the first cluster, spear flashing, nature aether surging through him in violent bursts. Growth twisted and cracked under his strikes, regeneration already knitting shallow wounds as claws raked across him.

  I dove into the ground and quickly launched up into the air.

  Knives left my hands in controlled volleys, each throw guided by tremor sense for perfect accuracy. I felt the pattern of the creatures through the world, adjusted, and released. Bodies fell before they ever reached striking distance.

  Dusk erupted beneath a larger nidus to our left, magma and stone exploding upward as she crushed it in her jaws. She vanished again just as quickly, already repositioning.

  Malorn released a series of arrows before grabbing his flails and crushing nidus with frost empowered spikes. While Fern created chaos across the field with additional illusory versions of us that our foe couldn’t differentiate between.

  We carved a path.

  The entrance loomed ahead, the rift pulsing wildly within its fleshy frame. The hive wall split as more nidus poured out, faster now, as if sensing the end was near.

  Oreowls dove across the battlefield helping to clear a path for us while protecting our weak spots. Their metallic feathers slicing through sinew and shredding the creatures in an aerial dance of death.

  “Inside,” Asher snapped out at us.

  Together we broke toward the entrance cutting our way through the horde.

  We crossed the threshold just steps apart from each other.

  Being inside was a horrifying experience.

  The walls breathed. The floor shifted underfoot. The air was thick with decay and tainted aetheric pressure. Just beyond the entrance, half-fused into the structure, sat the three melding cores.

  It was swollen with veins glowing with that same dull amber light.

  “There,” I said.

  Asher hadn’t slowed his pace.

  Arrows slammed into the first core, each one embedded with aetheric charges that detonated on impact. Sirius followed, driving his spear forward and tearing the second free from its housing before crushing it under a surge of stone and root.

  The walls began working to swallow the third as though it was trying to flee our attack.

  I was faster, though.

  I crossed the distance in a burst of motion, knives flashing as I leapt, gravity snapping me forward. I drove both blades into the core and twisted.

  It ruptured.

  The scream that followed burst my eardrums before they quickly regenerated.

  The entire dungeon convulsed. The walls split. The floor buckled. The rift behind us began destabilized instantly, its edges warping and as it was about to collapse inward.

  “Out!” Asher shouted.

  We ran.

  The hive began tearing itself apart as we burst back into the clearing. nidus stumbled and fell as their connection unraveled, movements growing erratic, unstable.

  The rift shrieked as it folded inward, light collapsing into itself before vanishing entirely.

  Then the structure imploded.

  Flesh hardened, cracked, and crumbled into ash and dead growth. What remained of the nidus collapsed with it, severed from whatever had sustained them. Flesh peeling apart causing cores to roll across the ground as the internal amber light flickered like a dying heart till the it ceased all together.

  We didn’t stop till we had destroyed every single core strewn out across the land.

  When it was over, the forest was silent.

  The fungal growth had already begun to wither, paling and cracking where it clung to the ground. It didn’t vanish entirely, but it was dying.

  Asher lowered his bow at last.

  “One more down,” he said.

  I looked at the ruin where the dungeon had been and felt no relief at all.

  We knew how to destroy them, but how many more were there… and how many lives would be lost trying to get them all.